A day in the life of an Astronomer on their birthday!

Today I am catching up on work related stuff, I’ve just returned from a great trip to Cyprus where I am currently setting up a science festival and schools national STEM fair, and some people might say hey its your birthday, relax and take a break but as the saying goes there is no rest for the wicked! Today so far has been a typical Monday, take Alex to school, catch up on emails and try and stay awake by drinking coffee. The highlight of today will be going to Nando’s later ( a Portugese franchised restaurant – selling my favourite custard pastries ) and ordering a birthday cake.

Now as a typical science communicator in times of a global economic crisis I know that the first thing to happen on a global level are funding cuts to front line services – typically science and technology are the first subjects to be cut – so I am buried deep in funding proposals to keep a number of projects going. In the UK we have already seen a number of services cut which were available to the public ranging from regional development agencies, education and information portals to civil society organisations having contracts cut because of the economic and change of government shake ups. In Greece and Cyprus it is far worse, and Italy, Spain and Ireland along with most of Europe are heading in the same direction.

On a personal level the economic crisis seems to have hit home!