Graduation, Take 2

With the end of every university course comes the graduation. I had of course attended my undergraduate graduation in St Andrews, and celebrated it in the standard way...drinks with family and friends, the donning of the traditional robe, and more pictures than a girl can count.

Graduation is so special because it is a once in a lifetime experience, so I found it hard to understand why my parents were so keen to attend my PhD graduation last week. However, it was an excuse for them to come visit me in the UK, so I agreed to undergo all that pomp and ceremony one more time.

Mum and Ric flew to London the saturday before graduation, and drove from luton to our house in Bexley. We spent a lovely evening enjoying some wine and a delicious roast, prepped our baggage, and bright and early the next morning the three of us and boyfriend set off in the car for the North.

That day we were headed for Chester where we were planning to spend the night before driving over to Preston. Boyfriend and I had actually been holidaying there recently so we had gained a bit of familiarity with the place, but I was eager for the parentals to explore this beautiful old town. It took us six hours to get there (no comment except....people...please...update your GPS!!!) and mum and I managed to get in a couple hours of solid shopping that afternoon before the shops closed at the ridiculously early time of 5pm.

Mum and I at the pub

That evening we meandered into town to find a pub for dinner. It was the night of the world cup final so we were keen to find someplace with a tv and showing the game. We ended up in this huge cellar type pub called the Ye Olde Custom House, which according to its website actually dates back to the 17th century. It was a great place, and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who enjoys good ale, tasty food and a lively atmosphere.

Boyfriend playing the professor

Seeing the sights

The next morning dawned with at least one hangover in the group. Mum and I managed to get a quick round in at the shops before checkout, and the boys spent some time touring Chester's museums. We then headed over to Cheshire Oaks outlet centre for some more shopping and lunch. Not a bad day really...picked up some new work clothes and, best pressie of all, a beautiful tagine from lakeland. I'm particularly happy with the last purchase, and can't wait to cook some tasty Moroccan food in it.

Later that day we finished our journey up to Preston. Since we left it so late to book graduation, we were left with a poor choice of hotels, so we stayed out at a Premier inn a few miles outside of the city centre. Not exactly walking distance but luckily it had a nice big pub called the Lea Gate which was perfect for our purposes :)

It just so happened that daddy was able to rearrange his schedule for graduation so that evening he also arrived from overseas and met us at the hotel. So the five of us had a lovely night filled with yumminess, wine, billiards and a final goodnight whiskey to see the night off. Perfect.

Top of the program

Unsurprisingly we all slept in the next morning and had to scramble to get ourselves together in time for graduation. Luckily it was an afternoon ceremony so I got to take everyone for lunch at Tottos (it was my graduation day so not my treat *wink wink*). After some hair of the dog we headed over to the Preston guild hall to pick up our tickets, our fancy robes (and silly hats) and headed into graduation.

The best part of the day? Well, not really but pretty high up there. I was the first on stage and boyfriend the second. I also didn't trip, and wasn't surrounded by a bunch of snot nosed undergrads. And to top it off, at the end of the ceremony the UCLan choir came on stage and sang May It Be by Enya...also the soundtrack to the Fellowship of the Ring...no need to say how much I love that film. So not a bad graduation really.

It all got better from there. After the endless rounds of photographs, we headed to Forum bar, where people from uclan and boyfriend's family began to arrive in drips and drabs. It was lovely of our supervisors and every one to show up and we had a few drinks and olives to start our night off.

Me and my dad

For dinner around 18 of us went to one of our favourite restaurants: dukpond. This is a tapas place with some truly delicious food and wine. We enjoyed a delectable feast of spanish meatballs, sticky steak, gambas pil pil, garlicky scallops and so many more lovely dishes. And a big shout out here to my dad, who paid the tab for everyone. Thanks dad!!

Afterwards my parents were super keen to play dome billiards. So we headed to the Corn Exchange for some more drinks...the boys played billiards and the ladies drank shots. Well...not my mother. But what a truly awesome day.

Sadly, it was over all too soon, and the next day I had to bid goodbye to dad, and we set off back on the long journey back to Belvedere.