Missing Aberystwyth

Today's BEDM challenge is to share what you miss. So originally I thought I'd talk about the most important thing I miss, the boyfriend. But really, who wanted to be depressed about long-distance relationships when you're trying to have a relaxing Sunday night in front of Netflix. By the by, the film 50/50 sounds like it would be utterly grim as a comedy about cancer but it really is a great one. One of only three films to have ever made me cry though (literal real tears! People who know me know I don't do crying at films). You guys should watch it, especially if you are already slightly in love with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Anywho, the other thing I miss an incredible amount is Aberystwyth. Obviously when I moved to Lancaster for this year I expected to miss it because I'd miss the people and the fun times that go hand in hand with being at university there. But honestly, I do just miss the place itself. Here's some of the things I miss, which I totally took for granted before.

The starling cloud over the pier to a backdrop of the autumn sunset

Via

The incredible views

Via

The volatile nature of the sea

Via

Welsh pride

Via

The beautiful buildings

Via

The million and one different colour rocks that the beach sand is composed of (Geography geek alert!)

Via

And yeah, ok, I really do miss the people.

Easter With The Scousers

Helloooo, helloooo!
Happy belated Easter to you all. I hope you all had a lovely long weekend scoffing Sunday roast and chocolate eggs until fit to burst. Or however you chose to spend it.

Seeing as this time a year ago I was in Queenstown, New Zealand (the most incredible place I've ever been), whizzing around on a jet-boat, drinking from tankards in a cowboy bar and galavanting with kiwis (the birds, the fruit, the people, you name it!), this year's Easter had a lot to live up to. And live up to it it did! I've spent the last 6 days in Liverpool with the boyfriend and his family. And it was an absolutely b-e-a-utiful Easter weekend! We did all those fun, lazy things like walk along the beach and play board games and get far to emotional about Deal Or No Deal on TV. I love going to stay down in Liverpool because Elliot has such a big family which is such a contrast to my teeny, tiny one. There's always big family meals or some sort of gathering going on. And there was even an Easter Sunday engagement!

And there are so many cool places to go in Liverpool. So I thought I'd put together a bit of a collection of my favourite places to visit and things to see when down that way.

Pub and Bars
There are too many pubs, clubs and bars to say which one is my favourite. Actually, that's not true - my absolute favourite is Scream. Its just such a great, lazy student sort of atmosphere with some good drinks deals and a few pool tables. We usually start the night here whether its a an evening of casual drinks or a proper night out. Whether we are out or out-out, as they say. Just down the road is another good'un is Hannah's Bar; they've got some amazing cocktails and get some pretty good live bands. And then of course there's The Cavern which claims to be the 'cradle of British music', most well known for being a popular with the Beatles (what legends!) who gigged there over 300 times. Now the Cavern has live music most nights a week, including a Beatles tribute band every Saturday. The place is a bit cave, but a pretty epic cave nonetheless. Make sure to take the obligatory photograph with the John Lennon statue outside.

John Lennon at the Cavern Club/Pub

Culture
There are several museums in Liverpool and I've been to a few. My favourite is the Museum of Liverpool at Pier Head. We went when it first opened in 2011 and I'd love to go again to see when new things they've got there now. Another is the Beatles museum at the Albert Dock. To be honest I've never been as tickets are pretty pricey but I'm sure it'll be on the cards one day. Albert Dock is worth a visit without going to the Beatles museum anyway. There's the Tate Gallery which whiles away a few hours and its free.

View of the Museum of Liverpool (middle) from the Albert Dock

The Fresh Air
There's loads of pretty places in and around Liverpool. This weekend we took the dog for a walk in Sefton Park, and then again at Crosby beach. I absolutely adore the iron figures which are dotted up and down the beach. The are Antony Gormley's Another Place which consists of 100 real size cast-iron naked figures. I love how some are out to sea and some are on the sand, some of which are half buried. And how this is continually changing as the tide comes and goes. We were feeling pretty loved up and content with life as we walked along the beach on Easter sunday which probably helped me fall in love with it that little bit more. Formby Point just along the coast is also a beautiful beach with massive sand dunes.

Antony Gormley's 'Another Place' at Crosby beach. 

Sport
Its got to be Goodison Park. I have loyalties to Elliot, and therefore to Everton.
And, as a horse fanatic, to go to the races at Aintree is on my bucket list. We drove past the racecourse yesterday and saw that they were getting it ready for the Grand National this weekend. I had my face smooshed up against the window like a toddler driving past Disneyland.

I'm back in Lancaster now though (sad face). Definitely wasn't ready for this weekend to end so soon. Got quite a bit of the dissertation introduction written this afternoon though but I am absolutely knackered now, so I am monging on the sofa. Might even crack open an Easter egg.

Anyone else from Liverpool or been there recently?
And where have other people been for Easter weekend?

Discalimer: I took none of these photographs. Oh, the joys of Google images. 

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The (Brief) Return To Student Life

Hello, hello.

So, loads of interesting stuff has happened since my last post which is why I momentarily disappeared - every time I would go to sit down and blog something else would crop up. And the most recent addiction to The Walking Dead hasn't helped matters. But now I'm back in Lancaster I'm also back to blogging.

I took a week holiday and finally went back to see all my university people in Aberystwyth. I hadn't been since my birthday in November and it was amazing to finally feel that 'coming home' buzz again. It helps that it's such a beautiful place, and the weather was fantastic while I was there; cold but brilliantly sunny all week and not a single drop of rain. Gave us some phenomenal sunsets. I took this photograph on the first night I was there when I realised it was going to be a beauty; ran out the house and down to the beach in my pyjamas, and think I was a tad too late to get the full effect but it still makes a pretty picture.

Aberystwyth pier at sunset

Totally reverted back to the student way of life while I was down there, though it was a difficult transition. Fair enough, that first KFC meal went down a treat but that was largely because cooking in a messy student kitchen was not my idea of fun for my first night there. The next morning I woke up at the usual time of 8am. I should probably mention at this point that I was in Aberystwyth to stay with my boyfriend Elliot who is in his final year at university. He works in a bar and had finished work at 3am. 5 hours later I'm awake and all excited to embrace the sunny world of Aberystwyth. He, unfsurprisingly, was not quite so enthusiastic. Still, cut to week later and the roles have reversed; I'm the one being grumpily pried out of bed at noon. Ah, the student life.

We went for a mooch around the woods at the top of Penglais Hill on my first full day in Aberystwyth. It was  a beautiful day and there are loads of spots like this that I've still never discovered before.

Elliot, striding ahead through the woods

View from the woods across the valley. 

We also went to see a David Marmot play called 'Sexual Perversity in Chicago' which was about the screwed up sex lives of four people in America in the 1970's. Pretty interesting stuff. And the last day we spent in the woods again this time shooting each other with paintball guns. Wicked fun! Other than that, we had a few nights in and a few nights out having some drinks with various groups of people. The nights Elliot worked I caught up with some other friends. Many people told me about the horrors of writing their dissertation; I am not looking forward to that hell in a year's time. I also signed the contract for my house for next year which is Elliot's current house, and I'll be in his current room! It's typically manly and boring at the moment but I am determined to make it amazing because it has so much potential with a gorgeous big bay window and a marble mantlepiece. I've already sneakily measured it out with a tape measure, deciding how to rearrange everything and make it mine. Made me very excited to go back in September, and much more reluctant to leave on Sunday.

Alas, the real world was calling. Not all that bad as I had this huge box of Celebrations waiting for me than my parents had dropped off and I had yet to open. I only took a photo from the outside because I'm scared you will judge how much chocolate I've eaten in the last few days...

This week has been a pretty good week so far though; apparently the sun followed me back to Lancaster which made collecting some stream samples for my dissertation up at Moor House really quite blissful yesterday. Quite surreal really when the sun is so strong that I was scared of sunburn and yet the river was still frozen over and I was tramping through snow. Today I was looking at CVs of the applicants for my replacement. It definitely drove home the fact that I'm now over half-way through my placement! Though I am strangely curious to meet the applicants at their interviews, in a perversely morbid way.

Before I go I feel the need to share this wonderful song called Let Her Go by Passenger that a friend recomended. Passenger came from very humble busker beginning and, despite his strange helium-like voice, he makes some beautiful noise. Also, quick plug for the musically-inclined friend who introduced me to this music. He goes by the name of Tom Bedlam these days, check out his covers of various songs.

Moor House

Rough Sike frozen over in the snow

Today was round two of Moor House fieldwork this week. This time we did manage to get there despite the snow and even drove most of the way (when the snow is bad we usually abandon the car at a suitable place and walk the 4 miles there and then back). It was an amazingly beautiful day to be out there; not too windy (miracle!) and sunny with a covering of snow about a foot deep. Obviously that high up and with that much snow, it was cold though. The dry air temperature was 0.6 degrees C today so not too bad compared to other weeks we've been (one time it was -4.5 at about 11am) but the river was -0.6 degrees C.

Trout Beck and view towards the TSS

Walking up to the meteorological area in the snow

Moor House, by the way, is a National Nature Reserve (NNR) in the North Pennine uplands. Most of the area is peatland which is broken up by the occasional grassland, hay meadow and deciduous woodland. The source of the river Tees is at the head of the Trout Beck catchment, the river which runs through the NNR. My work involves collecting meteorological data as well as surface water and soil solution samples from Moor House on a weekly basis. Additional data are collected on vertebrate and invertebrate populations, though this begins later in the spring. I am also conducting my own research project on dissolved organic carbon in the Trout Beck river which will become my dissertation when I return to university next academic year.

Walking up to the old site of the Moor House

The snow creature I made

Moor House is undeniably one of the most beautiful places I've ever been; the fact that it's so cold and a bitch to travel to just makes me forget it sometimes.

H x

Snow Days and Seminars

We had a snow day at work yesterday. The plan was to do the usual weekly environmental monitoring fieldwork at Moor House National Nature Reserve, the primary site of peatland research for the department I work in. However Mother Nature, bless her, had other plans.

This was the snow at the road to Moor House. Our tyre tracks were the only snow disturbance for miles around. It was breathtakingly beautiful; a completely different world. Especially as Lancaster didn't have a single flake of snow all day! Anyway, the snow was so deep and drifting so much that we abandoned all fieldwork plans and came back again because the risk of getting stuck up there was too great. Which would not be the best idea; it's too remote for any phone signal, we were three hours walk from any kind of help and I'd got peckish on the car journey there and eaten half my lunch already.

And I'm very glad we did turn around in hindsight because as soon as we started driving home the heavens opened again and the heaviest snow storm I think I've ever seen started. The flakes were so giant and dense that the world was white in a matter of minutes.

Heading back south along the motorway was a bit scary; we could barely see because the snow was so thick and only the inside lane was safe to drive on. Still, we made it back to Lancaster in one piece where everyone seemed a bit doubtful as to how much so there was a mere few miles northwards. I spend the afternoon database inputting and then rewarded myself with the best thing ever after a morning battling the elements on a remote, windswept moor...a Starbucks signature hot chocolate.

I met my ex-housemate from my previous (and disastrous) Lancaster house-share and we caught up on what we'd been up to over Christmas and how our respective jobs/university courses are going (she's training to be a mid-wife, way too much contact with other people's bodily fluids for my liking but I guess someone's got to do it!) whilst attempting (and largely failing) to drink hot chocolate in a respectable way i.e. without getting whipped cream all over our noses.

Then I had to run home and meet Kasia, a girl I met through work who is studying for her PhD on a very similar topic to what I am currently researching for my dissertation. She recently moved to Reading but was back in Lancaster to attend the Moor House seminar today. I offered her a sofa to stay on so she could arrive in Lancaster a day earlier than the seminar for a catch-up and a drink. Except this drink was of the alcoholic variety and involved the pub quiz. A group of us from work always got to the pub quiz at The Sun every week in an attempt to usurp the team of elderly know-it-alls from the top spot. They always still win but we do get a selection of free cheese (Lancaster is seriously obsessed with cheese I have found) and bread half way through the evening.

The seminar was quite good today, though it's a bit of a surreal feeling to be chatting to someone who you've admired from afar for their views on dissolved organic carbon trends published in Nature journal articles over the provided lunch of steak pie and some sort of strange looking vegetable paste. My dad was there too because he works for an environmental management company and I had all his colleagues coming up to me and saying "Ooooh, I haven't seen you since were THIS big!" They seemed to find it surprising that I had somewhat matured in the last 10 years. Still, I suspect I too will be guilty of exclaiming "My, how you've grown!" at such events in the future to some little toerag out there who is currently unable to eat solids but will blog about how annoying it is that old people can't believe child do, in fact, grow up.

I'm blabbing now. Goodnight.

H x