Well it was definitely an interesting weekend! On Friday I went to a "party" to celebrate the Royal Wedding at the house of my partner's boss. Nice to meet some different people, and I'm totally glad that I do Engineering. It turns out that her boss's wife is a high school teacher who despises any sort of degree/career that doesn't involve science or mathematics. To be fair, she has a point - how many psychologists/photographers/media studies graduates do we need? (except for those keeping the engineers from committing suicide / taking photographs for wall hangings / making rubbish daytime TV)
I saw my Dad on Friday after the party in central Milton Keynes - he had come over from France that week as my half-brothers were all on Easter holidays (I shall not go into the details of my confusing family structure!). Just as we got to the centre MK, a clap of thunder shuddered overhead and bang! A downpour. Apparently there was no thunder at all in Cambridge that day. It was a typical British storm - appeared in no time, poured down for 10 minutes, and then dissipated into nothing as the sky turned back to its azure blue again.
On Sunday my partner's company was hosting a delegation from a publishing press in Chongqing at the University of Cambridge and (for reasons I probably shouldn't go into) I was required to sit in the meeting and listen through a couple of presentations and good old fashioned business. It makes me glad I'm not in business and firmly entrenched in academics - the politeness (English and Chinese!) was overwhelming, but neither side was budging from the position of "we want you to help us, but we can't help you for a certain reason right now". Awkward times aside, I pilfered some of the excellent tea they serve at the University Centre, and was given a couple of tins of Chinese green tea, so a good haul all round there!
We're all back here working now that the seemingly-endless bank holidays have finished. I'm meeting up with both of my supervisors tomorrow to go through this journal article that we want to publish, and also meeting to discuss another topic that is fairly linked to my topic. It's been a while since I've done any work on that topic though so I am going to have a read-up this afternoon. Lunchtime first I think! Incidentally, the Sainsbury's Taste the Difference seeded batch bread on offer at the moment (£1) is far better than any other supermarket-bread on the shelf. Bakers bread is top-tier of course, but it's all very expensive here. I'm fairly sure that London is not really any more expensive than here!
BBC Weather has once again lied as well, it's a much nicer day here than the weather forecast would suggest. I think the old rule is take what BBC weather says and expect the opposite - I would have thought that they would have cottoned on by now as well!
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