Rose beauty

Last night the camera club exhibition went off very well, we had some extra guests attend including the well known wildlife photographer Andy Skillen. We also had our awards ceremony and I received a very smart silver cup for winning the top marks for the year for the print category in my Advanced class. It was the first time it was held in the the new venue and it was a wonderful location, we will be using it every year going forward. 

This morning I woke up feeling really sore after my intense osteopathy session yesterday, I considered cancelling my weekly ladies golf session as my shoulder was so painful. Anyway I decided to suck it up, take some Nurofen and go. I am pleased I did, as we did pitching today and I played really well, my coach was quite impressed. A vast improvement on how I played on Sunday! Funnily enough my shoulder is not painful when I am playing golf, I think any motion actually helps it. It is most painful when I wake up in the morning after lying still all night. However, the osteopath thinks that golf could be the reason for my shoulder and neck pain, but he says that will entail some tweaking to my swing to prevent the problem, I don't have to stop playing.

Tommy has now finally finished his exams, his project and project presentation. He graduates on 30th June, but I was hopping mad today to hear that due to the lecturers striking and boycotting marking exams and assessments, some students exams are not being marked and so they cannot graduate this summer. Thankfully being an engineering student his lecturers are not striking, so he will get his exams marked - it tends to be the arts and humanities lecturers who are striking as they are more politically motivated than the STEM lecturers. However as it is not fair to those students who cannot graduate, no student is allowed enjoy the normal graduation ceremony this year, including those who have received their degree results. At Cambridge University they have a centuries old ceremony for graduation that is held in Senate House, and Tommy has been looking forward to this special event for four years - he avoided going to Adam's graduations as he wanted the surprise elements of the ceremony to be special for him - now that is being taken away from him and his fellow graduands. I am furious about this, those students work so hard and are under so much pressure during the years of their degree, and now this final ceremony to reward them from that is being taken away due to the strikes. Why should the students suffer for something that has nothing to do with them? The UK has been beset by so many strikes for the past year, and quiet honestly my sympathy for the strikers has worn thin. The strikes are planned to cause suffering to those who have no control over the issues and I think that is unfair.  

As I type this Adam is flying to San Diego for a science conference he is attending and he also has two interviews lined up at two top bioscience research labs - an exciting time for him!