{"id":14393,"date":"2026-07-01T14:00:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T13:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/?p=14393"},"modified":"2026-07-01T14:01:03","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T13:01:03","slug":"opig-retreat-2026-heatwave-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/opig-retreat-2026-heatwave-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"OPIG Retreat, 2026: Heatwave Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last week, a sizable fraction of OPIG headed to “The Plough”<\/em> near Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire for our OPIG Retreat (a.k.a.<\/em> “OPIGtreat”). Some of us travelled on Monday by train, encountering a biblical deluge, a darkness resembling a train tunnel but with pelting rain and bath-tubs of water washing the train windows, and lightning strikes every 30s while changing in Bath Spa…<\/p>\n\n\n

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The red monster storm with black eye is what greeted us as we were arriving in Bath Spa. (Credit: UK Thunderstorm Updates<\/strong>: “This is what the satellite imagery is currently showing from the storm affecting Somerset\/ Wiltshire. Cloud tops on this monster have exceeded 40,000ft\u2026.”)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Undeterred, and either shuttled by the fabulous Anita from Bradford on Avon station, or walking on foot, we arrived at our lovely destination and home for the week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The fact that the converted pub-cum-youth hostel might be confused with an actual<\/em> pub also called “The Plough” might have been relevant information before<\/em> setting up our grocery delivery with a leading national supermarket chain that helpfully does not allow customers to edit the delivery address… Enter Anita and Clare, intercepting the errant deliveries and ferrying them back to home base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delicious meals were prepared and enjoyed together, sometimes inside and at others under the vine-draped patio, including the yummy Bangladeshi rice pudding Clare made for Rebonto’s birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From left to right, front row: Garrett, Chris, Kate, Henriette, Annie, Charlotte, Kingsley, Rebonto, Sanaz, and Anita; middle row: Anita, Nich, Nele, Yael, Hew, Henry, Marius, Matteo, Matt, and Ody; back row: Lorenzo, Isaac, Bennie, King, Alex E, Jochem, and Alex H.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We had a fantastic set of talks on a range of topics neatly summarized by Charlotte’s final quiz:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Charlotte’s closing quiz about who gave which of the many thought-provoking, hilarious, and variously token\/molecule-filled talks given at the OPIG Retreat, 2026.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We learned that sitting in an ‘L’-shape with one’s feet against the wall is very relaxing and good for blood flow in the brain…<\/p>\n\n\n

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Nele and Charlotte demonstrating healthy posture.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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Last week, a sizable fraction of OPIG headed to “The Plough” near Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire for our OPIG Retreat (a.k.a. “OPIGtreat”). Some of us travelled on Monday by train, encountering a biblical deluge, a darkness resembling a train tunnel but with pelting rain and bath-tubs of water washing the train windows, and lightning strikes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[47,9],"tags":[562,948],"ppma_author":[488],"class_list":["post-14393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social","category-talks","tag-opig-retreat","tag-opigtreat"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":488,"user_id":35,"is_guest":0,"slug":"garrett","display_name":"Garrett","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/df625261419c37dd5c5937e37f17a732626acd6eea1e6fabd03d935c25b453bf?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Morris","first_name":"Garrett","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14393"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14458,"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14393\/revisions\/14458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14393"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=14393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}