Tuesday
Smelly at Shap

To our dismay, the tutors began extracting some foul-smelling, damp, luminous yellow vests from a black bin liner. "Yes" we were told, "it is a working quarry and these are essential". Clearly the quarry workers needed to be able to smell us coming as well as see us! We leapt out of the coach and, practised by now, quickly assembled in our tutor groups. Our tutor group then split into two groups of 6 - one with Jane, and one with Christophe. I started out with Jane's group around one boulder. If you looked around the quarry you could see loads of gangs of people with smelly yellow vests and hard hats. Jane encouraged us to get in close to examine interesting minerals in the boulder with our hand lenses. Then, quick, swap to Christophe's group.

"Clearly the quarry workers needed to be able to smell us coming as well as see us"

I started to peer at his boulder closely only to hear him laugh and say

"I was just going to say get right in with your noses on the rock, but there is no need!"

I looked up to see that all the members of my group had done the same as I had - well, it was a really interesting boulder. The rock was covered by six people, each clamped up close examining the surface with a hand lens. Oh boy, we are really becoming geologists. I wonder how far the eccentricity goes? The tutors and demonstrator's all have their funny little ways:

Mik, with his larger than life persona, loud voice, traumatised umbrella and constant threats to sing on the coach.

Paul with his brightly coloured clothes, long ponytail and ability to wear shorts no matter how cold the weather.

Jane with her lovely clipped up hair that looks the same, even when squashed under a hard hat.

Christophe with his slightly too short Rupert Bear trousers, boundless enthusiasm and tendency to jump up and down when he finds an interesting outcrop that he wants to show us.