The Hexaco Personality Inventory

Saw a reference to this while scrolling through my Twitter feed. As, being childfree, I am able to be all carefree and indulgent on Sunday mornings, decided to start the day by doing this (as an alternative to cleaning the bathroom, which was the actual plan). Can’t say I’d ever heard of this one. I wouldn't say I was a devotee of these sorts of tools, but do quite enjoy them, partly no doubt through being fond of structure and classifying things, or some such.

The Hexaco PI claims to be “a measure of the six major dimensions of personality”. It’s made up of six broad "factor" scales and 25 narrow "facet" scales. There's presumably something somewhere about how they came up with these particular six, but I haven't as yet bothered to read it. It’s by two people with ‘PhD’ suffixed to their names, in that way Americans do, though that isn’t especially reassuring given that a PhD can be in just about any subject. (I had always assumed the PhD of a former team lead at CfBT was in some sort of educational topic, but later discovered that it was in fact in food and nutrition.)

The blurb assured me that no risk, harm, or discomfort was anticipated in completing the HEXACO-PI-R, other than that the results might not match my expectations and therefore might be disappointing.

My results on the six broad "factor" scales:

Of the six broad ‘factor’ scales, I’m an outlier on two: eXtraversion and Agreeableness. Neither particularly a surprise though I suppose the first is easier to publicly admit to. My score on Agreeableness is lower than my eXtraversion score, I suppose crudely indicating that I'm much more disagreeable than I am introverted. According to the blurb: 'Persons with very high scores on the Agreeableness scale forgive the wrongs that they suffered, are lenient in judging others, are willing to compromise and cooperate with others, and can easily control their temper'. I’d agree that I wouldn’t score highly on any of these though I work on the third and fourth in order to, you know, hold down a job. I’m close to the average on Honesty-Humility, Emotionality and Openness to Experience, and above average on Conscientiousness. Which is good I suppose.

Snowdonia

25 to 29 June

Our second Forest Holidays break, following our break at their Forest of Dean site in October 2016. This one was at their newly-opened site near Beddgelert in Snowdonia. Literally, just opened a few weeks before we went. We went for a Monday-Thursday four night break the last week in June. This time we decided we weren’t that bothered about heart-shaped trivets and rented a regular Golden Oak cabin (as opposed to a Golden Oak Hideaway) – equally nice, just without the romantic frippery.

Both Ruth’s and my main impression of this short break was that it was BLOODY HOT. Despite the spell of extremely warm weather the UK had been having at the time we went, we had expected that north Wales would be reassuringly cool and damp. And then, this. On the Tuesday, the coastal town of Porthmadog, around eight miles from where we were staying, was officially clocked as the hottest place in the UK. What are the odds?

I’ve spent very little time in north Wales – my first visit being a family holiday taken with another family when I was a small child – I must have been under five as I have an idea it was before Hannah was born. I only have very patchy memories of that one, my clearest being of what evidently seemed to me an unusually large bathroom in the place we were staying. And a faint memory of a little train. My second was in my early twenties in the company of my then-boyfriend Andy – but I think we did something crazy like just go for the day and then drove home again.

Journey up

We stayed over at Mum and Dad’s on the Sunday night and set off for Beddgelert on the Monday morning. Here's our wine supply packed to go, with a few non-essentials like walking boots crammed in around it.

Wales is very pretty and all – and I’m not for a minute suggesting that a great motorway should be constructed up the middle of it – but this did seem a rather interminable journey, even though in objective terms it can’t have been. We took a detour off at Rhayader to the Elan Valley Visitor Centre for some lunch in their café – if it had been a less hot day we’d have enjoyed a walk, but it was baking. Although we initially sat outside to eat - as per Ruth in this picture - we retreated after a while to the air-conditioned café.

Elan Valley Visitor Centre

One interesting thing we saw on the way up were the striking buildings of the Trawsfynydd nuclear power station. I’d never heard of this place, apparently opened in 1965 and closed in 1991, though evidently work to decontaminate the site is ongoing.

We eventually arrived, checked in and took possession of our allocated cabin, which was lovely. We were greeted by this welcoming Scrabble board.

First full day: Llyn Llywelyn and Beddgelert

We decided to have a low-key day exploring the site and surrounds. The Forest Holidays site is directly alongside the little Welsh Highland Railway, which runs from Caernarfon to Porthmadog and is, according to this, the UK’s longest heritage railway. The site itself is directly served by the tiny Meillionen station (a request stop).

In the morning we walked to Llyn Llywelyn, a lake fairly near the campsite. Hot walk up (‘hot’ was the theme of the week). The lake was lovely, but my main impression of its surrounds were great flies landing on me and sinking their fangs in, and initially resisting my attempts to brush them off. Horseflies? I don’t know, but I was certainly well and truly bitten. I’m not as a rule particularly attractive to mosquitoes – but these certainly weren’t mosquitoes.

In the afternoon we walked into Beddgelert, a walk of a mile or so. Had a look around and a snack at Caffi Colwyn. Ruth bought some insect repellent. We walked along the river to see the supposed grave of the faithful hound Gelert, thought seemingly the ‘grave’ was created by a former landlord of the Goat Hotel to encourage tourism.

Beddgelert

Ruth by Gelert's Grave

We didn’t fancy the walk back so decided to wait at Beddgelert station for the little train – only a short trip from Beddgelert to Meillionen, but quite nice.

The train coming in

Second full day: Snowdon!

Bloody hell, this was hot.

Received wisdom seems to have it that Snowdon itself is shrouded in damp mist for approximately 362 days out of 365, and almost certainly raining, if not snowing. Not today. With hindsight, it was really too hot a day to do this walk – though plenty of people were doing it – but as we’d booked the trip specifically with the climb in mind, we were loath to call it off.

After some research beforehand of the various routes up Snowdon, we’d chosen to do the Rhyd Ddu path up and take the Snowdon Ranger path down. Ruth had insisted that the Llanberis path, supposedly the easiest one, sounded dull, but equally I wasn’t keen to overstretch us. I drove to the car park at Rhyd Ddu, only a couple of miles from the camp site, and we set off at around 7:15am up the path leading to Snowdon.

Looking towards Llyn Cwellyn

Me having a bit of a sit down. To admire the view, obvs

The walk up was a serious slog as far as I was concerned, and left me pondering my cardio fitness – on the long bit to ascend the Llechog ridge I found myself stopping what seemed to be around every few yards. Ruth had been going at the cardio a bit more in the gym just recently so seemed to manage a lot better. I had been a bit nervous about the exposed section of the route over Bwlch Main, but at least had prepared myself by watching a couple of YouTube videos of the ascent. Thankfully it was a very still day. After that it’s a relatively short stretch to the top. The views were fantastic - a completely clear day in all directions.

Bwlch Main

We stood briefly on the cairn, where I took this photo of Ruth, and then went to the café for a cup of tea. We shared a table with a couple who’d just come up the Pyg Track. As this was my first ascent I don’t have a frame of reference as regards routes, but the Rhyd Ddu path was certainly scenic, and by all accounts is one of the quieter routes up. This piece refers to it as one of Snowdon's best kept secrets. Seemingly the paths on the opposite side of Snowdon are more popular (Pyg, Miners) – partly because you cut out some of the ascent driving to their car parks.

It was about midday as we started off down the Snowdon Ranger path on our descent, me at least quite elated at having made it to the top. That wore off a bit as the descent went on – it seemed interminable, though in fact it was only slightly longer than the route up. It was getting hot by that time and we were at least glad that we weren’t among the quite a few people coming UP at that time. About half way through the descent I swear we could literally feel our skin burning – no shade of any kind (not even a bush).

Beginning the descent, pre-sunburn

In contrast to the walk up, I managed better than Ruth on the descent, mainly because the path was uneven and rocky and I was wearing walking boots as opposed to trainers, and partly as Ruth had more exposed flesh so got worse sunburn. Also I think I had been in more doubt about my ability to actually get to the top, so to some extent the descent was still bathed in a rosy glow of success.

When planning the walk it had seemed more interesting to come down by a different route – however, that did mean that we had to wait for a rather tedious 45 minutes or so by the Ranger car park for a bus back to Rhyd Ddu. The little Snowdon Sherpa service thankfully did turn up and collected us and a couple of other walkers. By this point I had become so obsessed with the idea of having an ice cream that I made us get off the bus in the village, rather than at the car park, confident that there’d be a shop there. There wasn’t, so we just had to slog up the road to the car park empty-handed. Arriving back at the site, Ruth made straight for the cabin and I made straight for the ‘Forest Retreat’ (the reception area and shop) to purchase ice cream – duly purchased a Twister, which I sat down and scoffed outside the shop, and some Calippo Shots, which I tipped into my mouth when back at the cabin.

At the Forest Retreat, the news that we’d climbed Snowdon that day was greeted with some surprise by the girl on the reception desk, who clearly (and probably correctly) thought that it had been too hot a day for it. Another guest waiting to pay helpfully noted that her son had wanted to go up, but she’d told him he couldn’t as it was too hot. Wasn’t sure whether to feel heroic or just vaguely twattish. When I arrived back at the cabin Ruth had changed into a bathrobe and was sitting with her alarmingly swollen legs up on the coffee table. I think we concluded that we might never be the same again. We ordered pizzas via the in-cabin TV service and I had a couple of celebratory glasses of wine. It’s on record that Ruth was so wrecked that she didn’t drink anything and retired to bed early.

Surprisingly, my legs were nothing like as stiff afterwards as they had been after our walk up Blorenge in January, despite the fact that Blorenge is only around half the height. It’s possible my fitness has improved in the interim, or maybe that I was distracted by borderline heatstroke.

Third and final full day: applying after-sun

On our last full day, the original plan had been to drive to Porthmadog and have a bit of a walk along the coast. In the event, the thought of being in full sun anywhere made us both wince so we opted to stay in the forest.

I did use the hot tub once, as it was there, but I think they’re more enjoyable when the surrounding air is relatively cold. Getting into a steaming hot bath when the surrounding air is already pretty hot just gets you even hotter. The older couple in the neighbouring cabin did seem to be enjoying their hot tub several times each day though, so fair play – if you have any sort of joint stiffness I guess they’re probably quite soothing. The tubs are checked daily and come with this cute Forest Holidays duck, for no apparent reason.

Journey back

We stopped off at Elan Valley again, and this time I did take a short walk up to the dam. All looks like an impressive feat of engineering. We had a quick look around the exhibition in the visitor centre.

Verdict: I’d definitely return to the area, possibly for a week – we didn’t manage to see as much as planned on this occasion. Would have liked to visit the nearby coast including the area around Criccieth – coincidentally, Mum and Dad had a week in north Wales the week immediately following ours, and did do some coastal walking and had lunch at the seafood restaurant Dylan’s. Matt also recommended a visit to Electric Mountain. And there are also the little heritage railways, and of course the little train up Snowdon - though this does seem rather a cheat. We watched it going up and down while we were on the mountain - it looks utterly absurd. Probably quite fun though.

The little train puffing its way up the mountain

Our route up Snowdon shown in red:

And the route down:

Walk near Maidenhead, just over 4 miles

Saturday 3 November

Little walk with Ray on a pleasantly sunny Saturday afternoon. We only had a couple of hours as we were due for tea at his parents’ house. We parked at the ‘Butterfly Trail’ car park on Henley Road and crossed the footbridge over the A404(M) into Maidenhead Thicket.

An extension to the A404 (M) was put through one side of Maidenhead Thicket in the early 1990s - the road can be seen towards the top right of the route map below. SABRE mention the work here. The footbridge we crossed was put in at the same time (as otherwise the new dual carriageway would have cut off access to the Thicket). Digressing, the SABRE piece also mentions the former A4(M) Maidenhead bypass, part of which is now the A404(M) and part of which is now abandoned. I’d never noticed before, but the abandoned section is clearly visible on Google Maps, cut in half by the A308(M). Fascinating stuff.

Snip showing abandoned route of A4(M)

Returning to the walk. Ray was just musing on how the section we were walking through seemed much more open than formerly, when we came across a large area that had been cleared. There’s evidently a project ongoing to replace a former larch plantation with native trees (‘Native woodland regeneration at Maidenhead Thicket’).

Area of cleared ground

Thicketyness

We walked a way further through the thicket before bearing left to come out on the Bath Road. Crossed and walked down Cherry Garden Lane as far as the junction with the tiny Breadcroft Lane, which we took. This little road wends its way southeast, crossing over the M4, to come out on Cannon Lane in Woodlands Park, a southern suburb of Maidenhead. We turned left and headed north on Cannon Lane back towards Maidenhead. Just after passing under the M4 we turned right onto Altwood Road and then took the footpath just beyond the Thatched Cottage which leads behind houses through onto Sandisplatt Road. Came out onto the A4 and then turned up Newlands Drive and across the common back to the car park.

Map of our route:

Work bits and pieces

It’s been topsy-turvy times at the OU this year. Our VC of three years, Peter Horrocks (formerly of the BBC) resigned in April following a vote of no confidence (Guardian: OU Vice-chancellor resigns after staff revolt). Professor Mary Kellett has subsequently stepped in as Acting VC until a new VC is appointed. Mary seems like a good egg, but it’s not yet clear whether the sweeping changes (aka 'reprioritising') that Horrocks announced will be carried through (Guardian: Open University jobs at risk in £100m 'root and branch' overhaul).

Closer to my own unit, the lovely Guy Mallison, the OU’s Director of Strategy, left in May after eight years at the OU to take up the headship of a new university venture. (Eight years isn't all that long in OU terms - I sat next to a woman of around my own age at a meeting the other day and she shared that she's been at the OU 29 years, and that isn't especially unusual).

My colleague and friend Matthew carried through his pledge to retire at 60 by leaving the OU at the end of July, shortly after celebrating his 60th birthday the previous month. His departure is definitely a blow on both a personal and professional level, the latter as Returns team have relied heavily on Matt’s helpfulness and technical expertise since he joined the team. A large group of us from the office went out for lunch at the Cross Keys in Woolstone – pictures below – and another group of assorted OU people came to an evening do at the MK Biergarten at Wolverton Park (convenient for me!), a favourite haunt of Matt’s – he had managed to arrange to book the place out for the evening and for pizzas to be delivered from nearby local pizzeria Murati’s.

Me (on Matt's right) appearing to be conversing with my plate

A couple of us had been suspicious beforehand about Murati's, given that their menu appears to offer the option of chips as a pizza topping. But in the event they were nice. Judith reckoned that they did the best gluten-free pizza she'd had, which I'm sure is high praise though God knows what goes into a gluten-free pizza crust.

As of August, I’m officially seconded to a new role at the OU. Two new fixed-term posts have been funded on the Returns team to support the HESA Data Futures project. One of these is a full-time technical lead on the project, which my colleague Chris successfully applied for; the other is a new Senior Manager (Returns), which is the one I’ve taken on – the idea is that 50% of my time will be spent on being the business lead on Data Futures and the other 50% taking over the management of some of the statutory returns to relieve my overstretched manager. It's fair to say that in practical terms I haven't noticed too much difference yet, as the appointment coincided with the hotting up of HESA return season and neither Chris' nor my secondments has backfill as yet.

To coincide with World Mental Health Day on 10 October, the OU put on a Staff Wellbeing Day involving a number of taster events. This included an ‘Origami for beginners’ session, which I signed up to thinking it might be a bit of a laugh. The session was led by Anh Huntington, a Senior Project Manager in LTI and evidently an origami enthusiast. It was actually lovely, and fully booked out – those of us who attended got to make a swan (my effort pictured) and attempt to make origami stars (not so successful – have to have another go at those). Events I didn’t sign up for included:

• an anxiety and depression ‘workshop’ run by the Milton Keynes IAPT service: having been a user of the IAPT service (though in Berkshire, not in MK) I’m a bit ambivalent about their offering, though I do think there’s something to be said for a spot of CBT;
• Manga drawing for beginners;
• A session entitled ‘Why not relax with a massage?’ – being at work doesn’t tend to put me in a very massage-y frame of mind.

Disappointing that the Online Desktop Yoga got canceled. Not sure if that meant actually doing yoga on top of your desk.

Reliving the walk

Day 1: Reading to Woolhampton

Relive '13.24mi Walk'

Day 2: Woolhampton to Hungerford

Relive '18.06mi Walk'

Day 3: Hungerford to Pewsey

Relive '15.06mi Walk'

Day 4: Pewsey to Devizes

To be completed at a later date! We were knackered …

Day 5: Devizes to Bradford-on-Avon

Relive '12.65mi Walk'

Day 6: Bradford-on-Avon to Bath

Relive '10.31mi Walk'

Day 7: Bath to Bristol

Relive '16.08mi Walk'

Various little walks

Walk on the Nettlebed Estate, 4.13 miles

11 March

Pleasant walk with Ray on a Sunday morning. We parked on Rocky Lane, a turning off the B481 just before Highmoor Cross. Walked down the lane for a little bit and then onto a path leading through the Nettlebed Estate. Did a pleasant circular walk of a few miles.

Towards the end of the walk we saw a house through the trees that may have been 'Merrimoles'. What a cute name. Images of happy little moles dancing.

Looking towards a house, possibly Merrimoles

I can’t find out much about the estate: it’s apparently around 2500 acres, it’s been owned by the Fleming family since the early 20th century when one Robert Fleming bought the estate and the house at Joyce Grove – he had the latter demolished and built the big pile that’s still there today and houses a Sue Ryder hospice. Robert’s grandson Ian wrote the James Bond books; there’s a bit about the latter’s association with Nettlebed (and South Oxfordshire) here. It’s believed that he either wrote, or came up with the idea for, the first Bond novel (depending on which source you consult) while staying at Kiln Cottage, formerly part of the estate but apparently sold to the Lucan family (of Lord fame) in 1960, and seemingly the site of a somewhat ridiculous boundary dispute in the mid-2000s; no idea if it’s still going on.

Map of the route below; our route shown in red. The top right of the route shows where the path passed close to the A4130 at Bix.

Walk near The Packhorse, about 3 miles

18 March

Some snow on the ground for this walk with Ruth. The Packhorse at Chazey Heath is currently a nice country pub, having variously been closed for a while and prior to that been a ‘Blubeckers’ (an episode best whitewashed over). According to the blurb, the Packhorse was once a farm on the Mapledurham estate dating back to the 1600s.

We parked in the pub car park and crossed the A4074 to take a footpath going off to the left of the 'JoeDaisy Guest House' (which according to their website is closing down in August this year). At the end of the path turned left onto Sheepways Lane.

Continued on, turning left onto a concrete track and crossing a large crop field. Followed footpaths past Caversham Heath golf course and clubhouse back to the A4074. Crossed over to go down Rokeby Drive. Made our way via Tokers Green Lane and Bardolph’s Wood back to the pub.

We had Sunday lunch at the pub, including a half of Stonehenge 'Sign of Spring' for me. Don't think I can quite get to grips with green beer.

Unusually, forgot my phone for this walk, so couldn’t track it and the photos are Ruth’s.

Walk from Reading to Henley, 9.5 miles

29 April

Another walk with Ray. We walked from Caversham down to the river and turned eastwards, passing Kennet Mouth. After the sailing club, we diverted away from the river into Thames Valley Park to follow a route Ray had cycled, passing the buildings of the Microsoft campus.

Followed a footpath that took us back to the river. Followed the Thames Path through Sonning to Shiplake Lock, where it leaves the river and takes the walker along Mill Road into Lower Shiplake, and then along Bolney Road, with its riverside properties, the last of which has an elaborate model railway in its garden. We passed this ridiculously narrow plot, which looked as though it's had an interesting little house built on it, though we couldn't get a good view from the road.

Rejoined the river path and followed it past Marsh Lock into Henley.

Looking up from Marsh Lock island towards Wargrave Road

Property for sale on Rod Eyot

Route shown below in red, with our starting point in green.

Walk from Woodley to Caversham via Sonning, 4.6 miles

6 May

Solo walk. Took the bus over to Woodley. Got off on Reading Road and walked to the Shepherds Hill roundabout. Crossed the railway and walked down Old Bath Road for a little way before returning to the A4 and crossing to go down Sonning Lane. Walked through the village centre and across the bridge.

The main road through Sonning village (the B478) is a bit of a pig for pedestrians – such pavements as there are are very narrow and once you’re past The French Horn and leaving the village, the pavements run out altogether and there isn’t even a verge, resulting in having to flatten yourself as much as possible against the hedge as cars whiz by.

Spring Lane

I turned down Spring Lane and followed this little road to where it meets the A4155 by The Flowing Spring. Relieved to see some steps going up directly opposite leading to a footpath, as this stretch would be even less forgiving for pedestrians than the road through Sonning. There’s a path (possibly only permitted, but thank you landowner, in that case) leading along the hedge line parallel to the road. Followed this briefly in the Caversham direction until I came to another footpath leading uphill to the right along the field boundary. Took this out of curiosity.

Path leading uphill towards Dunsden

Selfie

Turned left at the top of the path and after a short while emerged onto the minor road between Playhatch and Dunsden. Turned right into Dunsden. Sat down briefly on the bench on the village green to eat a slightly melted chocolatey snack. Left Dunsden via Church Lane and turned left onto the bridleway that leads to Foxhill Lane. Returned via the footpath to Caversham Park Village and caught the bus down into Caversham.

Route shown below in red, with my starting point in green. The watery bit in the middle is Caversham Lakes, with the boats of the Thames & Kennet Marina just visible in the lakes' south-western corner.