DOT ARMSTRONG ( COLES )
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This is just great, am really enjoying catching up with lost friends.
Didn't recognise Steve!!! Have sent him an email so hope to get more
details of his antics over the past years since we lost touch. Does anyone
know contact info for Jon Watkins (was with BAS) and Hamish who did their
PhDs at the same time as us? Strangely enough I was chatting with a friend
the other day and it turned out that one of her closest friends from her
youth in Sussex was the sister of Phil Bourne (also from our PhD
contingent) - he is now out in Australia having worked in Fiji for awhile -
she is going to get his contact details for me. The other people we keep in
regular contact with are Antonio and Martha Calderon Perez (from Mexico) and
Jeremy and Aileen Lyle (from Australia). Haven't seen very much of Dave but
will now make the effort. He is married with 2 young children (said he
started late!) - he was with BAS (British Antarctic Survey) and then was
working on pipelines or something in foreign parts (not very informative am
I??) |
Thought I would give you a few more details, some of which you may like to
include in the circular if you want to update it anytime. Mike and I went
out to Cape Town to work for the fisheries lab with our first son Robert
(born on the IOM) in 1982. I was researching the interaction between
predator and prey on the pelagic fish larval assemblages in the upwelling
region off the west coast (sorry that sounds like an abstract!!). Our
second son Tom was born there in 1988 and we left for Mike to take up a
position in Belfast at the fisheries lab there in 1990. I had a couple of
years out from working before embarking on a teaching career, teaching
biology and basketmaking at the Steiner school in Holywood that the boys
were attending. |
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So here we are now in sunny Suffolk - Mike moved here in 04
and Tom and I joined him last summer after he
had completed his GCSE,s (did well in biology!! plus all the sciences).
He's now settled in very well in the local high school to do his A levels,
intending to go on to specialise in physics - definitely a 'mad scientist'.
Rob gained a degree in geography but hasn't done too much with it yet. He
was living and working in Manchester for a couple of years (did a music
course there too) and has just gone off to work in France before hoping to
head off to somewhere in the far east to teach english - a real adventurer!
Interestingly enough (with all the artists who have blossomed from our
year!), I am now taking the time to explore my creative side. I've always
been interested in, and tried, many different crafts and thoroughly enjoyed
teaching basket making - so I thought that I would expand my knowledge.
I've been attending a course on a monthly basis over in your (Brenda's) neck
of the woods (wish I'd known you were there) - in Stroud. That is now
coming to an end with only one more over the weekend of 9th June, although I
will have to come over next year to do the one I missed the other weekend.
I'm also trying my hand at some watercolour painting which I am enjoying
playing with (Mike is much more talented with this medium but doesn't have
any time!). I'm also handbell ringing and doing voluntary work for the RSPB
down at the Minsmere reserve. So as well as taming the garden, swimming and
walking the dog I'm keeping myself pretty busy and not minding at all that
I'm not working!
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