Spring is sprung

Well first of all, apologies again that it’s been such a long time since I wrote this! I just had to re-read my last couple of posts to remember what I’d been up to last time. Time seems to have flown by since the conference trip to Puerto Rico, and have found myself up to my eyeballs in labwork, moving house, and rowing. Even sleep seems to have gone out of the window a little which is quite upsetting. I love my sleep.

I moved house about a month after I came back from PR, into a shared house with young professionals. Turns out that it wasn’t such a great move, and it’s definitely been a stop-gap! Am moving into a house with work friends in a week’s time (HOORAH!), as one of them is off to the States for 3 months for an internship.

Training hasn’t slacked off much either, have kept super busy with that. Still not back to the same strength and fitness I had when I was an undergrad, but I think the main reason for that is time. I used to go to the gym for a few hours most days when I was an undergrad, often because I simply didn’t have anything else to do! Now, it’s a case of stay at work until I’ve done everything I need, then once I leave, head to the gym and try and get my set session in, then go home and collapse into bed! Having said that, I think it’s kept me sane whilst moving house and having so much labwork to do. If I’m physically exhausted at least I tend to sleep better.

Our big winter race (Women’s Head of the River Race) in London went really well, and we finished in a very respectable placing of 45^th (out of 299 crews), 3^rd in our category. For “fun” the next day we raced a banter 8 in our local Southampton Head race, with a load of the ex-rowers. It may not have been full of people at full fitness, but it was “bang tidy” to quote the others! It’s a nice way to finish the relentless winter slog of outings in the rain, wind and general gross weather. Bring on the regatta season!!!

I went home for mothering Sunday weekend (a few rare weekends off from rowing as the undergraduates were all off for Easter holidays!), and visited the sis in her new flat in Leamington Spa, and had a bit of a baking session. I love baking, but sadly the kitchen in the new house is not somewhere where I want to spend a lot of time, plus the seal on the oven is crap, so totally useless for baking. Probably good for me not to eat so much cake though :)

Following weekend I went up to London for the first time in ages, and for the first time ever, the boy came with me!!! Had a fab weekend, the weather was absolutely baking, especially for only the beginning of April. We went to the Tate modern, then walked to the Natural History museum, dipped our feet in the Diana Princess of Wales memorial fountain, and then eventually made it over to Oli and Beth’s house, and out for a yummy curry in Herne Hill. Unfortunately I’d forgotten to charge my camera so have no photos at all from the day :( fortunately, O and B have the same camera as me, so I stuck it on charge at theirs. London Zoo the next day, for the WHOLE day, and then wandered back through Camden, grabbed Chinese food from a street vendor, and sat in the sunshine to eat. Beautiful weather again, really nice weekend all round!