Jane Goodall

A friend posted this video on Facebook and I thought it was too good not to share. Not only is Jane Goodall an amazing human being for all that she's already done, but she's such an inspiration to keep on doing everything you can to make the world a better place for as long as you can.

If I'm 80 and still as articulate as her I'll be very pleased!

PhD graduation

Those who know me well have known that I absolutely love graduation - and that this one, for my PhD, would be particularly special because I would finally achieve the "floppy hat" that I'd been working towards for so long.

Outside the Old Building

There's just something about graduation - you spend so much of your time during a degree stressing about your work and whether it's good enough, and so to finally have the occasion to step back and really celebrate what you've achieved is really special. The fact that this graduation would be my last (I cannot see myself doing another PhD!) and that Mum and Dad had made the big trip over from New Zealand for it also made it one that I was really looking forward to.

Proud family!

We had a really lovely day - lunch with my supervisor Richard and some uni friends in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the actual ceremony itself which was great (especially the bit where they read out your thesis title), then cocktails up the Shard and dinner at the Oxo Tower. It was all quite fancy!

The big moment!

I loved my floppy hat and was pretty pleased to have been able to find a maternity dress that would go with my purple robes - not an easy task I tell you! Another special highlight was having Jon from LSE Sustainability open up the Connaught House roof for us so that Mum and Dad could see the beehives that I'd talked so much about! I really miss my bees and so it was lovely to be able to go visit them.

Saying hello to the bees!

All in all a fantastic day - totally made all the hard graft of the PhD worthwhile!

Dr Sharman!

Life around here

Wow, I have been pretty remiss at keeping up the blog this year I must say - the last post before this was in June! I think because it's so easy to send photos via WhatsApp etc. now, that it's taken the place of the blog a little, but seeing as I do enjoy looking back and keeping track of all the things that we get up to via the blog, I'll do my best to keep updating it even if it does continue at such an infrequent and erratic pace...

So, life around here... The big news, which everyone knows in real life but I haven't mentioned here so far, is the imminent arrival of the baby! I'm currently only three days away from my due date (9th Oct) and feeling as big as a house. Thank goodness for stretchy clothes from H&M! I finished work a couple of weeks ago which has been great (sitting for long periods of time was getting pretty uncomfortable) and have been filling the freezer with risottos and pasta (obviously I'm having an Italian phase) and waiting for essential deliveries like the car seat, mattress for the pram, nappy bag etc. It's interesting, I've hardly bought anything "in real life" for the baby actually - I would say at least 75% of what we've bought has been online (either from stores or from things like eBay) - I'm definitely part of the digital generation!

Last day at work - 16 September 2016 (end of week 36)

So, while it's hard to get out and about too much lately, we did have a great gender-neutral baby celebration with our friends at one of our local pubs where we had a surprisingly difficult quiz (highest score was 5/10, sorry guys!) and lots of fun predictions on the baby's sex, name, arrival date etc. Lots of predictions for a girl (69%) and mostly past the due date so we shall see how accurate they are!

But, let's go back in time and work forward from where I last updated... At the beginning of July we spent a weekend on the Pembrokeshire coast with John, Jules and Benjamin which was really relaxing - unfortunately John, Adrian and I all got sick which wasn't great, but it was still a nicer location to lie about in the sunshine than in London!

Going for a walk

Gorgeous coastline

View from where we were staying

Mum and Dad came back from their jaunt around Europe for graduation (I'll make that the subject of a separate post) and one of the things we did was to climb Monument - something I've been wanting to do for absolutely ages. We also had some really nice days walking about the city and people watching, going to market etc., as well as having a quick look around East Dulwich and then visiting Dad's Uncle Albert which was really nice (especially the giant chocolate cake he'd got for us!).

View looking east from Monument

Monument staircase

Adrian fulfilled a long-held ambition which was to have a T-Bone steak at Hawksmoor. Even though I've been eating meat during the pregnancy, there was no way I was going to be able to help him get through it all, so Pam came along and we had a really fun evening.

Getting ready to eat! 

The remnants of the bone marrow and the T-Bone!

One particularly fine weekend day we decided to pop up to our local park, Southwark Park, and have a jaunt on the row boats. Most other people were on the pedalos, but a row around the lake followed by an ice-cream in the sun made for a pretty relaxing afternoon. I also loved the looks from people as they saw a heavily pregnant woman rowing her husband around!

Keeping on an even keel 

We went for a swim at the Olympic-distance swimming pool in Stratford - it's a really fantastic facility: loads of lanes, not too many people and great water temperature. If we lived in the area I'd be down every day!

At the Olympic pool at Stratford

I also went to a very interesting insect day down at our local reserve - Stave Hill Ecological Park. It was all about identifying different types of insects, such as the key differences between bees and flies (antenna length is a key one there) and bush crickets and grasshoppers (leg angles are important in that case). I went with a colleague from work and a current member of LSE Bees - and the funniest thing was that literally a day or so later we had a bush cricket in our bedroom and I could identify not only what it was, but that it was a female because of its ovipositor. Very cool!

My colleague Alex checking out a specimen

One of our local pubs, the Wibby Wobbly, has been closed for a little while now. It was unique in that it was on a boat in the docks, but now it's been taken over by pirates! Love the juxtaposition of the squatters with the bright lights of money-making Canary Wharf in the background...

Pirates at the Wibbly Wobbly

Adrian and I fulfilled another one of those, "I've wanted to do that for ages" London things - a candle-lit visit to the Sir John Soane's Museum. It's a museum dedicated to the artefacts collected by Sir John Soane, a 19th century architect, and is absolutely chocka-block with stuff inside. The first Tuesday of every month they light the entire museum by candlelight and it's extremely popular - check out the queue! It's just around the corner from LSE and so I'd seen these queues for four years and it was great to finally be seeing what all the fuss was about. Not so comfortable to be sitting on the pavement for over an hour in my condition as part of the queue, but an experience to be had nonetheless.

Queue for the museum - can you spot Adrian?

Exterior of the museum - no photos allowed inside unfortunately

We made the most of a very sunny Sunday afternoon to cycle down to one of the pubs on the river in Rotherhithe for a drink - turns out it was my last cycle ride before the baby comes! It was really lovely just soaking up the sun and chilling out.

At the Salt Quay in Rotherhithe

Chilling in the sun (with a non-alcoholic beer...)

And then there's just been lots of other miscellaneous things going on - like brunch with Adrian's sister Emilia at Lima Flora (really interesting Peruvian food), eating mille feuille in St James' Park, strolling around Greenwich, and heading out and about using my "baby on board" badge to catch up with friends at various events around town.

Delicious!

A selection of the dishes at Lima Floral

Walking around a rainy Greenwich

Hanging out in Shoreditch

On the tube

Basil and blackberry cupcake at the Lower Marsh market yesterday

So there you have it - a complete update of things round these here parts. Now we're just hanging out, waiting for baby to arrive! Fingers crossed it won't be too much longer...

Garden explosion

Summer is here! (Even though it's been raining heavily on and off for what feels like weeks now)

The difference in just a few weeks always astounds me - it's been such a colour explosion! The strawberries are coming faster than we can eat them and the roses are so heavily in bloom it feels like they're threatening to collapse the entire bush. The beans are still a fair way off, but they're winding up their bamboo stalks more and more each day.

And how about the photo of the cactus in bloom! We haven't seen that flower before and it must have been all this rain that's finally inspired it to open up - and such a bright, vibrant colour too. 

Now all we need is the sun to appear so we can enjoy it...

A very green garden (8 June)

A fortnight later (22 June) - the rose bush is nearly collapsing under the weight of all those flowers!

What a stunning pink cactus flower!

Oatmeal raisin cookies

It's been that kind of day - miserable inside and out. It's been pouring outside and I'm inside with a cold feeling rotten. But it just came into my head that I wanted to eat some oatmeal and raisin cookies and I couldn't shake it, so off to the internet I went to find a recipe.

The below is a riff on this recipe, but I've halved and changed up the type of sugar, added another egg and some extra spices and they've come out quite soft and cake-like (rather than crispy) which is perfect because that's exactly what I was looking for.

They came out really well and were delicious! Give it a try and tell me what you think.

Oatmeal and raisin cookies
Makes 34

Ingredients
100-150g sultanas or raisins (or whatever dried fruit mix you prefer)
150ml vegetable/sunflower oil
100g brown sugar
2 medium eggs
2tsp (or more) ground cinnamon
1tsp (or more) ground ginger
1tsp vanilla extract
140g plain flour
1/4tsp bicarbonate of soda
300g oats

Method
1. Heat oven to 180C and line two trays with baking parchment. Pour 50ml boiling water over the raisins and leave to soak for 20 minutes or so until plump. (Note if you add more fruit, add slightly more boiling water to compensate). Drain and reserve the liquid.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the oil and sugar. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the reserved liquid from the fruit, the cinnamon, ginger and vanilla extract. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and a pinch of salt into the bowl and mix. Then add the oats and mix, and then finally the raisins.

3. Using a tablespoon measure, drop flat measures of mixture onto the baking trays. I got 34 cookies out of this mixture but you could make larger cookies (and just increase the baking time). Mine didn't really spread at all during cooking so I placed them reasonably close together (depending on the size of your tray you'll get between 12-16 cookies per tray).

4. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden (I baked for 13 minutes). Leave to cool on the trays for at least 10 minutes. Will keep in an airtight container for a few days, or will freeze well.

Hope you like them!

A long weekend in Portugal

One of the places that I've never been during our time in Europe was Lisbon, so when Mum and Dad said they were travelling through Portugal during their European sojourn, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to visit. I flew over bright and early on Saturday and met them at their hotel (booked for free with my credit card points - score!) before we all headed off via the metro to explore the town.

It's a lovely, grand city with beautiful streets and squares. We tried lots of delicious pastries and checked out the shops. Dad bought a really nice pair of leather dress shoes and Mum kept up her hunt for a new handbag (more on that later). I got treated to a new pair of sneakers which was very generous! We walked up to the castle overlooking the central city via the cathedral, then down lots of steps through the Alfama district where dozens of little eateries were being set up with music and brightly coloured streamers everywhere. We found a little bar that I'd read about and Mum and Dad had a shot of ginja each and I had a lemonade that was true lemonade - literally lemon water that was sour as anything but very refreshing in the heat. After a black seafood paella for Mum and I and pasta for Dad it was back to the hotel for a well-earned sleep.

The next morning we found a great café down the road for breakfast that really took Mum's fancy and which served yoghurt, fruit and all sorts of pastries, as well as fabulous fresh orange juice. Then it was off to Sintra. After some very windy and narrow roads we found a park and arrived at the Quinta da Regaleira, an elaborate palace and garden complex. There were caves and grottoes, towers and even a 27m well in the gardens, and the house was equally twirly and decorative. Definitely recommended.

In the grounds of the Quinta da Regaleira

We had lunch in the main village area on a terrace then drove to Agrada Beach which was absolutely gorgeous. Huge, pounding surf and a triangle of golden sand between the cliffs. I was the only one of the three of us who swam but I'm not sure you could really even call it that as the waves were so big it was all I could do to keep upright as they rolled in (and in fact didn't succeed - got completely bowled over at one point and got sand everywhere!). I had really wanted a swim so I'm so pleased we managed to get out that way. Drove back to Lisbon with the help of Martha (the name allocated to the car's gps), then finished the day with some tapas at a little place by the Campo Pequeno bull ring.

On Agrada beach

So happy to be at the beach!

Day three saw us driving to Porto after another breakfast at our favourite local café. We hit rain on the way but the roads were clear and it only took about three hours. It seemed to take more time to actually find the hotel's parking building in Porto once we arrived among the windy streets! But the sun had blazed its way through the clouds by the time we arrived and so it was up the Torre dos Clerigos for a great view over the city. Dad, being not so keen on heights, wasn't a massive fan but climbed the whole way up which was pretty impressive! We had a coffee at the Majestic Café to recover then hit the shops. Mum found a really lovely Spanish handbag to contemplate buying and Dad and I loved the shop with all sorts of brightly coloured socks for only €1 each - barganza.

After a false start at an average restaurant for dinner we found our way to one I'd read about called Traça which was absolutely delicious. We shared a six person table with a guy from Quebec (who very generously said that my French was "impeccable") and a couple from the Chilterns in England who were all really friendly and chatty. The food was excellent - I had a whole octopus tentacle which was as tender as butter and Mum had a rosé port cocktail with tonic and mint that was fabulous. I would definitely go back if ever I was in Porto again.

Our last day saw us walk over the top level of the Luiz I bridge (designed by Gustav Eiffel) to the Gaia side of the river which made Dad's legs go all wobbly but I got some great photos of Mum with the view behind. To recover we headed down to the port houses and choose to do a tour at Offley. The guide was very slick and we tried three different ports - a white, a ruby and a reserve tawny. Sadly I could only really sip them and appreciate the aroma but both Mum and Dad liked them (white and reserve tawny the most respectively). Then it was back out into the drizzle for lunch. Dad tried a francesinha and Mum enjoyed the local sardines. I also picked up a box of custard tarts as a present for Adrian (which sadly are a bit smushed in my bag on the plane as I write this but I'm sure they still taste delicious).

We then trekked over to the other side of town for the best gelato in Porto at Gelataria Sincelo (supposedly). I had port and ové mole (egg custard) and Dad had passion fruit and mandarin. They were pretty good I have to say! After that it was out into the rain and back to the shops where Mum bought her lovely bag and a pair of sandals, Dad got a leather belt to go with his new shoes, and I got a pair of earrings that I've decided are my graduation present from Adrian ;) Such extravagance! But you only live once right...

It was really nice to be able to share somewhere I'd been with Mum and Dad (Porto) but also to explore somewhere new together too. The four days went far too quickly - I don't want to go back to work tomorrow! Let's hope there are lots more European jaunts in my future.

Finest sands in England

Today was forecast to be a scorcher in London, with temperatures up to 26 degrees C (yes, I know that's not a scorcher everywhere, but for early May in London it definitely counts). Given how pasty we both are, and how long it had been since we'd been to the beach, we made the trip down to Margate, a seaside resort about 1.5 hours away from London on the high speed rail.

It's the kind of place that had a heyday, fell into decline, and is now on the way back up. Think amusement and bingo halls crossed with craft beer and gelato. It's also got the Turner Gallery of Contemporary Art which was interesting but given the glorious weather we only really gave it a cursory glance.

We spent the most of our time on the beach, soaking up the sun and reading. I got to about waist deep in the water but it was so cold that was as far as I could manage - bit better than Adrian who didn't go in at all!

It was decidedly more chilled out than Brighton and the gelato was definitely just as good (we got salted caramel, peanut butter and jelly, pear and chocolate, and rhubarb and custard....mmmmm....).

If this weather continues we'll definitely be back!

Easter in London

After thinking that we might go to Iceland for Easter, and then quickly changing our minds when we saw how much last minute flights and hotels were, we decided to stay in London this Easter and do all those things we've been meaning to do for ages, but never got around to.

To start, I went to the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park with a friend. The best exhibition was at their Sackler wing by a collective called Das Institut - lots of neon accompanying brightly lit perspex/mineral cut-outs and projections. A very small, but perfectly formed, exhibition. I'll have to get back in the summer to see one of their famous pavilions.

It was a gorgeous Good Friday and so after sitting in the sun eating ice-cream, we wandered past the Royal Albert Hall into South Kensington and then home.

One other interesting thing we saw were these bracelets that were hanging in the trees in the park - apparently it's a Bulgarian tradition to mark spring. The bracelets are called a "Martenitsa" and from the 1st of March, when you see a blossoming tree or a stork or swallow returning from migration, you then take off the Martenitsa and either tie it to a tree or place it under a stone. If you place it under a stone and go back the next day, the type of insect closest to the Martenitsa will determine your luck for the year (larva, worms, ants = good, spiders = bad). How interesting!

Saturday we finally made it to two places we've been meaning to go to for absolutely ages. First stop, Burger and Lobster Soho. Despite having been open for a few years now, this place still regularly has queues down the street (no reservations) so we didn't do too badly only having to wait half an hour (and inside, perfect considering it was raining...).

The drill is that they've got three options: a lobster, a lobster roll, or a burger, all served with french fries and salad, and all for £20. We shared a grilled lobster and a lobster roll (much better value than a £20 burger!) and I have to say, it was pretty delicious. Loved the lobster bibs and everyone was very friendly despite the rapid turnover. We had an early dinner, arriving at 5.45 (hence the short queue), so by the time we left, it was carnage in the waiting area.

Then it was off down the road to go to The Mousetrap! This is the longest running play on the West End and is currently in its 64th year. We were really surprised with how full the theatre was, but I guess people are coming for the exact same reasons as us - to see the phenomenon rather than the show per se. But it was really good, very tightly acted, and of course, we're not going to tell you "who dunnit"!

Easter Sunday started with a breakfast of champions (in bed no less!)...

...followed by the annual hot cross bun baking session. Given the overdose of buns that occurred last year with the bun-off, we decided not to include the competitive angle, but try the Edmond's recipe in the KitchenAid (rather than mixing by hand as Adrian did last year). They look pretty good don't you think?

Adrian spent Sunday afternoon at the Imperial War Museum and I worked on the article that my co-author and I are contributing to the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science. Between the sudden spring-time showers, the sun was streaming in on our new Persian carpet and it all felt pretty idyllic.

Later that day I made sunbutter, as a friend had given us a big stash of sunflower seeds. While I thought the food processor was going to conk out given how hard it was working, it all came together in the end and is pretty delicious.

Easter Monday was about finishing off my article, clearing up the garden after Storm Katie (lots of branches strewn everywhere), and having a walk in the sun followed by a drink at a local pub (and then running home in the rain!).

So, a happy Easter was had here in London - hope it was the same for you!

A zero waste town?

I saw this video and thought I had to share it - particularly given how much I've been indoctrinated into sorting all my rubbish (we had all sorts of different bins at LSE and now I get really annoyed at my new work when they throw all sorts of things into the compost bin) and also how much I thought Mum and Dad would like it given how well they recycle at home!

I've also been learning more about the concept of a circular economy which really seems like it's becoming a very popular idea and I definitely think it's the way forward. An old idea really but one that's really important - if only to have a better sense of how much "stuff" we really use in our day to day lives.

I like how they realise that it wasn't easy - imagine sorting your waste into 34 categories! But it's also great how they show what things get recycled into, and talk about reducing the waste that gets made in the first place. An inspirational town for sure - good luck to them becoming 100% zero waste!

Beeeen busy baking

I must be missing my bees because when I found out we were having a charity bake-off at work, this cake was the first thing that came to mind:

What do you think? It's a chocolate honey cake by Nigella Lawson (original recipe in metric here, with some modifications from here (extra ingredients and swapping up a honey glaze for a chocolate ganache) that I also followed). It's rich and delicious - and super easy to make with everything just getting whizzed up all at once in a food processor. Now, while the marzipan bees might take a little longer, they're still pretty simple and look pretty good if I do say so myself!

Sadly I wasn't the bake-off winner - I got pipped by someone who made a Barbie Christmas fairy cake (her skirt is cake and her bodice etc. is all icing). Can't compete with that! But I had a lot of fun making my bee cake and will definitely pull it out again should be occasion arise!

LSE Bees

As you all know, I've been very lucky to be involved with LSE Bees. I went from complete novice who had never even seen a beehive in person, to completely fascinated and in love with beekeeping.

Recently the society asked me to participate in an interview for their blog and it's been posted - and I'm completely blown away and touched by all the lovely things they've said. It also feels really great to know that I've encouraged other people to get involved and become apiarists in their own right!

I also talk about my favourite hive at LSE, what I've learnt from the bees and the most fun thing I've ever done as part of the society. So, if you're interested head over to LSE Bees and have a read!