If only these things were to grow a bit bigger, they'd make great edible Christmas trees:
Had a great day out on Wednesday.
In the afternoon I introduced Ella to the Guild of Students and to the campus of The University of Birmingham, including a good look around the Great Hall in the Aston Webb Building:
In the evening we attended The Shell University Lecture in the Earth Sciences Department. The speaker was Dr Tina van de Flierdt (lecturer in Isotope Geochemistry at the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London) and the topic was "Reconstructing the History of the Antarctic Ice Sheet: Clues from the past for the future". If you have an interest in such things, the lecture can be experienced online here.
I met a few staff that were there during my undergrad days, and Ella studied the specimens* on display in The Lapworth Museum of Geology. My thanks go to the Curator, Jon Clatworthy, for the guided tour of the recently refurbished and modernised Petrology Lab, and for the pre- and post-lecture refreshments.
Afterwards, we went for another walk around the campus:
* undergrad lads as well as old fossils 😆