Resolution time

Happy New Year readers!

Its been a while (as ever!) but one of my new year resolutions is to keep my blog updated more regularly. Other resolutions are to stop whinging so much and to get my ass in gear and find a way to earn a bit more money.

So what have I been up to since November 6th? Well I had my viva on November 11th and passed!!!! It was a terrifying but fabulous day and the feeling when they told me I'd passed and that they actually thought it was good work and I should be proud of myself was amazing. It made all the misery worthwhile. Since then I've handed in the corrections they gave me and I'm just waiting to find out if they're happy for me to print out the final copy and hand it in.

In December we went to Plas Newydd on Anglesey for a Christmas fair and a lovely wander around the grounds. Wish I'd taken my camera for that one because the view was fantastic but we're planning a return journey when the weather picks up so I'll get some photies then.

On my birthday we had a nice lunch at Blue Sky cafe in Bangor and a wander round the second hand bookshops. In the evening we went to Sian and Laurie's house for a Mulled Wine and Mince Pies evening. There was even a birthday cake for me which was fantastic and very yummy :) The boys got way too competitive over a game of beach cricket on the Wii and a good time was had by all.

I'll continue my rundown of festive activities in the next post (when I have my camera to hand and can put piccies on).

Normal service will resume shortly

Or perhaps even better than normal service which, lets face it, has tended to be fairly sporadic. This month's excuse is that I have my viva (big scary final exam thing for those not in the PhD business) next Tuesday and am therefore spending all my spare time at the moment cramming little facts into my cluttered brain. I'll let you know how it goes next week - keep anything you can spare crossed for me people!!

Carving out a life

So now the thesis is finished I've been able to actually start living properly again. I'm not saying I worked solidly for the last 9 months and had no fun at all (because, lets face it, if that was the case it wouldn't have taken me 9 months!) but whenever I have been enjoying myself I've always felt that guilt in the back of my mind - 'you should be working!'. Now that's gone I'm starting to carve a proper life for myself here. I've started playing badminton with Ben and some friends one evening a week and I've also started taking Welsh lessons. I'm hoping that it'll be useful for work, interesting and also a way to make some new friends as well. I've only had 3 lessons so far but its going quite well I think and I'm enjoying it. I'm also planning to get a knitting group started soon as well (if anyone from the area reads this and would be interested then get in touch). I'm really starting to enjoy life again and loving being here in Wales with my man :)

Man make fire, fire good

Here's a selection of photos from the first barbecue of the year round at Sian's house. Despite the fact that all the meat had already been cooked, Ben and Hank decided that they needed to show off their manliness and make fire:



I'm loving Ben's pose on this one!

Another successful day of being a man:

Sian's garden remained more or less in tact after this display of 'machoness'. Sarah's garden at a barbecue later in the year was not so lucky after an episode involving her chimnea, a bottle of citronella oil and very nearly the loss of my eyebrows ;)

Summer highlights

To mark the end of summer I've dug out my camera and found a few choice shots from this summer. Here's next door's cat having a sleep on the manhole cover in our back garden:

Here's a great view of Menai Bridge:

This is a gorgeous one of the Snowdon mountain range. I think it was sometime in April and there was snow on the mountains but lovely sunny days and it just looked perfect.

This one is from somewhere within the mountains when we went for a drive one day.

Bye bye summer

It would seem that summer has gone. After a week or so of really nice weather for September we finally got back to some traditional Welsh weather yesterday. Yes it's raining again :( Boo! It seemed like one day it was lovely and sunny, we woke up to sun streaming through the curtains and had nice long sunny evenings then today all of a sudden it was dark when I got out of bed, I needed the light on in the bathroom and I've had to dig out a hat and scarf. No gradual change. Boom - it's autumn! On the upside though it's a good excuse to get more knitting done :)

Back in action!

I did it! After the aforementioned 6 weeks of hard graft I finally finished the thesis :) So no excuse to not keep up with my blogging now. If I had kept up with it over the last 6 weeks it would have been very boring and read something like this:

Thursday: Went to work, got home, went to office and worked on thesis, slept.
Friday: As Thursday
Saturday: Went to work, watched X-factor, slept
Sunday: As Thursday
etc...

so it's probably for the good of everyone that I didn't bother. I've already been chastised by my friend Helen for not writing often enough so I'll have to put that right now.

Speaking of Helen, her and her hubby Richard came to stay with us for a few nights this weekend just gone. We had a lovely meal at the Bull at Beaumaris on Saturday night (although the wait between starters and main course was way too long!) and on Sunday night Ben cooked us all a lovely meal - roast dinner with chocolate pudding for dessert. Yum!!! Helen and Richard checked out Conwy during the day on Sunday and gave very good reports so I might have to try that one myself.

The students of Bangor University arrived back this week and the town immediately feels more buzzy. It's certainly helping sales on the shoe department! Is it wrong of me to convince them to spend their loan cheques on shoes before it all goes on boring stuff like rent and books? ;)