Castles and Coprolites

And we're nearing the end of 2023. After a few years of sporadic infrequent posting, I've accepted the fact this will never be the weekly blog that it started out as, all the way back in 2012. My life is almost unrecognisable now compared to when I first started this blog. I was halfway through my first postdoc at York, had no family responsibilities, and publishing my PhD research was going really well. On the surface, an up and coming ECR with a bright future. It took another four years of postdocs before finally getting a permanent academic job in 2015 , literally at the point when I'd decided to leave academia ( and in fact had been in a non-academic job for 6 months ). Since getting married and having a baby, the uncertainty of temporary contracts and having to move around so much was no longer viable. I am not sure how things would have turned out had I not landed my current job. I was happy to have some stability, but the loss of identity as an academic during those ...