First Post - from Aberdeen

Well this is my first blog entry, and I'm afraid it's going to be pretty pathetic. For now it will have to consist mostly of a few pictures posted on my homepage. But in brief...Jane and I left Townsville in mid-December, after two years of sweating it out studying possums and gums trees in North Queensland. The departure was disorganised and frantic, even by my standards, but we made it to my parents' place in Melbourne where we spent Christmas and most of January.

I left Melbourne, without Jane for the next few months, on January 24, arriving in London the next day, where I spent a few days with my sister Kate and her Andy before flying to Aberdeen just over two weeks ago. Since arriving here in the UK things have gone perfectly. Emma gave (that's right, gave) me her old car in London, so I'm off to London this weekend to drive my '94 Renault 19 back up here.

The weather when I arrived in Aberdeen was warmer than it was when I visited in May last year, and persisted in its unseasonably mild and sunny ways for most of my first two weeks here. I've packed a bit into those two weeks and it seems like I've been here longer. My head was spinning after the first few days of inductions and introductions at work at the Macaulay Institute, but everyone was remarkably friendly and my new boss, Glenn, has done an admirable job of helping me get settled in. Accommodation is sorted for now, which makes things easy, and Glenn even gave me his old bike.

The most obvious highlight had been the week I've spent in the field already, collecting pine cones and needles from several natural pine woodlands in the central highlands of Scotland. More fieldwork to come next week. Anyway, for now I'll post a few photos from last week's trip with Joan and Dave. Apart from being extremely valuable from a conservation perspective (there are only 86 remnants of this vegetation type which once covered much of Scotland), these woodlands are pretty nice places to spend some time, as you'll see. Fieldwork in the snow was new for me though...