Well it’s been far too long, but very happy to say that I passed my PhD Viva today 🥳

First jigsaw of the year complete - can anyone guess the location?

Brilliant evening

What a club!

A lovely evening at Christmas at Bute Park last night, really enjoyed

Lovely evening at Tredegar House looking at 500 years of Christmas

Wishing you all season’s greetings and all the best for 2026. Here’s a clat of shovel head worms from a forthcoming paper on the Magelonidae

A few snaps taken back in November during the frosty spell. Don't worry I did make sure they had some water afterwards 😆

CHAMPIONS 🙌🥳

It is finally #WormWednesday again! 🪱 The perfect time to post my photo of this 40 cm long beast! :D Scientific name: Phyllodoce lineata ↓ thread with more info ↓ #marinelife #polychaetes #invertebrates

Just under a week to get your applications in - We are looking for a new Head of Zoology at National Museum Cardiff @amgueddfacymru.bsky.social

JOB ALERT 🫎🦋🐞🪱🐍🦦🐚 Come and work with us at National Museum Cardiff. Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales seeks a new Head of Zoology to lead an experienced curatorial team driving forward innovative research and public engagement programmes. nmwtest.ciphr-irecruit.com/Applicants/v...

A few of the visitors to the garden. Lucky to have so many woodpeckers visit

Absolutely loving my new T shirt from @sillytees.bsky.social. If you know you know! 😆🤣

Great game of cricket yesterday against Cowbridge. Went right down to the wire, with only 5 runs in it. So glad to come away with the win.

Finishing off the deep clean in the natural history galleries for another year. Today was dusting dinosaurs 🦕 🦖🧽 Great to get up close with these amazing specimens and models. Can officially report that they are all sparkling now and ready to welcome dino fans in the morning.

Lovely visit to Castell Coch this afternoon. Lots of conservation work going on but still lots to see and the ceilings are just beautiful.

I am so pleased that we were able to get to the Tower of London whilst the Poppies to commemorate the 80th Anniversary of WWII were there. So moving and poignant to see.

Day 2 in the big smoke and 28,000 steps later we had visited Trafalgar Square, Marble Arch, Horse Guards, Westminster, Whitehall, Tower Bridge, London Bridge, Greenwhich, Buckingham Palace, Leicester Square, China Town, Covent Garden and to finished off with Phantom of the Opera.

Really enjoyed visiting @sciencemuseum.org.uk, loads of great exhibitions. My daughter particularly enjoyed the history of medicine exhibit. Shame the space exhibit is currently closed but the flight exhibits were excellent.

Some of the fab exhibits @nhm.org. We spent hours looking around even though it’s a bit of a busman’s holiday for me. Even managed to find some polychaetes in the Darwin Centre and bumped into the fab Emma Sherlock for a catch up.

What an amazing building the @nhm.org is! I am just as fascinated by the architecture as the exhibits. There’s so much to look at, every column and ceiling is amazing!

I had the great pleasure of attending Salvage Training this week at work. A fantastic course aimed at familiarising staff to procedures in the event of an emergency or incident. Pictured below is our attempt at building a wind tunnel to dry out damp books @amgueddfacymru.bsky.social

Had a great time photographing the Home Nations Masters Hockey Tournament in Swansea this weekend. Thanks to Dawn for this brilliant photo of me poised to take photos, excellent 🙌. Very excited to use my new gadget ☂️

This horse fly was keeping me company on the way to work!

Another day doing a deep clean of the natural history galleries @amgueddfacymru.bsky.social. Working on the shore and woodlands making them sparkle for the visitors

Many thanks to Katherine Jones and @polychaetebob.bsky.social for these snaps from Summer Mixed Training between Bridgend Hockey Club and Bridgend Ladies Hockey Club. There’s loads more over on our Facebook page.

Imaging the Holotype of Magelona anuheone Magalhães, Bailey-Brock & Watling, 2018 on #WormWednesday

Gardens done, time to kick back with a cuppa in the sunshine ☀️

A good day in the image suite taking photos of worms from the Gulf of Mexico. Amazing to see how good Jones was at dissecting and mounting specimens. No wonder his drawings were so good #wormWednesday

A lovely spot on my lunchtime walk today - Cimbex femoratus- birch sawfly 🪰 #ButePark

And the second puzzle of the year is finished. A lovely cabinet of natural history curiosities!

Pile worms — scientific name Nereis vexillosa — can reach up to 30 centimeters (a little over 11 inches) long and are often found burrowed in sand or among mussels & barnacles. 🧵⤵️ 📷 mjonwhidbey on iNaturalist 📍 United States 🔗: www.inaturalist.org/observations... #ObservationOfTheDay

First jigsaw of the year complete, and it’s a beautiful one. Was pretty hard but loved doing it. Thank you Harry, for such a lovely present.

Tough one today 🙈

Fabulous day yesterday at Prestatyn Library with @amgueddfacymru.bsky.social and @mcsuk.bsky.social for the Hiraeth Yn Y Môr project. We had four schools and the Mayor and Deputy Major of Prestatyn come in, plus many members of the public. We are there today until 12:30 #OceanLiteracy

Did you know that an average family of four in the UK throws away £1,000 worth of food each year? Our video with @bbcideas investigates how we can waste less:

Great fun umpiring this weekend

The ICZN has used its plenary power to conserve the usage of the specific name minuta Eliason, 1962, as published in the binomen Magelona minuta, by suppressing the specific name minuta Wilson, 1959, as published in the trinomen Magelona filiformis minuta #WormWednesday bioone.org/journals/the...

Was it the hockey player, teacher, hen, nurse, dentist, nun or actress? When a hen and stag weekend goes wrong, who was the victim and who was the murderer? Fab evening at our annual murder mystery evening, brilliant 🤩

Lovely walk from Barry Island to Jackson’s Bay and back, with time to pop into Marco’s cafe for a cuppa. So nice to see the sun.

This year has seen a few firsts: first protest, first playing cricket, first concert, first time cleaning a mammoth 🦣, first time to Bosnia, and first time umpiring a hockey match. I started my PhD, appeared on TV, and became a qualified hockey umpire. Here’s to 2025 🎉🍾

As we approach the New Year, it’s a great time to look back at all we have done during 2024 at Bridgend Ladies Hockey Club. Great times, here’s to 2025 #TEAM

Nice morning doing Newport Parkrun, always a lovely one to do. Unfortunately rolled my ankle at the start but managed to get around. Always such a friendly atmosphere there

Another not long & not limbless for you: the Green Bomber Worm, Swima bombiviridis! A deep sea worm that lives in the water column with bioluminescent gill-like bits that can be ejected to drop glowing green bombs. #InsertAnInvert2024 📸Karen Osborn

Wishing all of my polychaete friends all the very best of Season's Greetings and all the best for 2025 with this wonderful array of magelonids. You get a point each for every species you can name. Nadolig Llawen 🎄☃️❄️🎅🏻🎁

Did you think the #polychaete Arenicola marina #Annelida only live in #intertidal and shallow subtidal? We did until we found them at 200 m depth. New #openaccess paper on bathymetric distribution and identification of juvenile lugworms in Norway #wormwednesday www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Merry Christmas everyone, with my fab new T-shirt from the marine conservation society