Christmas Cheer

The last weekend in Southampton before Christmas was basically a weekend of eating. Work Christmas ball on the Thursday night, followed by Roast on Saturday night at Joe and Claud’s (fortunately they live just around the corner, so could just waddle home when I’d eaten and drunk too much). Joe always makes amazing face-sized Yorkshire puddings that are big enough to hold the rest of your meal in. Amazing. Played the After Eight game as well (place an After Eight chocolate on your forehead, and by wiggling your face around, get it into your mouth as quickly as possible without using your hands, and without it falling off your face), which always guarantees hilarity. Teeny was not so good at it.

The Sunday evening was another mammoth eating session. 14 of us were doing a massive Christmas meal and Secret Santa, split between our house, and our friend’s house across the road. Canapés and mulled wine at our house, and some party games including pass-the-parcel and modelling balloons, and then across the road for the main course, pudding and Secret Santa. I was in charge of pudding, so made treacle tart and sticky toffee pudding with butterscotch sauce. I am pleased to report that both of them went down a treat, and came home with a small amount of sticky toffee pudding and that’s it! Ate farrrr too much, we had a mammoth turkey between us all, and different people had all contributed some different part to the whole evening. Very well organised and a lot of fun. The Secret Santa person I’d drawn from a hat was proving very difficult to decide what to get her (we had a £10 limit), so I ended up painting her two little canvasses, with a basking shark and a whale shark on (her PhD is based on Basking sharks). I think she liked them (I hope she liked them!).

Next day was followed by Thai takeaway in order to celebrate my housemate Rich going through his viva (oral defence of his PhD thesis) successfully and becoming Dr Rich. Next evening somehow ended up as going out for curry with an office mate, a friend who used to work in Bermuda, their old housemates, and one of my friends who works in Bermuda but was home in Southampton for Christmas. The weather had another attempt at snowing, but nothing really settled in Southampton. However, the midlands had been hit pretty badly, so headed home on the Wednesday afternoon with slight trepidation about how long it would take me to get home. Fortunately, apart from the fast lane of the motorway being mostly covered in snow, the only real problem I had was once I got onto our estate. Because it’s an un-adopted road, it means the council won’t clear it or grit it, so it was still 6 inches deep in fresh snow! Finally managed to get into our driveway, and I have to say, much as I hate my little car sometimes for its practicality (or lack of), it was actually remarkably good on the snow, I think because it’s front-wheel drive and so light. Dad’s car was terrifying on the snow when we went to church on Christmas Day. Poor sis was ill with flu over the Christmas period, so spent most of the time either curled up in a blanket on the sofa, or in bed :( Not very festive for her unfortunately (but pretty quiet for the rest of the family!). Ridiculously cold for most of the week I was at home, think we saw temperatures of -13 in the mornings, and daytime highs of around -5 or -6’C. Very unusual for the midlands, certainly in my memory it’s not been that cold. Did some baking on Christmas Eve with my friend Millie (we made the Christmas muffins again), helped mum decorate the Christmas cake, made gingerbread men and generally got in the way.

Christmas was full of food, family time and festivities. Unfortunately had to come back to Southampton on the 28^th Dec to get into the lab in order to filter 80 water samples in time for the middle of the first week of Jan. The guy in charge of the analysis machine I needed to use (ICP-AES) was going on the Antarctic research cruise on the Friday 7^th, so needed to have all the samples ready, measured and analysed before he left. I was filtering 2.5ml of my samples at a time, washing with 5ml of ammonium bicarbonate, and even running on average 10 hour days in the lab, I was only getting through about 18 or 20 a day. SO DULL!!! To top things off, I started feeling poorly on the 29^th, and by New Year’s Eve had no voice. Pulled a 12 hour day in the lab, came home at 8.30, ate dinner with my housemate and his friends, saw in the New Year and then promptly went to bed. Felt like death warmed up on New Year’s Day, but still had to go into the lab. Proper fever, shivering, sweating, coughing, dizzy, headache, and generally feeling extremely sorry for myself. When I wasn’t at work in the lab? At home in bed. Fantastic start to 2011. But, it paid off as I managed to get my samples done in time, and analysed before the lab tech went off to sea. Nothing much to report since then, made a cake for the boy’s birthday which I was particularly proud of (my sponge cakes never really seem to work, but this one worked, looked nice, and dare I say it, tasted bloody marvellous). Job done.

xx

Welcome to winter

Well, where to start really. It’s been an awfully long time, which I don’t really have any excuse for. I’m good at remembering that I need to do things, but bad at actually galvanising myself into action for doing them. But, seeing as it’s a Saturday, the house is empty, my washing is in the washing machine, my clean clothes are folded, I’ve had a bath, and I am armed with a cup of tea, I decided it was probably time to remedy my literary absence.

So, I arrived home from Bermuda at the beginning of November, straight back to Southampton, to basically be dumped. Fantastic news to come back to. Fortunately had already planned to go home for the weekend to see the parentals, so had some much needed mummy hugs and home-cooking :) Managed to time the trip home with Bonfire Night, so went to the local fireworks and bonfire display with mummy B, and we drank mulled cider and bought toffee apples. New cycling shoes had arrived for me too whilst I was away, which was exciting, but not all that useful seeing as I hadn’t replaced the bike I sold in Bermuda in July! Needless to say that’s pretty high up on the list of priorities!

Things on the boy front have got a lot better since I got back, it would appear that it was a temporary blip in the boy’s relationship mind-set, so things are a bit more normal. It’s prompted me to get off my arse and make more time to see my friends more often though, which can only be a good thing. Back to PhD work with a bump after that, which was a bit of a shock after nearly 2 months off. Lots of labwork on the cards in the near future, which is a good thing as it breaks up the monotony of trying to read journals and write science things. Have submitted an abstract to the ASLO conference in Puerto Rico in February, so that’ll be my next (short) trip abroad.

I also made the decision to go back to rowing competitively for the University club. Basically I just can’t stay away........ and I realised that in reality I don’t do much with my weekends, apart from the odd trip up to London to see friends up there. Especially if the boy is busy working (which he quite often is, not being very good with deadlines.....), I find that I just sort of potter around and waste my weekend. I’m not a massive fan of lie-ins, or the prospect of being a bed-pig (thanks to Stephen Fry and my sister for alerting me to this amazing phrase), so I figured that actually going back to rowing would give me something to do, and also ensure that I went to the gym regularly again. I love exercising, and hate it when I’m unfit, but I’m a fundamentally lazy person, and I need the motivation of training partners, or being part of a team to really get the best out of me where sports is concerned. The only thing I find I am happy going out and doing when I’m feeling half-hearted about life is running. Which is weird considering I used to hate it. I hate to say it, but I find a peaceful sort of solace in long runs on my own. More so at home, where I can run along the river, and through fields and countryside, but I guess I can’t really be choosy in Southampton! Pavements or nothing........ especially if it’s dark.

Sure enough, winter arrived pretty quickly in the UK once I was back. I’d sort of forgotten that I’d missed autumn, as places like Bermuda don’t have seasons that you can see in the trees and the leaves; just the amount of sunshine and rain varies. First notable thing to do when I was back was get back into running pretty quickly, as I’d entered Hellrunner again. I ran it last year with my then housemate, and loved it. It’s a cross-country run, advertised as “between 10 and 12 miles” on an army base in Hampshire and it includes the Hills of Hell and the Bog of Doom. Last year it was unusually warm considering it was the 3^rd weekend of November, with blue skies and sunshine. No such luck this year. The thermometer on the car read -1’C when we arrived in the morning, after a week of near zero temperatures, and extremely frosty mornings. However, with some clever office plotting, my enthusiasm about the previous year, and my office mate Katie’s enthusiasm for doing mental things, meant that there was a group of 7 of us running. Anyone who’s spent any time doing outdoor sports, or endurance races or anything like that will be very familiar with portaloos, and the pre-race queues that go along with them. The joys of minus temperatures meant that the flushing mechanisms had frozen, so they couldn’t be flushed. Needless to say we very quickly migrated to trips to the bushes for pre-race nervous wees.

This year all the early puddles were frozen, and the ground was hard and dry, so we actually stayed completely dry until the first mini-bog about half-way through the race. Then you hear the squeals coming through the woods and you realise you’re getting close to the Bog of Doom. I swear it was deeper this year than it was last year. Out of the 7 of us, 3 of us were running out in front, and poor Anya (an orienteer and extremely quick runner!) practically disappeared under whilst we were trying to get through the bog. Even sticking to the sides of the bog I was struggling, and ended up having to put my hands under to try and stop me falling over when I tripped over a log underwater. Eventually finished, and despite everyone’s varying stages of exhaustion and hyperthermia, everyone agreed that they had enjoyed it which I was extremely glad about – had nightmares that everyone was going to hate me because I’d raved about how much I’d enjoyed the previous year! (Photo below from RandR Photos)

The cold weather carried on into early December, and we all woke up on the morning of the 2^nd to about 5 or 6 inches of snow in Southampton. We are right on the South coast of the UK, so for us to get thick snow that actually settles and stays is extremely rare. Obviously I took a snow day and went to play on Southampton common. Found the boy and his housemate sledging on an estate-agents sign that worked surprisingly well. I didn’t even try and drive anywhere, so poor mini just sat where she was for a few days. Then we got to the stage where everyone is fed up of the snow because it stops looking pretty, gets slushy and icy, and generally just makes life annoying. I couldn’t drive anywhere as our road was sheet ice and on a hill, and I couldn’t cycle anywhere, as I only own a racing bike with pretty slick road tyres. Not a good idea. Went to visit the sister in Calne 9 days or so later, and there were still small patches of snow in sheltered areas of hills around the Wiltshire countryside. Nice little walk followed by a pub lunch :) Got into the winter baking spirit that week, made some Christmas muffins (with lots of mixed spice, cinnamon, nuts and berries), and then the first batch of mince pies (homemade pastry but not mincemeat I’m afraid!). Even got around to doing some of my Christmas shopping (online of course, I got cross with all the people wandering around at super slow speed in town....)

.

xx

Happy Halloween!

Ok wow where has time gone. Actually I know exactly where it’s gone....... flown by! So, I had 3 days at home after Hawaii. I got home at 2.30 in the morning on the Tuesday to be greeted by the news that my car had leaked petrol everywhere, and shouldn’t be driven. Then I realised that both the tax and the MOT were due to expire that week, just as I was leaving the country to go back to Bermuda. Fortunately there is a garage just at the end of my road, so I was able to dump the car with them, and get on with sorting everything out for Bermuda. Made all the more difficult by the fact that my room is currently rented out to someone for a month, as I’m away such a lot. But, all of my stuff is still there, and this person I swear has brought ALL their stuff and put it in my room. I swear she has more stuff than me!! So that was a little bit stressful trying to get everything ready in time. Oh, and just the small matter of me doing my upgrade presentation, and upgrade meeting to get out of the way before I went to Bermuda. But, that all went fine thankfully, so I am now officially a proper registered DPhil student rather than an MPhil. Whoop! Carefully planned to arrive in BDA in time for BIOS international sports day (UK & Commonwealth against US and rest of the world).

So back off to Bermuda, this time for a month’s teaching contract. I’m co-teaching a course on Introduction to Biological Oceanography, to 9 foreign postgrad students. None of them have English as a first language...... they come from Turkey, Cote D’Ivoire, India, Iran, Ecuador, Venezuela, Russia, Vietnam and Brazil, with varying levels of interest, knowledge and English abilities! Trying to get them to do a lot of hands-on practical work too as that's part of the objective of the Nippon Foundation POGO course.....

Basically to cut a long story short, it has been an extremely stressful experience, and I am so so glad that Sarah was co-teaching with me, otherwise I would have drowned in stress and probably not slept for 3 weeks. The first two weeks we were averaging around 16-18 hour days.... eurgh. But, it’s all over now, save for some (quite a lot of) marking, and their feedback. I know it's been a great experience for me, and I'm sure that if I was to teach the same module again next year it would be infinitely easier, given that we've actually written lecture material, summary tests, problem sets etc. already. But no, not again.

Took a very brief trip home for the weekend after the first 3 weeks in Bermuda (first week was prep, then two weeks of teaching) for one of my friends’ wedding. They sent out the date ages ago, before I agreed to do this, and I desperately wanted to go. What with buying the flight home etc it means I pretty much just broke even with the teaching, but I can cope with that. I desperately needed a break from being on station and around work all the time. Had a wonderful weekend, the wedding in Cheltenham was lovely, and it was so nice to see Adam and Anna so happy :) Then a drive back to Gatwick from Cheltenham the next morning (via a quick detour around Cheltenham to find a MacDonald’s breakfast!) and back on the plane to BDA! Non-stop lifestyle.

Finished off the week with the annual BIOS underwater pumpkin carving contest for certified divers on station. One pumpkin per buddy team, no cuts allowed until you were in the water with your pumpkin. They are amazingly buoyant, and we had to cut into ours at the surface to let the air out before we could sink with it. Even then we had to put dive weights in him to make sure he didn’t float away! The current was very strong and the visibility was pretty poor, as we were diving straight off the dock into Ferry Reach. We were supposed to be taking the boat round to Whalebone bay to dive, but thanks to Tropical Storm Shary coming through, that idea was abandoned!

In the end we (myself and Becky) won scariest pumpkin, for our anglerfish :) we did have a coat hanger to attach the lure (an orange with a face carved in it) onto the top of the fish (pumpkin) but somehow we lost it in the struggle to get the pumpkin down onto the seabed. Hilarious.

Then, dressing up for the Halloween party at the wind. I went as a pumpkin. So orange!!! Am still finding orange in my ears and elbows and fingers etc, even after 3 showers!!! It was a genuinely hilarious evening, and a brilliant way to end a very stressful few weeks. The best bit was that a lot of people didn't recognise me for a while (mainly till I opened my mouth and started talking!!)

After the weekend I have until Wednesday to chill out (mostly do some marking), and maybe meet with people here about my own research, and then I am finally flying back home. Hoorah!!!! I am so excited, because apart from very flying visits in-between my crazy schedule, I feel like I haven’t really been home since the beginning of September, and even then I was only home for 3 weeks. Cannot wait for English winter (I know I won’t be saying this in a week or two, but for now, I’m looking forward to it!!) and proper roast dinners, and having the fire and heating on. Yes!

Hello Hawaii

Why did I not notice on my flight itinerary that my flight from London to LA was going to be TEN AND A HALF HOURS LONG! Seriously did not know this before I got on the plane and they announced flying time. Not happy. Already got up at 5.30, and been travelling since 6am. Time for a coffee and buy a book before getting on the plane. Needless to say, I read the entire book on the flight, and still had a few hours at the end in which to try and entertain myself. Eventually I found Sudoku on the “in-flight games” section on the little entertainment screens. That kept me amused for a while. Didn’t have long in LA, just an hour and a half or so, during which time I managed to spill a Starbucks frappucino all over myself (and the hallway floor in the airport). Error. LA to Honolulu was another 5 and a half hour flight, and then a shuttle bus to the hotel. By this time it was about 9pm Hawaii time, or 10am the next day UK time, and hadn’t really slept at all. Kept falling asleep on the shuttle bus and was fairly worried I was going to miss my stop, until I realised that our hotel was at the “end of the line” for the shuttle bus. 27 hours of travelling in total.

Bus pickup at 8am the next day for the first day of the conference – 4 cups of coffee consumed by 10.30am. Actually a very useful conference/workshop as it turns out which was good. Conference dinner on the first night, at which I fell asleep at the table. Not cool. Extremely jetlagged. Went out for sushi the next night, I had garlic Ahi yum yum yum. Conference finished on the Thursday, with enough time for me to do a 50minute run before dinnertime. Walked down into Waikiki to get a coffee and then back to the hotel to do some work for my upgrade presentation when I got back to the UK.

Managed to wangle a few days extra, so had Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning as holiday time. Spent Friday morning working, and then went to the Honolulu Zoo :) and whilst I was there of course I took tonnes of photos. It’s actually quite a good zoo, the only thing I didn’t like was the smallness of the tiger enclosure. Big cats should have big enclosures so they can run around and stretch their legs. (Oh, and shave-ice is the best thing ever - shaved ice, with syrup on it..... mmmmmmmm)

After that I spent an hour or so on the beach outside the hotel, went for a swim a few times, and generally just chilled out. Little bit more work after that, and then out for dinner with a friend in Hawaii. Unfortunately was so tired that I was very antisocial and didn’t really make the most of the night! Another friend was staying too, so in the morning we caught a cab back into Waikiki and did the Diamond Head crater hike. Awesome views from the top, although it was already getting pretty busy when we were there.

Afternoon was a trip to the North shore with our friend John and his lovely lady friend Abby for them to do some surfing, and for Sarah and I to soak up some sun :) then to a party in Waimea Bay once John had dropped Sarah at the airport, just the most amazing sunset I think I’ve ever seen, and such a perfect place – pool, hammock between trees, pagoda-type thingy with a bench under it, and waves rolling in past the rocks into the bay.

Sunday morning we mainly spent plebbing around the house, did a bit more work, then went out to a sushi bar for some lunch, before they took me to the airport. Then began the long haul home, 8 and a half hour flight to Chicago, 3 hours in Chicago O’Hare airport, and then a 7 and a half hour flight back to Heathrow, a two hour wait for my National Express coach, and then a 80minute coach journey back to Southampton. Greeted by the news (at 2.30am) that my car was leaking petrol everywhere, and I needed to catch a taxi home from the bus station instead of being collected. I have never been so pleased to crawl into my own bed.

Mountain Madness and Marrakech Mayhem

So once I got back from racing in Amsterdam, I had 4 days at work before the August bank holiday weekend (gotta love three-day weekends!) in which to prepare a talk for a conference. Went home for the bank holiday weekend, saw the fam, and went to a friend’s house for dinner and drinks. Faded pretty quickly so called in the parentals for a taxi home, and curled up in my own bed. Straight down to Cambridge the next day, for a friend’s 30^th, complete with bouncy castle in the garden. Felt really guilt because I was so tired that I snuck off back to my tent at about midnight!! Then the haul back to Southampton on the Monday lunchtime, and then conference Tuesday through Thursday.

Then comes the fun part. Caught the train up to Gatwick on Friday morning, and met up with my friend Steph. We did our undergraduate and masters degrees together, but we haven’t managed to meet up with each other since we graduated over two years ago. Every time she comes to Southampton I seem to be in a different country! Royal Air Maroc flight, all was fine apart from some pretty alarming rattles on take-off, and some HORRIFIC turbulence about 15 minutes before landing. Not a fan. Taxi from the airport into the centre of Marrakech, and then the joy of trying to find our hostel in unmarked streets. Took an afternoon walk around Djeema el-Fna and the souks, and just tried to take in some of the amazing amount of sounds and sights. We landed on the Friday that was Eid, to celebrate the end of Ramadan, so when we came back out for dinner later, the whole square was packed, total chaotic business everywhere! Met up with my other friend Steff and her friends, as they happened to be in Marrakech at the same time, and were just coming to the end of their holidays. It was actually quite useful because it meant that they’d already had a chance to do some shopping, and could tell us decent prices etc (I’m not a fan of the whole haggling for purchases malarkey, I’m always scared that I’m going to get ripped off).

Walked to the new city the next day with our massive backpacks, in the 38degree heat! We were trying to be respectful, as is suggested in all the guides, so we made sure that we had our shoulders and backs always covered, but there were a huge number of women tourists who obviously didn’t care about that..... Anyway, we finally found the hotel we were staying in to meet our hiking group, and best of all, the hotel had a swimming pool!!!!! Whooot! Instant afternoon by the pool :)

Set off the next day up into the Atlas mountains, with a group of 14 of us, from all over the world which was quite fun. Drove as far as Imlil, and then walked up to Aremd which was where we would be based for the next few days. Had some lunch, and then a few of us went for a gentle potter around before we did a couple of hours walking later in the afternoon to see the nearest village etc.

We stayed in Aremd for 4 nights, and did some fabulous days of walking. The group was a really good, friendly group, we played a lot of cards, insulted each other a lot, and generally had a fab time. Weather was fab, hot and dry during the day (such a nice change to Bermuda!) and then cooling down quite considerably at night which was lovely. We had 2 more nights at the hotel in Marrakech when we came back, and on one of the days we had a proper guide to take us around Marrakech and see some of the sights which was actually really useful. Went to a couple of cool places, some cool areas of the souks, and also to a traditional Berber pharmacy. I bought daddy some Moroccan spices :) yum yum.

Basically spent the next two days walking around Marrakech, shopping, playing cards, trying to talk French (and mostly succeeding!), and then had one last night in a hostel (with a pool!!!) before our flight home. Found a maggot in a date that I was eating and nearly threw up on Steph. Eurgh. Same horrible turbulence about 15 minutes out of the airport, but apart from us leaving an hour and a half late, not too bad. Had to drive back to Southampton from Gatwick as the boy had come to collect me, but actually probably shouldn’t have been driving, considering he’d dislocated his shoulder earlier on in the week........ eventually got back to Southampton at about midnight, unpacked my bags, repacked my bags, sorted my laundry, and set my alarm for 5.30am the following morning so that I could catch my 6am National Express coach to Heathrow, to fly to Hawaii.........

Time to travel

Haven’t been managing very well to keep up with this blog, but at least it’s still running (even if it’s more like a slow shuffle instead). I’ve barely had time to stop and breathe in the last few months, and I get the impression that won’t really stop until mid November when I get back to the UK. For now anyway, I’m going to try and keep more up to date, starting with some of the places I’ve been in the last month or so. I seriously need to plant a small forest soon, my carbon footprint this year is horrific (although I am building up a steady amount of air miles!!!)

So, first stop, Morocco.........

August activities

Well. Somehow now it’s nearly September. I arrived back in the UK just over three weeks ago. After one night at home, straight back to Southampton for rowing training for EUSA regatta. And when I say straight back, I mean straight back to a training session, still with the car fully loaded. Note; don’t ever try and move house in a classic mini. It’s a ridiculous idea in theory and in practice. After 4 days of outings, I was finally ordered to have a day off, when the jetlag STILL hadn’t gone away (not really surprising), but in general, the two and a half weeks of training have just blurred into one. I had one day off after that, so went home for a lovely Saturday walk in the countryside with one of my friends from school followed by the mandatory pub lunch (after a total soaking in the rain).

In the two weeks of training, we totalled 14 outings in 12 days (had two days off), and 175km of rowing. That’s not a huge amount when you compare it to what the top level crews do as training, but when you consider that in theory I am supposed to be working full time as well, you can imagine that it becomes quite a drain. I didn’t unpack from Bermuda for 5 days because I was so busy.

Caught the early morning flight to Amsterdam on Thursday, and then had Thursday evening outing, Friday early morning outing, race for lanes on Friday afternoon, Saturday early morning and late afternoon outings, Sunday early morning outing, and final on Sunday afternoon. Exhausting. We got fairly well dominated by what we think are actually the world cup under 23 crews from Poland and Germany, and a crew from Durham university that we know has several girls in who have done internal squad stuff at under 23 level as well. So in that respect we didn’t do badly for a small university boat club, especially seeing as we get (in comparison) very little funding from our athletic union.

Racing was at the Bosbaan rowing lake (the first man-made racing lake to be built apparently!).

Saturday daytime gave us an opportunity to go off into Amsterdam and explore by bicycle which was awesome. It’s a really lovely city, and I’m desperate to go back again when I have a bit more free time and can enjoy the atmosphere properly! Cycling around was awesome fun, I've never seen so many bikes in my life! Also loved the fact that we hired bikes where there are no brakes, you have to pedal backwards to brake. Nearly took a couple of people out (several times) by instinctively reaching for the handlebar brakes and not stopping in time!

Back home now for another 2 weeks or so, still need to write a conference presentation (first presentation at a conference – eeeeek!!!), and try and fit in an upgrade meeting with my supervisors sometime before the 10^th of September – not quite sure how that is going to happen.

Just realised that my holiday I booked months ago is actually really soon, and hadn’t even thought about checking all the logistics of it, like how I’m going to get to the airport, whether I need any vaccinations, what money I need, what clothing I need, whether I need to buy anything before I go, what stuff I need to collect from home etc. Fortunately the friend I am going on holiday with is slightly more clued up than I am. Morocco here we come!!! (and then straight off to Hawaii 12 hours later – that’s a totally different stress in itself, although the flights are booked now, all I have to do is work out how to get to and from the airports for my respective flights). The worst thing is that no-one has any sympathy for the stress because it’s super fun places that I’m going to!!! :) Super looking forward to holiday though, Fear not - pictures will follow!