Six years retired, I am fortunate to still have a lab that is researching fundamental questions in Biology. Sex must be good as, despite the cost of genetic disasters it often generates, it has been retained by all the major divisions of the biological world. It is the vehicle by which genes are reshuffled and remodelled, powering evolution. Notwithstanding the biological importance of this cycling and rearrangement of genetic information, there are still many questions to be answered about how it is achieved and regulated. To address some of these questions, my lab has been using the ascomycete fungus Neurospora crassa which is a particularly good model system for this purpose.  We have been investigating genes that control genetic recombination in specific parts of the genome, the structure of individual recombination events, recombination across the whole genome and the roles of some of the gene products that catalyse recombination. In respect of images, Neurospora, being a filamentous fungus, provides limited scope as a subject for photography and so Pam’s, my wife’s, second career as a mycologist has provided a welcome means of bringing one of my hobbies into a more professional sphere.