Summer in the city

Ok, so we got married.

It was superlative in every sense.

And then we went on honeymoon, where we stayed in the most ridiculously twee hotel ever seen on the face of this earth. It even had the words 'Romantik' written on the side. You can't argue with that sort of branding. 

The ensuing month was spent drinking a good deal of wine...

...then moving location to a perhaps even more romantic Polish castle...

(Yes. For tuppence, you too can stay in this castle, swim in this lake, and eat more sausage than you can shake a stick at)

....but mainly attending the weddings of our beautiful friends, Maja & Maciej..

...and Amanda and Ed...

...and I fondled all the brides fondly.

This is me fondling Amanda's pouffy dress.

She was very patient.

Words cannot really describe how fantastic that month was, so I think it's best if we pass over it as any attempt will sound like hyperbole. The sun shone and everything was superb, and it was just a very, very happy time.

And now we've started work.

And I've baked a pie! Partially in honour of the Bake Off (which is great, right? Am I right?), but mostly in honour of my stomach, which had been much exercised on holiday.

A blueberry pie! Like Yogi eats. 

Excellent choice, Yogi. Turns out, it's delicious. 

No wonder he turned to theft.

Work has been somewhat tiring, but we've taken a lesson from NZ as we promised ourselves, and we have purchased a Lonely Planet, and this weekend Lonely Planet suggested to us we should go to Cornwall and do some surfing, and so we were like, 'great idea, Lonely Planet! Superlative!' 

So we did.

Turned out, one of Tim's school friends works in Cornwall now. At this surfshack. 

Superlative.

The scenery was beautiful, but it was a little bit chilly for August. 

And the waves were...well.

They weren't quite swell.

(I am the wit.)

Still, it was really fun to be back in the water and standing up on a board. I missed it so much as soon as I was out of the water, in fact, that I ordered a Ripstik which is slightly embarrassing as I think maybe it's marketed towards 8 year old boys but WHATEVER. Would Wolverine be put off by marketing? I say NO. Anyway, my consultant's wife (in Gisborne....obv) had one and she played on it all the time, and she is at least 10 years older than me so I count that as PEER ENDORSEMENT. 

She was well cool, innit.

(classic British seaside holiday scene! Oh how I have missed you.)

We ate ice creams and fish and more fish and more ice cream and Cornish crab and scallops and all the rest and we finished it off with a visit to Rick Stein's place in Padstow. I say Rick Stein's place, he basically owns all the property in Padstow now so if you just stumble blindly into a building in Padstow it probably will be Rick Stein's place. Still, it was very tasty and all that, and it was nice to gaze on Rick's very familiar-looking face as we munched our dinner. Speaking of which, we both saw John the other day in Oxford wobbling about on a bicycle in his white linen summer suit and he looked basically unchanged, which was also very nice. I accosted him by shouting JOHN STEIN! in the middle of Holywell, and then failed to remind him who I was, which left us both gawping at each other for about 20 seconds before it all clicked. 

I also ran into my old lab supervisor whilst up at the JR for a teaching session, just in the coffee room. She didn't have any kids when I left...and now she has 2. 2! And she is a senior researcher in the Foster lab. 

How times-a-change. Etc.

Anyway, here is a nice picture of the saltwater swimming pool in Bude to cheer us all up.

The sea comes washing up over the sides in high tide, which is tremendously pleasing. 

We also went for a walk around Tintagel, which I kind of imagined as tremendously romantic and huge but in fact is sort of ruinous and crumbling. I recognise that my illusions about this all stem from a BBC production of King Arthur in which Helena Bonham Carter played Morgan le Fay and Miranda Richardson played basically another version of her character as Queenie. Curse you, BBC, for instilling me with such false cultural expectations. I expect higher standards. 

Still, it was extremely beautiful. 

Here is a shot of the cove below Tintagel.

I leave you with this sunset view over Bude.

The best thing was, I found a copy of the Mousehole Cat and I read it to Tim, and he loved it just as much as I did when I heard it as a child. 

Superlative all round.