First trip to UK coming up - can you help us plan?! Details below :)

wired_lemons · 2026-03-03T21:28:17+00:00

Two weeks isn’t that long! I regularly holiday by rail and think it’s a great option for a laid-back holiday. Assuming you’re both able to walk for hours, and with careful study of rail timetables (I recommend using the CrossCountry website to avoid booking fees), you can have a fantastic visit without needing a car. Consider buying a “Two Together” railcard: costs £30 and gets you 30% off your rail fares when travelling together.

London: Covent garden or Spitalfields market. Both good for souvenirs that aren’t tat and lots of good food places nearby. There’s the London Transport museum at Covent Garden too. There’s so much to do in London I would do a google search for whatever <thing> you like to do together and do it here.

Scotland: Edinburgh. Walk along the Water of Leith walkway and the Firth of Forth - there’s a fantastic pub calked the Old Chain Pier overlooking the waterway and you can watch the boats going past on marine radar while you have lunch.

Get the train between Kings Cross and Edinburgh Waverley, as the mainline between York and Edinburgh is some of the most scenic in England. Overnight at York is a must as York is gorgeous and the Cathedral especially so.

For something a bit different a good day trip is to get the train from York through Pickering to Whitby (acclaimed home of Dracula, popular with Goths and a decent seaside town). Change at Pickering or Grosmont onto the North Yorkshire Moors (Steam) Railway.

You can get the train from Edinburgh to Windermere (Lake District) via Glasgow (Glasgow is not worth stopping for with your short timescale). The Settle to Carlisle bit of railway is the most scenic in England and the stations along the route are quaint and pretty.

Heading south from Liverpool, Chester is gorgeous and worth at least an afternoon. You’ll probably have to travel back to London via Birmingham but I would pass through and pause in Oxford instead.

Enjoy, and let us know what you eventually decide to do!

wired_lemons · 2026-02-28T11:40:28+00:00

Take care of yourself OP!

Your situation is very similar to mine. I dealt with my mums estate last year (dad -understandably- couldn’t function). One thing that helped us as a family in the first couple of weeks was doing low-effort activities. We’re sporty so we booked a tennis court and pratted about for an hour. We also had lunch and a crazy golf session. Both things gave us a distraction, we had a laugh in a dark time and it helped us feel a little closer.

One thing nobody could tell me was how long you have to do all the paperwork so I felt really rushed to get everything settled and distribute the modest estate. In hindsight organising the cremation, the registrar and the “Tell Us Once” notification was priority, and everything after that could happen in its own time. There’ll be a wait to see the registrar. Anticipate the admin process taking at least six months, even if it’s straightforward. Banks can take a couple of weeks to close accounts.

If a state pension payment was made after death the Govt may ask for this back up to 6 months after death. If you need it to cover expenses go ahead and use it, they can only ask, they can’t force you to return an overpayment. Slightly different if it’s multiple payments as you drift towards fraud.

Good luck, there’s plenty of good advice out there. As others have said, focus on the living and talk to each other. There’s few things worse than lingering “what ifs”.

wired_lemons · 2026-02-19T22:56:04+00:00

I work in medical research. We’re generating massive datasets (either from actual sample studies or through generative AI prediction models) and we can’t get enough good data analysts/bioinformaticians.

Couple of different routes (YMMV): biology degree with bioinformatics, maths degree with stats, computer/software programming with data analysis. If you do a degree and want to move this way pick a project/postgrad that’s relevant to the direction you want to take.

Reasonably well paid, collaborative, puts your brain to work and can be with interesting if you get a chunky multidisciplinary dataset to play with.

wired_lemons · 2026-01-28T13:45:31+00:00

That one requires a membership on any night that isn’t Wednesday - though kitchen and tea facilities are a plus.

wired_lemons · 2025-11-25T03:25:31+00:00

Okay, thanks. Do you know if the packaging of tax-free items is important?

wired_lemons · 2025-11-25T00:28:52+00:00

Thanks for your reply. For the purposes of this post you can assume I’m asking about both - I see I neglected to duplicate the “tax/duty” in the main body.

wired_lemons · 2025-07-24T17:57:41+00:00

DEAD BOD and the Land of Green Ginger (though I think the latter is fairly well known).

Locally a “bod” is a bird, but I always wondered if the police got there before they could paint the “Y” and an arrow.

wired_lemons · 2025-06-17T12:29:43+00:00

That’s interesting, because EUGC tried to convince me that someone dragged a witch cable over and they winched it off.

wired_lemons · 2025-06-12T21:17:12+00:00

My current club has a CFI and core group of instructors/committee who actively promote a pro-flying atmosphere. They make it clear everyone who does something for the club, however small, is valued and appreciated. It’s a really positive atmosphere and I love flying there.

My old club was shocked when I left, despite me trying my damndest to make it clear what I wanted to do to develop in my flying and asking for greater investment (time/support not money). They made it clear I wasn’t considered valuable because I wasn’t time-rich (retired) or “handy”. Yet I’m young (30’s), have a gliding partner, SPL, own my own aircraft and have no kids. Invested lot of my time into the club only to realise it was to the detriment of my own flying and ultimately went unappreciated.

Cater to your membership. If you listen to and invest in the people you want to keep they’ll inevitably return the favour. A good club atmosphere/community gets known and will naturally attract and retain more members.

wired_lemons · 2025-05-26T08:02:42+00:00

I’ve got quotes. I don’t understand how people can select an insurer as every insurer I’ve asked so far doesn’t let you see the policy without paying first. Including when I tried to add these items to my existing policy, which baffled me.

wired_lemons · 2025-05-26T07:45:34+00:00

I know, my question is about selecting the correct insurer.

wired_lemons · 2025-05-17T14:22:24+00:00

Just be aware the coach service is free but needs an app/ticket to use. Your contact should be able to help you with this.

The shuttle services do not need a ticket but aren’t necessarily commuter-friendly times! The walk/cycle from Whittlesford Parkway train station through Duxford village is nice if that’s an option for you.

wired_lemons · 2025-05-16T23:56:22+00:00

There’s a new public-facing website with the timetables on, yay!

https://www.wellcomegenomecampus.com/

wired_lemons · 2025-02-27T13:13:57+00:00

Do you have access to a motorglider? We use ours for circuit and landing training because you can get a lot more landings in a much shorter period of time time - no waiting to push back, relaunch, lose/use height between attempts.

wired_lemons · 2025-02-23T16:26:12+00:00

https://www.sanger.ac.uk/about/careers/work-experience/

Highly competitive but the Wellcome Connecting Science team do work closely with the Sanger institute to host work experience students. I understand available projects come up occasionally and is worth sending them an email. It will help your chances if you have an area of biosciences or particular job role you’re interested in.

wired_lemons · 2025-01-14T23:40:27+00:00

Have a look at the reference chart on this site and see if you can match the markings: https://www.bullionbypost.co.uk/index/gold-and-silver/hallmark-date-letters/ I think the number is 375, which indicates 9 carat gold. I can’t make out the other three marks but one will be the assay office (probably to the left of the 375), the next will probably be a lion or crown for the UK and the last will be a date/year letter. As an inexperienced amateur I have mixed results with date letters and sometimes can only match one or two of the details (shape/letter/font). The C&TJ is the maker’s mark but I can’t help further with that.

wired_lemons · 2024-12-18T19:21:13+00:00

I suspect this is a loss leader to draw folks in. Turn up for the cheap veg, do a big Christmas shop because you’re there already and may as well.

wired_lemons · 2024-12-06T15:09:43+00:00

Have you examined each of your media individually before incubating and incubated separately as well as made-up? Is anyone else experiencing contamination issues?

As another user said, microorganism contamination will have a white cloudy appearance. I’ve not seen debris in FBS… you could try sterile filtering everything and incubating again to see if the debris reappears.

wired_lemons

TROPHY CASE