Mountain View

So we all set off to Whitefield, New Hampshire. Like the evil boss that he is, John had organised a conference at the Mountain View and Spa Hotel - a five-star resort set in a golf course in the White Mountains with a cracking view of the Presidential Range, a bunch of mountains the most prominent of which are these days named after some vaguely important historical Yanks (despite the name, not always presidents) who kicked around in the 18th and 19th centuries. Therefore, sadly, no Mount Bush. The tallest is Mt. Washington, which is of course named after that traitor to the Crown George Washington, and which is famous for some of the worst weather on the planet. The highest recorded surface wind speed of 231 mph was recorded by some poor sod at the summit in April 1934. From our civilised distance, however, the mountain looked positively serene. We (being myself, Em, Suwicha [John's Phud student] and Emma B-Y [ex-collegue from Leicester]) had set off from Boston in a hire car, and given that the hotel is just around the corner from Boston, the journey only took three hours. Once you get past Concord the scenery is superb, but before that the only interesting thing that happened was the toll booth. I had skilfully manoeuvred the huge Dodge Charger into the appropriate lane and opened the window in order to lob the three quarters into the bucket. "I like these bucket systems" I opined from the driving seat to the lasses as I took aim with the coins "it makes getting through the toll booths a doddle". It really goes without saying that I chucked the coins at the gaping hole and missed horrendously, sending coins pinging all over the floor outside the car. "Balls!" I shouted, and turned to Em "Quick, get some more coins" I hissed, like it was her fault that I had hideously crap aim, "I blinking well missed!". Of course the ladies behaved like ladies and took the piss blisteringly for the rest of the journey. We arrived, after travelling for hours through the middle of nowhere, at the resort and found ourselves extremely pleased that we had done. The place had two pools, a gym with activity room, a cinema, spa, sauna, golf course, and massive rooms with cracking views. It also had the most helpful, enthusiastic and just damn-proud-of-his-hotel bell-boy in the world, called Frank. It was a crying shame that we (well, all of us except Em, who read about queens the entire time and had Frank bring her drinks on the veranda) had to spend the conference in a room with no windows talking about science, but it was made up for by the time not in said room. On the first night we saw fireflies zigzagging over the fairways, this being the first time we'd ever seen them - they were like entrancing midges that lit up in gold for a half-second every three. The scene was enhanced by the passage of a porcupine on his nightly dinner-hunt. The next morning Em and I went for an early morning stroll and took these photos...





...and we also went for a round of golf. Well, when I say "round" I meant two holes. In an hour and a half. I guess that's what you get when you go for a round with a bunch of girls...







All in all it was a pretty damn fine conference, and in two days was over far too quickly.