With this ring....

I've been noticing recently that a LOT of people have got engaged or married in the past year. From January in fact. Close friends, sisters of close friends, acquaintances, friends of acquaintances, childhood friends I've not spoken to in ages, other friends where the radio silence hasn't been quite so long. Facebook of course, keeps me up to date with 'developments' and probably exaggerates the number. I mean, how many of these weddings and engagements would I know about if it weren't for Facebook? Probably only about half of them.

I guess at 20 I'm reaching the age where relationships aren't just giggly "so and so likes so and so" affairs but serious commitments of many years. A number of these couples I remember when they initially became 'a thing' while others, I'm so out of touch with that I've never even met their significant other to be.

Watching people who have been going out roughly the same amount of time as me and my boyfriend, and in some cases less, makes me think. Here isn't the place to share the outcome of those thoughts (assuming I've come to any sort of conclusion) however I will ask you this: Is marriage peer pressure a thing?

Growing up, the "get a boyfriend/girlfriend, get engaged, get married, have kids" is the overarching life-plan drilled into us, intentionally or not, by TV, books and films. 'Firsts' is always the big thing too; from the first to go up a stage in reading books, to the first to graduate to using ink pen, to first boyfriend/girlfriend and first kiss.

Having so many peers get engaged and married in some ways makes me wonder if I'm 'being slow' and means I'm definitely not 'first' in any stretch of the meaning. However, I just need to keep reminding myself that being first isn't everything. Engagement and marriage is hardly something you rush into and I'd much rather be the very last than be the first and then regret my decision. Nevertheless, I am curious as to where I'll be in a years time....

EDIT: since I wrote this, I've found out my boyfriend's cousin also got engaged this past week. Seriously, is there something in the air?!

Explaining my absence

So, two posts have passed since my period of absence over the summer and I hear you all still wondering: what exactly were you up to?

Well, do you want the short answer or the long answer?

Short answer: Brunei, Scotland, Paris, Leysdown, Crowborough, Roothill

Long answer:

After my two field trips as I've mentioned in my previous blogs, I had a few days breather before flying over to Paris for a short holiday sightseeing. Being under 25 and citizens of the EU, me and my boyfriend spent our time using this to be as touristy as possible at pretty much zero cost. We went round as many art galleries and museums as possible, including the Louvre obviously, seeing the Mona Lisa, Van Gough's amazing artwork including a few of those seen in the Doctor Who episode, Monet's waterlilies, and a huge number of other pieces of amazing artwork, a number of which I spent my time frowning at the plaques, trying to remember if they'd been mentioned in my GCSE art classes. We also went to the Notre Dame, Shakespeare and Company, a French games shop, under but not up the Eiffel Tower, and I definitely didn't try to visit as many of the landmarks mentioned in "Anna and the French Kiss" as possible....

After Paris, I headed back "home home" to my parents to spend a week with them, visiting family and just generally having 'family time' seen as it was to be the only week of the summer I was free to do that!

I then headed off to Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey to spend a week with United Beach Missions. I had a challenging but encouraging and enjoyable time sharing the gospel in the wonderful Sunday School style of the 2.30pm program and running about playing various games in the morning. Unfortunately, the week was interrupted by the terrible news that a body had been found on the beach preventing the use of the beach and shocking us by the lack of concern in Leysdown. Not to mention that our presence on the football field the previous evening meant that we were all questioned (no, the police don't have a box that neatly describes my hair colour). A sensitive and sad interruption to the week but we pray that it highlighted the importance of the message we were sharing.

On a lighter note, after not quite a week at home, I headed off to Crowborough to lead on the same camp as I grew up going to and led on last year. However, this year, I was on catering, having to make sure there was enough food for breakfast, lunch and supper (thankfully someone else was cooking the evening meals!). The catering went much smoother than I expected, even if we were slightly short on cakes and had way too much milk left over! I had an amazing discussion group, some of whom I had last year and it was so encouraging to see how they had grown as christians. I shared my testimony on the Friday which was daunting but some of the comments afterwards were encouraging and then in the evening the traditional midnight feast ensued. My part involved feeding the campers and one of the leaders various nice and not so nice food items in a taste test style including dog food. Well... sort of... *wink nudge* It got a brilliant response!

After a weekend to recovered from the lack of sleep inflicted by camp followed by only four hours on the last night, I eventually headed off to Roothill Camp, the last long distance trip for Noah the car... (More on that another time...) I initially wasn't going to go to Roothill at all what with it being straight after Crowborough however, how could I miss such an awesome camp?!

We (Beth and I) got there late afternoon on Wednesday, in time for Beth to talk about her trip to India with GBM's Envision program and to enjoy two full days of this relaxing but challenging camp to finish off my summer. The Thursday was the annual visit to Littlehampton and, like most years, we got fish and chips, played crazy golf, went on the Dodgems and the Waltzer. Unlike normal, I managed to lose my glasses on the Waltzer.... Josh was mortified that he had managed to knock them off my face however, knowing I had a spare pair in my bag and after having scratched them the week before, I found the situation rather funny! However, we still had a good look for the flying glasses and, on not finding anything, left my details with the fairground people. I'll let you know if I hear anything but I'm not holding my breath...

So that brings us to now, where I'm back up in London, pretended to be productive but actually putting off doing more of my coursework and dissertation research. Summer over and third year looming over me...

Dolphins in the Deep

Remember where I was at the end of July? No? Well, read this blog post first because this is a follow up from that post and, well, you might get a bit confused....

So, I left you wondering, will I see dolphins in the two days left in Scotland? The second day on Mull consisted of a land based tour and the weather wasn't anything special so we didn't see any dolphins. However, as the title of this blog (totally not nicked off an Animal Ark book..) might suggest, the last day was much more promising...

The third day we were out with Sealife Surveys on their boat, Sula Beag. We had barely started the transect when, someone thought they spotted a dolphin a way off. Sure enough, there were a couple of dolphins swimming parallel to the shore. Awesome! I thought, I've seen some dolphins! The thing is, someone else pointed out some more dolphins, and then another few dolphins and soon we seemed to have 16+ dolphins swimming around the boat, close enough that we didn't need binoculars.

Wow, I thought. No doubting I've seen some bottlenose dolphins and the ten year old in me was ecstatic! However, the dolphins must have decided that they hadn't put on enough of a show. Two dolphins swam alongside the boat, no more than 5 meters away at one point. I was barely containing my excitement. I whipped out my little point and shoot knowing even that little thing could get a photo of these elegant creatures.

I felt 10 again. However, this time, instead of reading about dolphins in an Animal Ark book, living precariously through the eyes of Mandy Hope, I was the one seeing the dolphins mere meters away. It was breathtaking. I'm pretty sure our bird sightings dipped at that point because nobody was looking up, only down!

This is the boat's picture of one of the dolphins we saw that day, much better than any I was taking! I'm pretty sure increasing the shutter speed isn't something I can do on my little camera...

I was ready to go home at that point. I'd seen more dolphins than I thought I'd even see, and all without leaving the United Kingdom, however this was just the beginning.

Less than an hour later, a shout of "MINKE!" came from the other end of the boat and, sure enough, a minke whale was surfacing surprisingly close to the boat. We then saw that same whale surfacing after diving another two times before we eventually parted ways.

Of course, a number of harbour and grey seals were seen along with a plethora of sea-birds however harbour and grey seals are slightly less exciting once you've spent some time in Scotland and have spotted some cetaceans!

Essentially, after the dissapointment of the first boat trip out on Mull, the last day more than made up for it. Sure, we may not have seen a killer whale or a basking shark but hey, you can't have everything.

I'll leave you with a group photo of everyone on that boat, grinning away after such a successful day 'whale-watching'. Can you spot me?!

"So long, and thanks for all the fish."

Mantis in the Shower

In the crazy business that is my typical summer, I somehow slipped from giving you the occasional update to leaving you in the dark. No, the zombie blog hasn't been killed by a stray mortal, just sleeping while I continued to travel about.

As those of you who have been reading know, my summer started with heading 14+ hours around the globe to Brunei in Borneo for a field trip. This already seems like a distant memory, despite being less than 3 months ago. Nevertheless, it's an experience I don't want to forget and hey, didn't I mention I'd share some pictures with you?

Meeting some friends of friends (and some of their friends!) and getting taken on a tour of Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital...

 Trying some of the Local food (this particular morsel tasted a bit like a doughnut..) and in generally being overfed yummy Brunei-an food....

 Finding that THIS was our view for our first week; experiencing the rainforest which is sort of like British woodland but at the same time NOT AT ALL THE SAME. (I mean, so many different sounds, smells, different species of animals and plants where ever you look and an amazing sense of God's creation, despite being surrounded by atheist scientists); and having "ooh! can we catch that?!" being exclaimed every other second in the evenings when insects galore were enticed by the bright lights....

 Getting up BEFORE BREAKFAST to kayak on a swap full of crocodiles, and then heading back out again after a noodle-y breakfast to collect more samples. Oh, and then heading back out in the evening to go searching for crocodiles.....

 Handling tiny bats (this one here is a fruit bat, Latin name of Balionycteris maculata if you care...) and catching, marking and recapturing dragonflies, as well as seeing many other stunning critters everywhere we looked....







Dissecting a fish from the swamp which had a gut length of almost a meter which is about eight times as long as it's body length....

 
Entering C3 forest (basically forest that's so protected we could only going in because we're 'scientists', had permission, and had rangers with us) and seeing hords of termites and ants absolutely everywhere and getting bitten but a number of ants (the smaller being the more painful!)...

Travelling between sites primarily by boat via a mangrove where we saw this cat snake...

Having tree frogs right next to where we were sleeping and finding a giant spider in the bathroom. Apparently the story goes that one of my friends went to the lecturer saying "there's a spider in the bathroom", the lecturer assumed it wouldn't be that big and went up to see it/remove it by hand only to go 'oh...' and go fetch a rather large jar/measuring cylinder from the lab. Side note: that spider then started to spin a fine web at the bottom of that jar as if preparing to lay eggs so we released it pretty rapidly!

Getting up before sunrise so early  (about 4am!) that with the 7 hour time difference, my friends in England were still awake, but not regretting it at all because we got to see the run rise over the canopy and walk in amongst the highest branches...

 Finding a beautiful mantis in the shower and having bats flight mere centimetres above our heads as they were catching the insects attracted to the lights on the walkways....

Watching my lecturers get so excited over the creatures they found, as well as getting excited myself by giant stag beetles and another giant spider spinning a web on the side of the walkway....

Finally, having to leave the beautiful, hot, sweaty, mesmerising tropics, wishing I could have taken more photos and treasuring the memories and few decent photos my little point and shoot managed to capture for me.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth"

Genesis 1v1