I'm Home!!!

Afternoon!

I have returned to the homeland, back to beautiful Northern Ireland (yay!). Our flight (as Tal came back with me) was slightly delayed but we landed in Belfast International at about 10:30 last night. I am super pleased to be back home but I shall now take the opportunity to fill you in on what I've got up to over the last couple of weeks.

Term ended for me on the 19th December with a lovely Molecular and Cellular Biology assessment, how fun! But it appeared to have gone rather well as roughly three quarters of the questions asked were on two of the past papers I had already done.
I spent that Friday night in my house with my housemates and another couple of people just chilling and listening to music which was lovely considering I won't be seeing them for four weeks.

We set off on Saturday morning, getting the train from Canterbury to Waterloo where we had a lovely bite to eat and collected Tal's younger sister and then made our way to Poole, where we would be staying for Christmas.
I'll not divulge all details about the holidays as they are personal times spent with family but I had such a wonderful time in Dorset. We went to the pantomime to see Mother Goose at Salisbury Playhouse which was hilarious, and contained all the usual "oh no you didn't" and "he's behind you". I also had the pleasure of being able to have a few lovely walks with the gorgeous Giant Schnauzer Ella along bridleways and through the fields; it was so relaxing being back out in the country again after being in a city for the past three months. An added bonus was going the the Boxing Day hunt meet which was just amazing. I am a huge lover of all dogs and horses so being at the meet just made my day; also allowed me to point out my favourite horses for future reference for whoever was listening!

Due to thick fog last night, we only got back home just before 12 midnight and we decided it would be the ideal time for presents! Tal and I had got mum two little angel tree decorations as when she was over visiting at the start of the month, she had saw them in the Canterbury Cathedral shop and had loved them but they unfortunately only had one in the colour (gold) that she wanted. We were just happened to spot them in the window of the shop in Canterbury and much to my relief, they were both intact when mum opened them up! My dad is an avid and brilliant cook so I got him some hot ketchup which I thought he would really like, though I can't wait to have some! I'm still yet to get my brother his present as it involves him having a car, which he hasn't quite got yet!

Archie, my lhasa apso dog, seemed incredibly pleased to see me, though I was told that I looked much happier to be reunited with him!

The weather here is lovely, it's frosty and rather slippy as we found out when we took Archie for a walk earlier, but it is so wonderful to be back in my own bed and to be back with my family, who I missed dearly.
Tonight I shall also be reunited with my school friends as we're all going out for dinner to our one of our favourite restaurants, the Winebar in Portrush, where we shall be doing our secret Santa, cannot wait to see them all and to get some yummy food too!

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year!

Catherine xxx

Holidays are coming!!

Evenin'!

Apologies for my lack of posting, the past few weeks have been very busy with practicals and various assessments and just general lectures, meaning I haven't had any time to post anything for you!

In my first assessment, for my Genetics and Evolution module, I had to complete a karyotyping assessment. For those of you who don't know what karyotyping is then count yourself lucky! No I'm only kidding, genetics is the best thing but having to sort out chromosomes into pairs when so many of them look identical is so difficult but I still (thankfully) managed to get 82% which I'm rather pleased with saying as it was my first time doing karyoptying.

My second assessment was actually an assessed practical for the Introduction to Biochemistry part of my course. The practical itself wasn't overly difficult with my lab partner Katherine (yes I know, how typical that we have the same name!) finishing earlier than expected so we had plenty of time to complete graphs and various calculations. The main problem with the experiment was that no one, literally no one out of around 250 biosciences students, got good or correct answers...opps! Meaning that all our answers were incorrect but the working out of the calculations is correct as Katherine is a complete maths genius!

But yes, more about my post title.... IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!
I really wasn't at all excited about Christmas this year but as I type this, the boys in my house are cooking a wonderful Christmas dinner and it smells delicious! I honestly wish you could all smell it as you would be super jealous.

 The boys cooking away

I am so lucky as last weekend, my mum and my brother Adam came and stayed with me for just over four days. It was so lovely to be able to spend time with them and to show the the area I'm currently living in, and to even go and do some exploring of places I hadn't yet been to. Mum and Adam spent the Friday in Canterbury doing some well deserved retail therapy after a flight and two hours worth of a train journey just to get here! On the Saturday myself, mum and Adam went and explored Whistable and Herne Bay, where I hadn't been before. Both are lovely little seaside towns full of cute little shops and some more well known shops such as Boots and Peacocks. Mum bought me two adorable little Wade Whimsies, of which I have a collection of over 70 at home after being given my great-grandfather's collection by my aunt Peggy. Sunday was their full last day so I gave the tour of the university ad we also went down into Canterbury and visited the Cathedral, being in time for the Evening service. I bid them farewell on Monday morning as they started the almost five hour journey all over again! It was a lovely few days and I cannot wait to get home to see them all both again and to see my dad, grandparents, friends and my little pup Archie! I hope there's snow when I'm home; Northern Ireland is covered in it apparently!

Last Tuesday (9th December), I was so proud to have been part of the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment's annual carol service where I played flute with the Army Reserve PWRR band and also slow marched down the nave to the Cathedral along with the drum corps playing Little Drummer Boy on the piccolo. It was such an incredible experience, made even better by playing with such an amazing bunch of musicians.

My housemates have gone all out in decorating our house, we even have a real Christmas tree!! I can't really describe how fabulous or cute it is so I'll just post some pictures here for you to have a look at instead!

I'll hopefully get much better at blogging, I really haven't been very organised but I shall get my bum into gear and get posting more to keep everyone up to date!

What are you doing to celebrate Christmas?

Catherine xxx

PS. I had written this during the afternoon (hence no other pictures) but forgot to upload it!