Author: Maren Deepwell

First of all, a happy new year to you all and best wishes for 2011. 
This is the month for going back to work, making plans for the next year
and for keeping warm and eating porridge.
Although we’re only a few days into it, this year is already beginning to look busy and interesting and here are a few things which I am looking forward to, starting with the development of 3D printers.
On cemeteryscapes, we have had quite a few contributions for our ‘Cemeteries in Winter’ call and for the next few weeks and months will be looking at contemporary developments in cemetery design and architecture. If you have something to contribute, please contact us. 
For the start of the new year, I’ve also thought about things that don’t change much from year to year and you can read more about this on my personal blog.
More content for this website is also on the way and if you’d like to keep in touch with any news, you can subscribe to the RSS feed for announcements and newshere. 

Winter has come and the landscape has been truly spectacular. Stuck in the middle of a rather hectic pre-Christmas rush to get all the work done, there’s a few things to announce:
First, we’ve issued a call for winter images of cemeteries on cemeteryscapes, so get your camera out and send us your snapshots.
Also, I must admit that England’s progress in the battle for the Ashes has been rather distracting, if delightful. As always, this means long nights with Test Match Special… 
Finally, to contribute to your festive cheer, have a look at the Sausage Roll Weekend and my musings on Reading and Eating (and playing with one’s lunch). 
If you would like to have an Advent Calendar with a handmade twist, you get a new idea for the Christmas Season here each day.  

November is always a busy time and this month I will be leading workshops about CMALT at the Natspec/JISC TechDis event Significant Progress at inspection: the role of technology in supporting ISCs in York at the Higher Education Academy as well as continuing work on some other projects and publications. 
The cemeteryscapes blog has received a high increase in readers, so if you are interested in submitting a guest contribution, now is the time. Just visit the blog for more details. 
On my personal blog you can also read some Thoughts on Education (Standing out from the crowd in 4,000 unformatted characters…) and read about my life-long addiction toSherlock Holmes. 

It’s October and the start of Michaelmas term proper this week. Which means that all kinds of lectures, seminars a
nd similar gatherings which I am looking forward to are starting again. Autumn is my favourite time of year and the thrills of new pencils, notepads and books delights me just as much now as they did when I first went to university. Last week’s crop of Oxford’s charity book shops included Flaubert’sSentimental Education, Love in Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford and Jenny Uglow’s A Little History of British Gardening. New reading matter in hand I say “autumn, here I come”. 
N.B. Book reviews to follow… . 

Just returned from ALT-C 2010 and had a very emjoyable conference. Information about sessions, awards and other activities I had the priviledge to be involved in, is available via the conference website. This picture was taken at 6.08am outside the campus accommodation while going to breakfast.