A double dose of music therapy

It brings me great joy to say that I spent most of Saturday listening to great musicians. A long time ago, I booked tickets to two concerts that happened to be in the afternoon and evening of the same day: the West Australian Symphony Orchestra and Michael Bublé! Everything’s been pretty hectic recently, so I’d completely forgotten about it until a few days ago, which was a lovely surprise and I spent the week leading up to it getting excited for a little weekend music therapy.

Escargot in an adorable takeaway box; what more do you need?!

I left the house at lunchtime and made my way to the train station via my favourite Cottesloe café, Cimbalino, for takeaway fuel in the form of coffee and a pastry. After the half-hour journey into the city, I changed trains onto another line that would take me east to Burswood. The WASO concert was in the Crown Theatre, which is joined to the very swanky casino complex that overlooks the city from the other side of the river. Once I’d found the right floor and purchased a ridiculously overpriced drink, I queued up to take my seat ahead of the 2pm start time.

It was at this point that what I should have considered when booking finally dawned on me. The concert was a showcase of the music from the Disney Pixar films, so naturally the gross majority of the audience was under eight years old. Gross was the appropriate word; as a music boff who loves nothing more than the atmosphere when an entire audience is transfixed into silence, I envisaged the chattering kids completely ruining the whole experience. I’m pleased to say, however, that the concert was so incredible that I managed to block out the fidgeting and complaining going on around me. I saw WASO play a selection of classical and film pieces back in December in Langley Park and they were just as sublime as they were back then.

What really made this concert different was how the combination of audio and visual components came together so beautifully. The orchestra played a short montage of music from each film, running in chronological order of when they were released, all in front of a big screen playing clips. It was fascinating to watch how far the animation has come on, from Toy Story in 1995 to Monsters’ University, released last year. While the majority of people were focussed on the screen, my attention was drawn to the conductor. In order for the music to be in time with the video, he had a screen in front of him with the beat appearing in flashing lights and the barline moving from left to right for him to follow. Everything, down to the tiniest rall and upbeat, had to be in perfect unison with the video, which must have been insanely difficult and perhaps restricted his interpretation of the music. In my experience, conductors often experience some spontaneous feeling that makes them want certain parts played differently every time, which is why it’s so important to watch the baton (for all those who say “what’s the point of them standing there and waving the stick?”)!

Of course, the real star of the show was the music. Each Pixar score has been created by one of only four composers: Randy Newman, Thomas Newman (cousins; what I wouldn’t give for some of those genes), Michael Giacchino and Patrick Doyle, a Scot who got called in to do Brave, which I really want to see now! Giacchino has to be my personal favourite, as all the Pixar scores I’ve been lucky enough to play are his: The Incredibles, Ratatouille and Up. The stories really would be nothing without the music and it astounds me how so much emotion can be crammed so cleverly into the pieces. Take the tearjerking five-minute opening of Up; it’s been said that the sequence says more about relationships than a lot of full-length romance novels and I tend to agree. I get goosebumps every time and welled up a little bit watching it played out in the flesh. Naturally, my eyes were firmly fixed on the man playing principle clarinet, who was amazing and had some truly beautiful parts. I’d have paid a lot of money to be in his shoes! There was also a little light entertainment in the form of the token, wildly gesticulating flautist sitting in front of him… talk about overkill. I don’t know why so many people do that; don’t sway all over the place, just play. You look silly.

As the lights came on, the parents dried their eyes and the children breathed a sigh of relief that “all the boring old music” was over. They don’t know they’re born! I left Crown and made my way back to the city on the train, trying to dodge the showers that had started. What’s with all this rain lately?! With a few hours to kill, but not enough time to justify going home, I went to our favourite Japanese kitchen Taka’s for dinner and a couple of BYO ciders. As 7pm came around, I made the very rainy walk through the city, packed with people out for Saturday, to Perth Arena. Observation number one: It’s bloody huge! I’ve never been to a proper arena show before and couldn’t believe the scale. I had quite a good seat on the right hand side and settled in for a few hours of swooning.

As the arena filled, I couldn’t help noticing that there was a very high concentration of 50+ women milling around in their Saturday best. I felt very underdressed in my jeans and flats and was probably caught gawking at some of the outfits I was seeing; mutton dressed as lamb immediately sprang to mind as my glance in every direction was met with some old dear pulling down a skin-tight skirt or rearranging some cleavage. Shudder. Not sure whether they were intending on secuding Bublé or what, but you can’t blame them for trying!

The lights went down and I was delighted to discover that Naturally 7 were the support act. It pains me to think that 99% of the audience didn’t know who they were or appreciate how talented they are; they’re a 7-piece acapella group of awesome black dudes who create songs that sound like they have a full band accompanying them, just using their voices. They’ve been around forever and it was great to see them in the flesh!

After an hour of sweet sweet harmonies, it was time for Bublé to make an entrance, and boy did he succeed. Phwoarrr; he is one sexy, sexy man! He obviously sang flawlessy the entire time, but he’s also a great entertainer and hilariously rude at times. The face of the lady sitting next to me when some of his chat got a little X-rated was priceless. His band were unbelievable and he did a whole segment letting each of them improvise, which was really nice to see. In other words, despite my jesting about the old biddies, I screamed along with them like a fan girl. I associate him with ballads, but he did a lot of upbeat numbers and popped up on a little stage right in front of my section to do a few Motown numbers with Naturally 7, which were my favourites.

It's not Bublé without a heart-shaped confetti canon...

With an encore ending in a load of fire canons going off, he was gone and it was time to trudge home through what had become a downpour. By the time I got home, I resembled a drown rat and was still shivering half an hour after a hot shower and getting wrapped up in a blanket. Not a huge fan of winter approaching so quickly! I very much enjoyed both concerts, but the connection on such a personal level meant that Pixar had to be my favourite. If anyone hears of a vacancy for a clarinettist in an orchestra specialising in the music of animated kids’ films, let me know!

ANZAC day fail

On Friday 25th April, Australians celebrate ANZAC day, their version of Remembrance Sunday. It’s a day that commemorates ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) participation in all military conflicts, but in particular their assault on Gallipoli of the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) during WWI. There would be hundreds of different parades and services going on during the day, but what really caught my eye was the dawn service and the war memorial in King’s Park, which has an almost bird’s eye view of the city. Therefore, as Thursday was drawing to a close, I set a ruthless alarm of 4:30am in order to get into the city and up to the park in time.

It was all good intentions, but sadly that’s as far as it went. My alarm went off at the pre-arranged, horifically early time, but I must have turned it off instead of hitting snooze, because the next thing I knew it was 6am; the time that the service was due to start. I dragged myself to the living room and watched it on TV, which made me pretty gutted to miss it despite the extra sleep I enjoyed afterwards. Watching it from my living was very haunting and sombre, so I can only imagine how it must have been actually being there.

I’m sure I would have taken pictures as nice as this if I’d made it:

Two premature goodbyes

This probably doesn’t need to be said, but I am absolutely dreadful at goodbyes. I was bad enough bidding farewell to my loved ones for this little 9-month stint in Perth, so the thought of leaving the great friends I’ve made here, potentially for several years until I can return to Australia, has been stowed away at the back of my mind. I was expecting not to have to deal with this emotional turmoil for six weeks yet, but a couple of cases of unfortunate timing meant that this week brought some unwanted surprises.

The easter bank holiday just gone and ANZAC day coming up on Friday (stay tuned) means that this working week is only three days long, which has made for a nice gentle return to lab after Sydney. After a very long Tuesday morning in surgery harvesting brains and spinal cord for next week’s experiments, I was absolutely ravenous and therefore pretty excited for an overdue EaRN lunch with the boys. Our party consisted of current lab regulars Ryan, Marcus, Andy and myself, plus our good friend Alex, who was back home in Perth for the first time since moving to Tasmania for the latter half of his PhD two months ago. We ate lunch at an Italian café on Broadway, the main street near campus; I had a very scrumptious seafood spaghetti that left me in a food coma for the rest of the day. There was a lot of catching up to do between mouthfuls of incredible italian food; Andy has just got back from three weeks of conferences and holidaying in the USA, I’ve been in Sydney and Alex has been settling into his new workplace at the University of Tasmania. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t have nearly as much fun as he did at UWA; he says everyone’s so serious that he can go through the whole day without speaking to anyone in the lab! All we do here is chatter; I can’t imagine being silent all day.

Conversation soon turned to my upcoming departure, and it was here that we realised Alex wouldn’t be coming back to Perth until after I leave. Alex has been such a sweet, friendly person to work with and he really made an effort to make me feel welcome when I first started, despite not being on Lindy’s team. Next to Ryan and Marcus, he’s probably been one of my closest friends in the lab. It made me very sad to have to hug him goodbye in the car park and return to the lab knowing I won’t be seeing him for ages!

The next day, my nerves were already in tatters but about to take a battering on an even bigger scale. Lindy’s research assistant Carole, fellow Englishwoman, all-round laboratory queen and the Mum of our team, was going on a six-week holiday, meaning she won’t be back until my feet are firmly on British soil. What’s really painful is that we’ll only miss each other by margin of two days! It’s not only me that’ll struggle with her absence; our team is bound to fall to pieces without her expertise and constant support. I must admit though, my thoughts were mostly selfish. She has been absolutely incredible throughout my whole placement; I can’t even explain how much she’s helped me with all the practical stuff, as well as being the kindest, loveliest lady I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. I feel a little bit teary just thinking about it! I’m going to leave a bunch of flowers and a card on her desk for her to come back to to say thanks, but I really wish that she could be around in my last weeks to come to farewell dos and such. On the bright side, her children live in the UK so there’s a greater chance of seeing her in the near future than Alex.

So there you have it; the goodbyes have begun!

Sydney

Last night, I touched back down on West Australian soil after a hectic but brilliant weeklong holiday in Sydney! Expect this post to be rather lengthy as I saw and did so much, but here’s the concise version if you won’t be reading on: Food, booze, sights, reunions. Now for the full version…

Saturday

It was quite an early start in order to navigate a train and a bus to the domestic terminal in time for 10:30. Flying domestic is too easy; turn up an hour before take-off, walk straight through security (they didn’t seem to care too much about the liquids rule) and onto the plane. No turning up three hours before and twiddling your thumbs in departures like on international flights! I flew with Virgin Australia, which I was told is a nice step up from Aussie budget airlines like Jetstar and TigerAir without too much of a price increase, and I tend to agree. Naturally, I was sitting in close proximity to a screaming baby, but once I plugged in my headphones and got absorbed in my book the 4.5-hour journey flew by. They fed us too, which always sits well with me! During descent the plane banked down towards the airport, giving us a gorgeous view of the harbour just as night fell, which was a beautiful introduction to the east coast.

The boys picked me up from the airport and we drove to their place in nearby Randwick, south of the city. I stayed with three guys from Bath who are on placement at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, where I also applied before being accepted at UWA. I knew Tom and Rob from shared lectures and labs in first and second year, but hadn’t met Greg before as he does natural sciences. It was interesting to hear what their research involves, ranging from diabetes to immunological diseases, if a little strange to picture what life would be like if my placement had been switched with one of theirs. I would have had to live in a smelly, male-dominated house for starters! I jest; I was quite happy on an airbed in their living room for the week.

We just had time to change before heading out to a dinner party at some old family friends of Greg’s in Mosman, north of the harbour. Mosman is pretty fancy and their house was absolutely incredible with a huge terrace and harbour views. The Smiths and the Websters, each with a son and daughter around our age, were obviously accustomed to entertaining and providing the boys with a square meal from time to time, dishing up a huge spread that accompanied the large volume of white wine beautifully. Everyone was very friendly and had roots in Wales and Cornwall, so it was really nice to get to know them. After dinner, we retired to the pool room (the game, not the swimming facility, although they probably had one of those too) and had a few more drinks before we drove home and crashed out after a long day of travelling and booze.

Sunday

We all woke up late with sore heads and little ambition to do much with our day. Greg and Tom were semi-comatosed and reluctant to leave the house, but Rob and I took advantage of cheap last-minute tickets and Randwick’s close proximity to the SCG to see an AFL game. It was my first time and I was a little unsure of the rules, despite seeing several games on TV and the boys at work’s best efforts to educate me. Australian Rules Football, or “footie”, is a bit of an odd mix of rugby, football and basketball, although it more closely resembled mud wrestling once the heavens opened. The weather was absolutely horrendous (something we’re not used to over west!) and luckily we managed to move to seats undercover, otherwise I think the combination of a stinking hangover and being soaking wet would have beaten me. A beer and a hotdog proved to be incredibly remedial and we had a great time; Sydney Swans lost to North Melbourne Kangaroos by a huge margin. We trekked back home and had a very uneventful, lazy evening watching a movie. The boys had to work all week, so I prepared to take my first solo journey into the city to start a week of being a tourist!

Monday

I hopped on the bus into the city with the plan of covering the city centre on foot and finding some stuff to do in the upcoming days. Public transport is great in Sydney; I walked off the bus straight onto Circular Quay, which is the main ferry port situated between the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.

After exploring these two icons (and using the Opera House bathrooms of course), I moved west into The Rocks, which is a really cool suburb underneath the bridge with loads of great cafés, shops and bars. My love affair with Sydney’s food started here with lunch in the Fine Food Store; Quesadilas and cous cous salad. Yum! My walking tour continued north via the Town Hall and Queen Victoria Building, which is an incredible building now filled with designer shops, to China Town. I went to the Chinese Garden of Friendship, a walled haven of beautiful flowers and lakes situated right in the middle of the skyscrapers. My next stop was Darling Harbour (the next harbour up the river from Circular Quay), a popular tourist hub boasting the Maritime Museum and Aquarium.

The showers started to come in by late afternoon, so I returned to Circular Quay to catch the bus back home, where the boys did dinner and we watched a film. After covering pretty much the entire CBD on foot, I was knackered and ready for bed by 9!

Tuesday

I got the ferry from Circular Quay out to Manly, a town out on the northern peninsula where the river meets the ocean. The crossing was awesome; meandering down through the harbour was pretty calm, but as we got near the mouth of the river, the huge swell coming in off the ocean had the boat rocking all over the place. I was sitting outside on the deck and we all got absolutely soaked! There are lots of interesting little islands in and around the harbour, which the commentary of the ferry informed us of.

Choppy seas approaching Manly

I would describe Manly as similar to Padstow: A little tacky and commercialised, but with plenty of nice scenery, walks and, most importantly, fish and chip shops! I amused myself in the morning with breakfast in a little café, followed by a long walk along the promenade and out along the coast path to a nature reserve. The terrain was very hilly, similar to that of North Cornwall, and the approaching clouds added to the feeling of home! A short browse around the surf shops was followed by a long-overdue reunion with the lovely Tamsin Fritz, an old friend from school who’s spent this year travelling Asia and is currently residing in Manly on her working holiday visa. We got a cider at a pub and did what we do best; gossiping about old school days and people back home!

SJS girls down under! 

With promises of a proper reunion with the girls when we’re back on home soil, I bid Tam goodbye and hopped on the ferry back to the city. My plan was to grab the bus straight home as soon as I got off the boat, but I got a surprise text from Jen while I was on the water. Jen and I met at Truro College, then both went to Bath and got involved in the Lacrosse Club, so we’ve been friends quite a while. She’s doing a psychology placement in Sydney and had her Mum and sister visiting, so I killed half an hour at the Museum of Contemporary Art (weird stuff: think the Tate) before we all met at the Opera Bar for a catch up and an afternoon cocktail before they went to the ballet. Seeing home/university friends over here is something that I’ve become accustomed to, but when I think about it it’s actually quite amazing that we’re all so far away from the UK. They were flying up the coast the following day to see Brisbane, the Gold Coast and all sorts of other exciting things, which did make me a little jealous; I would have loved to show my parents this incredible country this year, but it just wasn’t feasible. Never mind, we’ll do it one day!

Wednesday

Another day spent sightseeing in the city. The weather was much warmer and sunnier than previous days, so I took the opportunity to take a stroll through the Royal Botanic Garden, which was very beautiful and, like the Chinese Garden, quite amazing in that you could see skyscrapers popping up around the outskirts. On its edge is Mrs Macquaries Chair, a huge rock with great views of the city. It’s a pretty well known attraction, therefore it was absolutely crawling with Japanese tourists. They were literally forming a gigantic crowd around it and all shouting at each other at once for photos, so I had to settle for a selfie on the outskirts of the mob.

Looking back on the harbour from Mrs Macquarie's Chair

Exiting the gardens on the northern side, I paid a visit to the Art Gallery of NSW for some culture. This was a little more up my street than the contemporary gallery; I don’t pretend to be an expert, but I know that I prefer real portraits to weird chubby Spiderman sculptures… Next on the list was the Sydney Tower Eye for a bird’s eye view of the city. Likewise, a very busy tourist attraction, but the incredible views were well worth the crowds. I wanted to do the BridgeClimb during my stay, but I found myself running out of time and it was over $250. Something else to add to the list for next time I suppose, it's supposed to be incredible! The Tower Eye also had the advantage of being situated within Westfield shopping centre, so a little browse of shops like Gucci and Chanel didn’t hurt!

The art gallery getting a bit scientific

I took my time making my way back to the quay via several shops, and when I arrived it was absolute chaos, with thousands of people bustling around the Opera House. At first this confused me (all I wanted was to get to the Gulyian café for some chocolate therapy), but when I saw the entourage pulling up along the harbour it all made sense. Kate and Wills are on their royal tour of Australia and they were arriving in Sydney for the first time! I caught a glimpse of them despite the hoards of fanatical monarchist Australians and foreigners, then got out of the madness as quickly as possible.

Crowds for the royals

Back at the boys’ house, we had a quick shower and Rob, Greg and I headed back into the city to a bar called Good God for a Mighty Boosh themed trivia night. As you do! It’s a weird cult show with a small following in the UK, so I was absolutely amazed that it was so busy, with most fans wearing fancy dress. I reckon Greg and I assisted with one question each; beyond that, we left the work to Rob and proceeded to get drunk on cider and eat chips and nachos. Not a bad evening all in all! We then indulged in a fun game of “guess the brandy” back home before hitting the sack, an activity that made me very glad I didn’t have to go to work the next morning.

Thursday

A little fuzzy-headed for the second time during my trip, I dragged myself out of bed and back in the city for a remedial breakfast. At lunchtime, I got on the bus to Bondi Beach for a reunion with my old school friend Tommy, who’s transferred his surf instructing from Polzeath to Bondi. We ate lunch at a restaurant on the seafront run by our mutual friend Richard, who’s now sponsored in Australia. He wasn’t working, but turned up just as we were leaving and it was lovely to see them both. Life seems pretty cushty for them both right now! To be honest, I wasn't particularly impressed with Bondi; it's a nice beach, but the town part is a bit scabby. The afternoon flew by and, just after Tommy had to leave, Greg turned up in his car having finished work early. We spent the last hours of sun having coffee in a trendy bar/café called the Bucket List, retiring inside to a fire when it got chilly. All in all, not a bad hangover day!

Tad windy on Bondi...

Friday

Before I knew it, the last day of my visit had come around. I had a lie in and made my way in the glorious sunshine to meet up with my auntie Sarah and Ian, their children Katie and Dan and Sarah’s parents, who were visiting from England. Sarah and Ian moved over several years ago and I’d only seen them once this summer when they returned to Cornwall for a holiday, so I was really excited about seeing them again. We met at Darling Harbour for a harbour tour and lunch on a huge cruise ship, which was amazing. The food was delicious, we had cocktails and chilled out on the top deck and the boat roamed around the harbour. What a perfect end to the holiday!

I got back home just in time to say goodbye to Greg and Tom, who were off to New Zealand for a week’s holiday driving around the south island. Despite only meeting Greg during my holiday, he’s a great guy and I feel that I’ve gained a good friend for final year during my visit. Rob and I then had a very quiet evening consisting of takeaway Thai food and movies, before I got an early night ahead of my return flight. The next morning brought an early busride to the airport, and before I knew it I was stepping off the plane into the heat of the western sun. All-in-all, I was very impressed with Sydney, even more so due to the opportunity to be reunited with so many family and friends, from both Cornwall and Bath. It's an added bonus to return home to the Easter long weekend, with two glorious work-free days ahead of me!

Holiday time! Thank god...

I’ve finally finished what felt like the longest working week in history. It really must be said that tomorrow’s trip to Sydney could not have come at a better time, because I was very, very close to losing the plot today. My brain had been on the verge of exploding for several days, what with a million jobs and ideas whizzing around in there, but it was one particular instance that had me ready to give up hope this morning.

I was in the lab, busy preparing some samples of spinal cord for experiments scheduled for when I return, when I managed to spill an open bottle of PFA on the floor. For the non-scientists among you, PFA, or paraformaldehyde, is a compound used for fixing (preserving) tissue and it’s particularly nasty. Like, carcinogenic nasty. Needless to say, it was a case of panic stations and I spent the next hour absorbing it with pellets, hoovering it up and cleaning the floor with a solution that, judging by my subsequent light-headedness and burning lungs, was even more potent than the PFA. Everyone had to leave the lab when it got sorted out, so I delayed everyone else’s work as well as my own. I’m such a clutz sometimes!

Obviously it was completely my bad, but what got me down more than this horrific faux pas was the incredibly hard time I received from the woman who’s in charge of health and safety; you’d think I did it on purpose. I hate confrontation as it is, and I guess I must have caught her at a particularly stressful time. I don’t know what all the fuss was about really; at least her newly installed “emergency spills kit” got its first use.

So there you have it; by lunchtime, I was well and truly over being at work. I persevered for a few more hours to get some analysis done, then took immense joy in saying goodbye to everyone for a glorious ten days of neuroscience-free living. I’m now at home packing and getting very excited for my east coast adventure! I fly at 11.30 tomorrow morning and will be staying with some guys from my course who are on placement over there. They’ll be working during the week, so I plan on 1) doing the whole tourist thing and 2) meeting up with a whole host of friends and family who are currently living in or visiting the city. I hope to check in next week with all kinds of exciting experiences; cheers Perth!

Preparing for final year

Just in case life wasn’t hectic enough right now (I’m currently finishing all my practical work, thinking about how I’m going to structure my report, and did I mention that Lindy wants me to do a talk in front of hundreds of clinical experts at the Australasian Symposium of Medical Research in May?), the deadline is almost upon me to choose my final year units for next year at Bath. I hadn’t invested too much time milling it over until now, but I think it’s about time I did, as it’s hugely important. Unfortunately, the way my degree is weighted means that I’ll still have the majority of the work to do when I go back in September; first year and placement year are worth nothing and second year is only worth 32%. To think I’ve done three years of hard graft to still have two thirds of the marks to get makes me quite irate; silly Bath!

With this year being make or break in terms of the grade I end up with, I need to make sure I choose wisely. In a nutshell: A total of sixty credits are to be taken over the two semesters. Each unit is worth six credits and the dissertation is worth eighteen credits. You can’t do the dissertation throughout the whole year; it has to be completed within one semester. There are two compulsory units in the first semester and one in the second, then the remaining credits are to be chosen from a list of units as long as my arm. The choice is overwhelmingly huge. To complicate things further, us placement students get zero support as far as making these decisions go, whereas second year students not doing a placement get a nice seminar where they give you advice. No pressure then…

This being said, I suppose I do have a vague plan. Firstly, this placement has been very helpful in identifying the areas I want to opt for; I aim to choose as many neuroscience related units as possible because 1) it interests me, 2) b I’ve spent this year learning about it and 3) it’ll look great if I want to go into that kind of career. Writing the report has also caused me to do a complete 180 in terms of the way I like to be assessed. Before this year, I would have preferred final exams to coursework (mostly because I wanted to party the whole time and worry about studying later), but now I think I’d rather work on deadlines throughout the semester and have less relying on exam period. On Monday, when the list went live, I provisionally chose the following:

Semester one
Genes and genomes
Protein synthesis, folding and turnover
Molecular and medical neuroscience
Cell membranes
Sensory and signalling networks in plants

Semester two
Dissertation (god help me)
Bioinformatics
Modern methods of researching neurodegeneration

Judging by our discussions of this topic, it appears that next year will be the first year that my twin Chloe and I aren’t taking all the same units, as our placements have caused us to take interest in different things. I have no idea how I’ll cope in hungover lectures without having her by my side, telling me to struggle through for a few more hours before I can go to sleep! It’s of huge benefit to be living with someone doing the same modules as you, even if it’s just for tea breaks to bitch about how hard an assignment is, so fingers crossed between four Biochemists we’ll be able to help each other out. It definitely makes a difference.

My upcoming Bath life may be a little doom and gloom at present, but my Asutralian life has been the complete opposite this weekend. With Pete still having a blast on the Gold Coast, Jess and I have had the most wonderful girlie weekend together. On Friday night, we went on a mission to Blockbuster and the bottle shop and enjoyed a quiet evening curled up on the sofa with Ben & Jerry’s, cider and The Hunger Games. Saturday was quite chilled in the daytime (running, food shopping, then trying not to distract Jess when she wrote her essay), before we got dressed up and ventured out into the city for cocktails. We went to Andaluz and The Greenhouse in the central business district, both of which served up some amazing alternative cocktails. In The Greenhouse, which is covered with tiny plant pots of greenery on the outside and has a rooftop bar, I had an “Apriscotch”; Scotch, peach liquer, lemon juice, whiskey bitters and apricot jam. So delicious! It wasn’t too late a night, but it was lovely to get out in the city for what felt like the first time in ages. 

Andaluz: Chic library meets late-night booze

Apple and vanilla martinis by candlelight (yes, the clientele was us and couples)

On Sunday morning, Sian paid us a long overdue visit on her way back to Dunsborough after spending the weekend in Perth with her boyfriend. We chatted about her recent decision to pay Cornwall a visit with Jess this summer (Yay!) and the small matter of what we’re all going to do with our lives. I then took a little walk into Cottesloe for a browse of the shops, before Jess and I took the opportunity to head to the beach, considering the weather was particularly warm for April. It was a little windy, but we sheltered behind the spit and had a swim in the calm (but freezing) lagoon. I had a lovely catch up with my Mum on Skype, then wound down with dinner at rubbish TV in the evening before starting my last week at work before my east coast adventure. Roll on Sydney!

Rediscovering rock climbing

Firstly, a quick update on the publishing situation: My results were sent to our collaborators at the University of Lyon (oui oui) yesterday and they seem to correlate to a similar study they’ve done on bacteria, which is hugely reassuring. The team there is compiling the information as we speak and are going to submit to both the journal of Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry and the journal of Chemical Communications, which have huge followings. Fingers crossed!

For the past month, I’ve been sharing the house with Jess and her boyfriend Pete, which has been pretty chilled but fun. I think they feel a bit sorry for me being a third wheel and are always cooking me dinner; I even came home to brownies from the posh bakery yesterday! Pete is due to return to Cornwall in a few weeks, but decided to take a last minute trip over to Brisbane before he leaves Australia to stay with uni friends and go surfing. He flew out on Monday, leaving Jess and I to have a girlie week; so, being the girlie girls we are, the first thing we decided to do was go rock climbing after work on Wednesday.

I was really looking forward to going climbing, as I haven’t done it for years and I used to be absolutely obsessed. From when we were about 12 or 13, two of my best friends and I went to a big barn in Bude to go bouldering (climbing with no ropes) every Thursday night. It was such good exercise and we got pretty good; I had biceps and abs and everything! We also did a load of trips with a climbing club to all the big spots, like Cheddar Gorge. Other things ended up taking over and I stopped going, which was a bit of a shame, so I was interested to see whether I could still do it minus the muscle mass!

I met Jess close to campus after finishing work early and we drove over to Rockface in Northbridge, just north of the city centre. The building was on an industrial street was very plain and unassuming from the outside, but inside it was gigantic; two-storeys high and lined with loads of good routes. After paying our $30, filling out a medical form and being fitted with the usual kit (a harness that makes it look like you have a package and chinese-torture shoes – definitely haven’t missed wearing those), we made our way over to the beginners’ wall to have our memories refreshed on how to belay each other. With this rather important knowledge covered, we were basically set free to do whatever we wanted. As it was a weekday afternoon, we pretty much had the place to ourselves, apart from a brief visit from a class of school kids, and we certainly got our money’s worth by trying every route possible. It’s amazing how quickly a skill you’ve not done for such a long time comes back to you! I definitely wouldn’t call us experts, but we both managed most of the easier routes with no problems, despite a few clammy-handed moments near the top. Possibly even more fun than the climbing was pretending to be secret agents and descending as quickly as possible on the ropes!

After two and a half hours, we were absolutely shattered and ready to go home. As we were leaving, the nice man “made us a deal” because we seemed like “a lot of fun” – five return sessions and hire for $49, which is such good value! We took him up on his offer as we had such a laugh; it’s also a great way to work out if you fancy something different. We’re hoping to be nicely toned after a few weekly visits and it's such a nice way to spend the afternoon after having our brains frazzled at work and uni.

We left Rockface with aching muscles and the beginnings of some nasty blisters, which were to be expected, and memberships, which definitely wasn’t. Another unexpected surprise was the parking ticking slapped on Jess’ windscreen; we were so excited about our climbing adventure that we forgot to buy one, so what we saved on return trips, we spent on a parking fine. Oh well; you win some, you lose some!