It's been a pretty busy last couple of weeks.

My parents came to visit in Sheffield before jetting off to Stockholm and France. Then I went up to Scotland last Monday to meet them. We had a couple of days in Edinburgh before renting a car and driving all around the eastern part of Scotland. It was a lot of fun and the weather was surprisingly cooperative for Scotland, with some sunny days and warm weather (though there was a bit of rain too!). The trip was slightly complicated by the fact that my dad broke his arm in Switzerland, and that meant I had to carry his suitcase and the like, but I don't think it had any major effect on our trip besides a morning in the hospital in Edinburgh.

They left yesterday, just in time for an old high school friend, Kristian Finlator, to come visit. I arranged to meet him at the train station, but upon arrival the entire station was pitch black. Apparently the station lost all electricity, so the arrivals board was out too, and they were holding back all trains from entering the station. This meant me waiting for about 30 minutes until they finally allowed some trains in despite the darkness. But the darkness, and the fact that we hadn't seen each other for 12 years, made it difficult to find each other. Eventually we did though and were able to make it to my place.

Today the big excitement was going to the hospital for surgery on my foot. I was quite nervous, but it all went well. They used a local anesthetic so I didn't have to see anything which was a lot better for me. Now I have to stay home for two weeks with my foot propped up, which is a bit boring, and probably means that there will be two weeks of warm sunshine outside! At least the scary part is over and I still have both legs and I'm alive, though I suppose there was little risk of that not being the case.

Photo of me speaking at the Association for Learning Technologists (ALT) Conference. Not the best picture as I am in the middle of saying something. My co-presenters are behind me. The session went pretty well - we had 37 people, despite it being the last session of the day.

My parents were here for the last few days, though they are taking a plane to Birmingham today. I had to work on Thursday and Friday so I didn't get to sightsee with them, which was probably all the same since it poured down rain most of the time. Yesterday we went to Liverpool amid predictions of heavy rain, only to be pleasantly surprised by barely any wet weather at all, and even some sunshine.

In Liverpool we saw the cathedral, which is a massive building and fairly modern compared to most cathedrals (finished in 1978). We also went to the Beatles Story, a museum about the Beatles' career. It was interesting, but a bit crowded. The big attraction of the weekend though was a giant spider that roamed through town and shot out foam (supposed to be webbing I guess). It was very popular and the crowds were pretty awful as a result. Still it was pretty cool to see it moving. I made a little video of it if you want to see how big it was. It takes 12 people to operate it apparently.