Santa Run. Microscopy Quiz. The Grant Museum Talk. Crossword pen.

Saturday 9th December: For most of the day, the conservative truce between soft and hard brexiteers stood and there was no significant news from across the pond.

I cycled to Cambridge North today, arriving 10 minutes before my train for London Kings Cross was due to leave. I only needed to pick up my ticket. unfortunately, lots of other people had the same idea. I missed the 11:11 train but caught the 11:15 to London Liverpool Street. Arriving, there seemed to be a mass herding of Santas, in occasional clumps or purposefully moving individuals. i later found out that they were all streaming towards Battersea Park for the 5km Santa Run.

With a Smith's meal deal, I munched my sandwiches on the Circle Line, heading for South Kensington. The last few stops I chatted with a grandmother on her way to visit her daughters to go out shopping for the nine grandchildren. The queue at the Natural History Museum wasn't too long, so I made my way to the central cafe to buy a tea, passing the 2.6 billion year old rock slab from Australia which showed the shift in the earths atmosphere to producing oxygen. The increase on oxygen meant that any iron in the oceans turned rust red and precipitated, creating layered mud that turned to rock over billions of years.

The event was the last meeting of the Quekett Microscopical Club, with a quiz, mince pies and other nibbles, and an interesting talk by Hannah Cornish, now working at the Grant Museum of Zoology UCL as the Curatorial Assistant. The Museum is open to the public Monday to Saturdays 1 pm - 5 pm - https://www.ucl.ac.uk/culture/grant-museum-zoology. Hannah had brought along a slide of Diatoms made by a famous German Victorian slide maker, Johann Diedrich Möller, 1844-1907 (http://microscopist.net/MollerJD.html)

The two hours went by quickly and at 4:20, I set off to join the Christmas crush on the Piccadilly line to Kings Cross for the journey home. Settling down to do a crossword to pass the time, I realised I hadn't got a pen as today's shirt lacked a pocket to put one into. Asking the lady opposite me sporting a voluminous handbag if she could lend me a pen, an older gentleman from across the gangway leapt over and offered me his to borrow, a lovely 0.7mm drawing pen - to be returned! Managed to finish the concise crossword but stumped by the cryptic one after 4 clues. Pen returned.