Thanet Weekend

This weekend we were down in Thanet for my Mum's birthday (it is actually on the 31st May, but close enough) and I must say it was great to get back to the Isle. After the oven-like heat of the bus and train, it was nice to get into the cool sea breeze of Thanet on Friday night.

Mum and Dad have got hold of an allotment up near Callis Grange school. It was pretty large and they seem to be working hard to get it into shape. Already in place are potatoes, french beans, onions and the odd lettace. Would quite like one myself, maybe when we've got a bit more time. Alice seemed to like it too. I'll be interested in seeing how it progresses.

On Saturday night we went out to an Italian resturant just by the harbour down at Broadstairs. I cannot remember the name, but I am sure Alice can sort this out later (Porto Vecchio - Ed). We've been before and I must say that they do a mean almond sponge thing. Unfortunately, they had cocked up the booking and had us down for 9 rather than for 7. It took them nearly an hour to sort out, but we did get a free bottle of wine out. I had some oven baked pasta thingy which was nice enough.

On Sunday we went round the Retallicks for James' 30th birthday thing. Loads of old friends around including Becki and Simon, Jen and Stewart, Jono and Debbie, Katie and others. Bit too much baby banter for our liking but still great.

Unfortunately, we had to come back Sunday evening because I had to come into work today ... pressure is just to much to be taking odd days here and there.

I have just sent out my 40th CV...

...just wanted to tell someone.

Alice at home...

I must say being at home all day brings on some strange moods. For one thing, the longer you stay at home, the less you can be bothered to go out. This is a good thing as far as our finances go, since I can spend very little money here, although I have spent a bit on the internet.

Talking of which, I have been introduced to an internet-based site that will print your digital photos for you on Kodak paper. It is only 10p a print, but the great thing is that you get 10 prints free when you join, and 20 for recommending someone else if they accept. Now if you have multiple internet identities like me, this is great, I have clocked up about 100 free prints! I sent of the first 20 yesterday, we will see how they turn out. Anyway if you want to be recommended let me know, and I will go ahead and get another 20 free prints...

Background

Just thought I would fill everyone in on where we are at at the moment. I (Dan) am 27 and Alice is 27 too. We have now been married for nearly 5 years.

We are both PhD students. Alice is doing a PhD in Chemistry and is nearly ... so close ... to finishing. The title of her thesis is "Studies Toward the Syntheses of SNF4435C and D, CJ-12662, and Semi-Synthetic Studies Toward the Stereochemical Assignment of Paeciloxazine". She has got her viva in a few weeks and is then scotch free. No job lined up as yet, but everything will work out I am sure. So currently Alice is trying to revise at home, revision for the first time in 5 years ... nice. I am doing a PhD in Mathematical/Computational Biology (I know strange combination but it is the future I promise you) and hopefully will finish in October, well that is when my funding runs out. My title is "Modelling the p53 Gene Regulatory Network" which doesn't really explain what I do, but is close enough. I am a bit of a geek and sit in front of a computer for the majority of the day.

We live in a small second floor flat in Bermondsey, London. It is very wee, well the kitchen and bathroom are, but I really love it. We have no where near enough storage space for our rubbish, but I have a theory that the guff expands to fill any space. Even though we have been living here for 3 and a half years we have only just finished painting every room and still haven't done the woodwork. Bermondsey is a fine place to live, even though it is a very deprived area. It is mainly council estates and extremely posh flats with a few georgian houses sprinkled around. It is very close to the centre of town which is great but buses are the main public transport. Not that buses are bad, definitely better than the tube in the summer. My favourite bus ... the No. 1 ... is the one I take to work every single day.

Right ... enough for now. I will try to keep this blog up to date with news. If you want computer geekdom and random rants then check out my personal blog, but that does not say much about what I'm doing.

Template Changes

Man I need some training in blogging, it just took me (with a huge amount of help from Dan) literally hours to sort out the header at the top of the page. The thing with computers is, it is very annoying if you know what you want something to look like. You can do it in two minutes on paper and then it takes you ages and ages on the puter. This was a major problem with writing my thesis too! Maybe I should do a course or something...

First Post

Ta Taratarantantan Taaaaaaaaaa

Here you go everyone, a blog for the two of us where you can check out what we are up to, and no worries about compromising anonymity.

Enjoy!