HH7, etc.

I had quite the weekend!

I trained into London on Thursday for the Marshall 60th Anniversary. That afternoon, we held a Colloquium highlighting some of the departing Scholars' research at the Association of Commonwealth Universities. It was grand fun to hear about the work of some of my mates - I knew what some of them were up to, but not all, and it was great to get a bit more detail!

That night, we held our annual Leavers' Dinner, complete with speeches from a Scholar returning to the States at the end of this year, the US Ambassador to the UK, and the UK Minister for Universities and Science. That kind of setup is fairly regular - but since it's our 60th Anniversary, we also had a celebratory Reception beforehand with HRH the Prince of Wales (Charles) in attendance. I explained environmental peacebuilding to him; he told me "Well, you've your work cut out for you".

Then the weekend got more intense - the conference on hydropolitics and counter-hegemony I've been working on for months kicked off with a side event on corporate water Friday afternoon. Saturday and Sunday, we hosted around 100 people at UEA London to discuss the ways water is used and abused in power and politics around the world. Lots of rich discussion going on, and some really fun people met. Post conference, I'll be writing up Proceedings with more details about what all happened. I also have a lot of material for "Ramblings" - which is good, because I've been slacking on it!

The weekend was a bit of a family reunion for UEA students: Charlie flew over from the US for it, and several of last years' coursemates and faculty were there. It was really great to see everyone and catch up. 

I'm now in London touring around some friends from the States through Wednesday night. Then it's back to Edinburgh and back to a "normal" schedule, if such a thing exists.