March 2014 - Winter goes on... and on... and on...

March was a pretty quiet month, characterised by the remains of what felt like a never-ending winter, not helped by the clocks going back way too early meaning that we went from it starting to get light when the alarm went off, to getting up in the dark again. But that's past now :)

We started out with an ice-skating trip with the Hopkins Postdoc association at Patterson Park. It took me a while to find my feet after a few years of not skating, but it was so much fun! N meanwhile was just an orange blur speeding round and round the rink.

We followed this up with a trip out to Catonsville for a leaving meal for one of N's colleagues at the best Chinese restaurant ever! Apparently it was very authentic, and the two Chinese people in attendance made excellent choices for us!

And of course we couldn't start March without Welsh cakes to celebrate St David's Day.

Pancake Day saw us at N's boss' house for a traditional English-style celebration, complete with lemon and sugar :) I even flipped one for the first time!

The night before the clocks went back we headed north-east to try out the Hamilton Tavern with some friends, to try out the reportedly awesome burgers. We turned up with seven of us on a Saturday night to this tiny, popular bar which doesn't take reservations, so needless to say we had a bit of a wait! It was fine though because the atmosphere and the company were great. Although unfortunately the food did not turn out to be worth the wait

Probably the defining theme of March was wedding planning! With only three months to go things really stepped up a notch (I must admit to getting a little stressed for a minute there) and we got a lot of stuff sorted. My dress arrived and I've already had two fittings, I bought shoes, we got our rings, and made lots of other decisions too. It's all getting very exciting now!!!

What with the dress picking-up and fittings I did a above average amount of driving in March, including a trip out to Roland Park to try the brunch at Johnny's Downstairs. It was sooooooo good! I had a chai latte that was so good I practically downed it, and gobbled up my omelette before everyone else had barely even started!

That day was book-ended by fun meals with friends (we won't mention the hour and twenty minutes I waited for a bus in between...), as we headed back to N's boss' house for a dinner party to celebrate his promotion to associate professor! Congrats Dr Edden!

Shortly after this N headed off to Berlin for a conference but was back within a week. In the meantime I went to the roller derby to watch the Charm City Roller Girls compete in their home league, again a Postdoc Association event, which as always was a lot of fun.

Oh and a couple of sweet treats courtesy of my awesome colleagues this month. Firstly I finally tried the legendary holiday treat, Peeps. Very intriguing, basically scary marshmallow shapes covered in coloured sugar. And a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for St Patrick's Day, so cool!

And that was March. Obviously with a hefty amount of work thrown in there too :)

How was your March? Was it still winter where you are, or have you been enjoying some beautiful spring weather? Surprise snail mail for anyone who leaves a comment below! :D

January 2014 - Cardiff Hen Do Fun Times!

OK so yes, I totally failed at updating you on the second half of 2013. In fact all I managed to do before giving up was give a summary of the first half of 2013, which I had already told you about! Needless to say, the second half of 2013 was busy. I've put some photos up here for your perusal, from Independence Day to New Years Eve. If you want to know more about any of our adventures from last year just ask and I'll write about it!

But anyway, onwards to 2014, a year which promises much excitement, and has in fact already offered up some fun times! Instead of trying to do a weekly blog post and failing miserably, I think I'm going to aim for a monthly round-up, with extras as I fancy. Let's see how I do!

Our year started like this:

No, we didn't have people over! XD

This was shortly followed a couple of days later by a lovely meal at Alewife with some new friends.

And then... we got back from a fleeting visit to Cardiff a whole month ago already! Ten days in the motherland certainly made me feel totally homesick for the UK, but I'm feeling much better now that we're back in our apartment. We fit so much into that short time, and I managed to see loads of my friends, in no small part due to my awesome sister being in cahoots with said friends to organise me a fabulous HEN DO! Bur more of that shortly.

We arrived at Lemon HQ on the Sunday afternoon after an uneventful journey. My marvellous friends let us stay even though they're both knee deep in work right now, so a massive thank you to both of them, especially Kate for giving up her bed! We were promptly treated to a proper roast dinner, a great start to our stay.

N was right off to work on the Monday morning, even though he wasn't supposed to be working on this trip, go figure! I spent most of the day chilling over jetlag, but did go in the MRI for the first time in the afternoon for one of N's studies. It was much louder than I expected, but fine really.

On the Tuesday we met a friend for lunch at one of our favourite cafes in an arcade in the city centre, The Plan, which serves the most amazing salmon baguettes. Then spent the afternoon relishing the novelty of shopping on a high street, before collecting my friend from the train station who had awesomely taken a couple of her days off to come down from Sheffield to see me :D We had sushi for dinner at our favourite Japanese restaurant in Roath, Tenkaichi. I wish I'd taken more photos!

The Wednesday involved much chilling and shopping - my friend and I both bought new phones! And a lovely lunch at another favourite arcade-based cafe, Madame Fromage, where I indulged in ginger beer and a panini featuring chorizo. Then of course it rained (similar to every afternoon we spent in Cardiff) so I had fun picking up the hire car and driving back to Roath through the rush hour traffic, before having to put my friend back on a bus to the train station :(

On the Thursday I drove N & I down to Dorset for the day so that he could visit our wedding venue for the first time. We made it through some torrential rain on the M5 and trudged through some mud, and thankfully N loved it! Yay! We also met our photographer who was sooooo lovely! Excitement! Then we headed for Montacute House to meet my lovely aunty for lunch, before driving back to Cardiff through some more rain. Great day!

Friday lunchtime saw my little sister arrive in Cardiff. We spent the afternoon shopping for bridesmaids dresses which was incredibly unsuccessful. Apparently our wedding colours are absolutely not in fashion right now! Once we were allowed back to the flat I was greeted by this:

Haha, oh dear! Hen do had begun! I had a surprise bake-off to judge, I was crowned Mary Berry for the evening! Amazing cupcakes and iced buns, and plenty of 90s pop. But best of all were these incredible mugs, one for every guest of the weekend (and N), all hand-drawn by the two fantastic residents of the Roath outpost! As if they didn't have enough to do! Thank you guys!

After not a huge amount of sleep we were all up bright and early for a mystery trip! After spending a not insubstantial time heading west on the M4 we eventually ended up near Tenby and met up with some more friends - we were doing high ropes! My sister is awesome, she had organised exactly what I asked for. Unfortunately I was waaaayyyy more terrified than I expected to be, as in, actually hysterical! But I am so proud of myself for facing my fears and doing 2/3 of the course, and hopefully everyone else had fun too! Unfortunately I was too busy to take photos, but one of friends who was waaaayyy too pregnant to do high ropes took lots for us, which you can see here. We followed this with some well-deserved (and long craved for) fish & chips and pots of tea in Tenby before heading back to the Roath outpost for pizza, and a quiz all about me! Which felt pretty narcissistic, but at least I didn't write the questions. Thank you Kate for putting it together (with N's help), they were great questions and it was fun to find out what all my crazy friends know and don't know about me! Everyone did pretty well though :)

The pace on the Sunday was entirely different as we headed for a spa in the countryside for a lovely chilled day of swimming, jacuzzi, steam room, sauna, sitting, drinking tea, lunch, reading magazines and having afternoon tea. But unfortunately the hen do had to end, with some sad goodbyes, but happy memories :)

Unfortunately there was no time for a lie-in on the Monday as it was time to do what we'd come for: the wedding license appointment! We had stayed our required seven consecutive nights in Cardiff so just had to show up and prove identities and we were set, as long as no-one came forward with any legal impediments before February 5th! We took some photos in Sherlock's mind palace (aka Cardiff University main building, which just happens to house the lab in which I did my PhD :D ), then I headed into town, spending some time saying goodbye to the city centre and buying British stuff to bring back, before a final meal with our lovely hosts.

And then Tuesday N and I headed to Cardiff Bay, to go to the Doctor Who Experience initially, which turned out to be closed on Tuesdays :( So instead we had a nice walk across the barrage and back, and some Wagamamas, before going to Starbucks to check in for our flight. The rest of the day was spent drying off, packing and basically waiting for our trip back to Baltimore, which started early on the Wednesday morning.

Everything went smoothly, although it was a long flight because of the wind. This did mean that I was able to watch four full films though! About Time (loved it!), We're The Millers (very funny), Blue Jasmine (meh) and Austenland (brainless, but fun to fill the couple of hours at the end of the flight when I couldn't think any more!)

But the January fun didn't end there! We were straight back to work on the Thursday, and then on the last Saturday of the month we headed out for brunch at our favourite spot, City Cafe, with our wonderful friends, and my favourite little girl :) It was actually the best brunch ever: I couldn't decide whether I wanted savoury or sweet so our friend suggested we get one of each and swap halfway through, it was the perfect balance of Croque Madame & French toast! That weekend was also filled with baking and cooking and tea: N made rolls, I made pork, chorizo & bean stew; and bara brith for St Dwynwen's Day, and set out afternoon tea with one of my new Christmas teapots and the milk & sugar set from my aunty, and I also tried out one of my Christmas flowering teas! So much excitement!

Anyway, that was a lot of writing, so well done if you made it to the end. I'm sure you didn't want to read every little detail of my month, but it turned into a bit of journalling so that I wouldn't forget the fun time we had! More pictures here. I hope you had a lovely January! What did you get up to? Any New Year's Resolutions? How are they going? Leave me a comment and I promise to send you a surprise item of snail mail! :D

Summery

Well, it appears I accidentally took a holiday from blogging since I left Baltimore, so I thought that rather than try to write a blog post about all the different things I've been doing this summer (which, it seems, is a lot!) I would write a little round-up post instead. Do you like my play on words in the title? I shouldn't be so proud of myself for that should I?! hehe!

So I'm going to be sparing with my photographs in this post, otherwise it will get too long. For more photos see my Facebook when I get around to putting them up. If you don't have Facebook and would like to see some more photos, then just let me know and I'll send you a link (unless you're a random psycho :P).

First Lemon to be wed! - 6th July

Three days after getting home I was off to Bath for the wedding of the first of my friends to get married! Unfortunately it rained all day, which sucked, but the beautiful bride and groom made the most of it and it was a lovely day.

And it was great to catch up with my Lemony friends after three months away :D

Tamzy's 21st! - 7th July

The following morning I hot-footed it up to Liverpool, cake in tow, to stay with my sister for a few days, first and foremost to celebrate her official entry into adulthood!

The weather even held out long enough to go on a ferry up the Mersey!

After several days of shopping and chilling (and eating out for pretty much every meal) it was time for the next main event

Tamzy's Graduation! - 11th July

Yes, it's true, my little sister is old enough to be graduating from university already! This scares me!

I like this one of my sister and our step-dad :D

Such a clever girly

Family meal! - 14th July

With so many things to celebrate, we made sure to meet up with our family in Exeter while both my sister and I were home in the south west. We went out for Thai food here and it was awesome! I didn't take many pictures, but even the starters were great:

My 25th Birthday! - 15th July

So, after spending three nights at home, it was time to be off again, this time to Cardiff. It was a funny birthday, mostly spent travelling and waiting for N's family to arrive. We had some time waiting in Cardiff city centre, which isn't the most interesting place late afternoon/early evening on a Sunday, so what did we do? Why a birthday photo challenge of course! And it being my birthday, I had to be in all the photos, which spell my name!

G - Gate

E - Escalator

M - Menu

M - Millennium Stadium

A - Aneurin Bevan

In the evening we went for a meal at a Portuguese restaurant with N's family and a couple of lovely Lemons. The meat on sticks was really tasty, but I can't say much for the over-cooked veg...

Mine + N's PhD Graduation! - 16th July

The following morning we donned some silly robes and headed to the city centre to graduate from our PhDs!

Unfortunately it tipped it down with rain all day, but we did have a lovely day and managed to get some great photos indoors.

We went for tea and cake in the afternoon.

And tapas for dinner.

Followed by drinks for some, and the most amazing cheesecake ever for others!

Holiday in The Netherlands! - 21st-28th July

This photo pretty much sums up our week in The Netherlands. Happy, sunny, cycling around, relaxing. The only thing that's missing is some yummy Dutch food in our mouths. We're probably holding sausage rolls in the hands you can't see in this picture hehe!

Unfortunately the holiday eventually had to end, and N had to go back to work in Baltimore. Sad times :(

My stay in Gloucestershire - 8th-12th August

I continued the fun though, staying with my good friend Panda Lemon and her lovely parents in Gloucestershire for a few days (thanks guys!). The weather was lovely, lots of Olympics was viewed, and we even found this lovely pub in the unassuming village of Cricklade, where I devoured a very tasty sausage and mustard sandwich!

Bristol Balloon Fiesta - 11th August

On a beautiful Saturday Panda and I headed to Bristol to meet more of our Lemony friends for the balloon fiesta and some catching up. We did a lot of great catching up, but unfortunately, even though the weather was gorgeous, the mass ascent of balloons had to be cancelled because it was too windy! Boooo! But the night glow in the evening was quite fun.

And I can't let that weekend go by without a mention of Panda's Dad's infamous BBQ. Amazing as always!

Weymouth - 18th August

Road trip! I went to Weymouth with some friends from school, to play Pirate crazy golf (I didn't come last woo!) and surprise another friend of ours in her mum's cafe! Fun day! And look at my new mascot:

The guys brought me a Wenlock from the Olympics! Thanks guys!

London - 19th/20th August

I had to go up to London (at this point I was saying to anyone who'd listen "I'd love to just have one week where I don't have to get on a train!") for my visa interview (more about this another time!), and took advantage of this by seeing my grandparents and my aunty while I was there. My grandparents live near Regent's Park, so while they were resting I decided to take advantage of the sunshine (30C! In London!) and go for a two hour long walk. Look who I came across on my travels!

I even made it up Primrose Hill. Prizes for anyone who spots the most London landmarks in this picture (also, you have very good eyesight, well done! Maybe it's better to check out the bigger version in Facebook!)

Burrow Farm Gardens - 25th August

Tamzy and I braved a torrential downpour to get to this beautiful place, where one of my aforementioned lovely friends from school was kind enough to show us around his grandparents gorgeous gardens as a potential wedding venue! It is soooooo incredibly beautiful there, even in the rain, absolutely loved it.

If you want to go there too, check out their website!


Wow, well this turned into a long post anyway in the end, sorry about that! But I hope you've enjoyed reading about how I've spent the past two months. I feel like I've been busy, and now that I've written it down I see that I have been! That's not even everything that I've done or everywhere I've been!

I fly tomorrow, so the next post will be from Baltimore. See you on the other side of the Atlantic!