Not a huge amount to report in this blog as we haven't done any exciting travelling but if we leave too long a gap between blogs, it's hard to remember what we have been doing so here's a short one. Patrick's been on a couple of courses/conferences here in Rio, one with a field trip to the red lagoon that he got quite inspired about and this week he's on a conference run by the Brazilian Geophysical Society. I think he feels encouraged by how many people he kno...

Well, here we are back in Rio after our month in the UK which ended just as the heatwave began. 2 weeks conferencing and geologising for Patrick and then 2 weeks holiday. As ever, it was great to catch up with friends and family and Dorset was as clean and green and quiet as we remembered - just what we needed in fact. By the time we left, most of the niggling jobs at Limestone had been dealt with (sorry, Graeme & Irene for the one that wasn't!); Hugo's wor...

Watching football in Rio. We get more football here than at home - today Bayern vs Barcelona (2-0) at the moment! Hugo and I leapt for joy at Luis Suarez's 97th minute equaliser for Liverpool vs Man City at the weekend. Of course we also saw the famous biting incident - though didn't pick up at the time why the Brazilian commentator was referring to Mike Tyson!! In the same week, Hugo became the first Corbett to score a goal against Brazilian opposition. His Co...

It's been a while since we last blogged so thought we should let people know all's well here in Rio. While winter in Europe seems to be dragging on longer than usual this year, the weather here shows no sign of cooling as autumn approaches. Even when we have spectacular thunder-storms in the night, it's invariably back to 30+ degrees the next day. It may sound wonderful & we don't expect you to feel sorry for us but the heat can be very enervating, day after...

Having cold showers in January is not what I expected to be doing in my 56th year! However, there is nothing better on a hot steamy night in Rio! We've had rain on and off since the family left after Xmas. Pity those many poor souls living in sub-standard housing. Heavy flooding has been a problem in some parts of Rio state but we haven't had that in our part of the city though there was a very large clap of thunder that woke us up in the middle of Friday nig...