The end of the festival. Birmingham will follow Guildford, and its pavements made of Aberdeen granite, on hosting the festival next year.

One day left. It seems that I only arrived yesterday but yet it is tomorrow that I will leave Guildford.

So this is my last day at the festival! The first talk I attended was one that I had been looking forward to called `Vitamin D: The sunshine superstar’. All I knew on the subject was that sunlight was needed for vitamin D synthesis, and I wondered being from Scotland, if I might be deficient!

Another busy day!

Today started with a lecture on “What Computers Tell Us About the Mind”. One speaker from the University of Glasgow presented his research on face recognition. He made the interesting point that we experience no difficulty recognising faces we have seen before, but when it comes to unfamiliar faces we find it much harder.

Today was a tour day, with one in the morning and one in the afternoon!

Day two began with a tour of the universe, again with Dr Maggie. I should mention that she has been awarded an MBE by the Queen but – I’m sure you will agree – the fact she has a Blue Peter badge is much more impressive! Her talk involved building a rocket from baking powder and vinegar, a great Blue Peter make!

Sundays are always good for a walk and that’s what I did. I joined a field trip to the RHS Wisley Gardens with the objective of finding out more about how climate change will affect the English gardens. Well, “will” does not seem to be the appropriate tense for the verb since, according to a gardening expert who was with us, it is already happening.

The British Science Festival 2009 begins! It promises everything from Darwin to dishonesty labs, microscopes to memory, covering everything from the microscopic virus to the entire milky way.

After crossing a flooded Scotland, I finally arrived at my destination: The University of Surrey in Guildford, England. I was given the keys to my room, met Emma who I was going to share this experience with, and had a cup of tea while chosing the talks I wanted to attend the next day.