So here I am, back from a sweltering London to an almost-as-sweltering Maynooth. It was 33 degrees where I was in London yesterday and 30 degrees here in Maynooth earlier today, though it is now cooling slightly. Such a temperature is very unusual for this part of the world.
I was visiting South Kensington Technical College Imperial College for the last couple of days, working there. The surrounding area is of course looked very posh and looked resplendent in the summer sun. The area around the Museums was very busy with tourists, but it was nice to see people out and about, enjoying themselves in the sunshine.
I had hoped to publish a few OJAp papers on Wednesday morning before leaving for the airport. Unfortunately, as explained here, Crossref was offline all day Wednesday so I couldn’t do that. I caught up on Thursday morning by getting up before 6am and publishing 4 papers before heading down for a very nice hotel breakfast at 7am.
The journey to London on Wednesday didn’t get off to a very good start. My Aer Lingus flight from Dublin was delayed for an hour waiting the arrival of the aircraft from, of all places, Barcelona. Worse was to follow. I had decided to take the tried-and-trusted route from Heathrow Terminal 2 to South Kensington via the Piccadilly line. All went well until we approached Acton Town when the driver explain that there was a signal failure ahead at Covent Garden which meant the line in front was congested. Thereafter we inched along waiting for a succession of red lights to clear. The Piccadilly line has rather old trains without air conditioning, so it was like sitting in a slowly-moving sauna. Then we reached Turnham Green (where the train was not supposed to stop), and the driver opened the doors to give us a bit of fresh air. I spotted a District Line train to Upminster on the other side of the platform. That line does not go through Covent Garden so I dashed across and took it for the rest of the journey. I got to my hotel about 90 minutes later than planned, but not late enough to miss the welcome dinner at Ognisko, a very nice Polish restaurant.
Fortunately the hotel the Imperial staff had booked for me was very nice, and had good airconditioning. The rest of my stay was very pleasant, if intense. I even got back to Dublin on schedule yesterday evening and had time to go to the shops to get something for dinner last night and breakfast this morning.
Now that I’m back I have a report to write, but that can wait until tomorrow. Today I have to attend to a thirsty garden.
In the Dark 