To Kill a Bedding-Bug

Well we know we started this blog to make y'all jealous and to live vicariously through us, but yesterday was not one we'd wish on you!

It all started several weeks ago when Gwenlli was complaining that she had been bitten. I had no such evidence, and so we assumed that they were bites from the newly de-flea-d office. (Side note: G has finished her job and is now working hard on revising for UKCAT which is in a week.)

Two nights ago we were chilling in bed with a book and Gwenlli noticed black spots on the bed sheets. We googled around and realised they are the hallmark of bed-bug faeces. Well, it was midnight, so allow dealing with that now. Let's sleep on it (!) and deal with it in the morning. Of course, neither of us got much sleep in the awareness that we were sleeping on shit. To be technical, bed bugs eat blood and they defecate blood so they're leaving smears of our blood on our sheets. Tasty.

I had some friends over for group project work (model building), but when they left we decided to inspect the bedroom. We lifted the mattresses, inspected the bed frames, and found a live bed bug in Gwenlli's bed. Incidentally it was similar to one I had found in my bed several weeks ago but had been unaware that it was a bed bug and chucked it out the window without further thought. G called Jimmi and explained the situation and apparently it always happens when new people move in. He advised us to bomb the room as that keeps it under control.

Whilst they were on the phone, I lifted the bed frames to take a closer look and saw about ten of them cotching. Luckily my freak-out was the excuse to get off the phone. Hoover at the ready and after practicing several times, I lifted the bed frame and G hoovered them up. That was the start of the hoovering. I went down to Countdown to buy some spray and bombs, came back and cooked some food. In the meantime G was getting the first high-temperature-load on of our clothes. So began the methodical procedure of moving everything out the room (checking it first) and hoovering every square inch.

We found their nest - demarcated by dark black spots all around. We found several more live ones. After hoovering, we strategically aligned the bed frames and mattresses, covered the fire alarm with a rubber glove to prevent it from going off, and started the bomb. The instructions said to wait a minimum of 2 hours. Three and a half hours later G went in to open the windows.

Fandango and Scaramouche having their first bath

In the meantime, Scaramouche, Fandango, and Jermey had their first baths. Fred and Ginger are too old for that so we put them straight in the freezer. After Scaramouche came out we put her in the freezer as we had found a suspicious looking yellow thing in her fur. Bed bugs don't like the cold, but it takes two weeks for them to go from it. During all this, our new flat mates are moving in and M asked "Why do you have bears in the freezer?" He must have thought we were cruel mummies.

Scaramouche in the dryer

Bed bugs can live up to 6 months without a feed so you have to trap them inside the mattress and ensure they slowly starve to death. I tell you, it's quite heart-breaking to think of them in there slowly rotting away but their presence is linked to sleeplessness and allergic reactions. To be honest, they're not really that bad but neither of us want them, and unfortunately it's them or our sleep :(

Scaramouche all fluffy after her adventures

So, G suggested we cling-film the bed frames and the mattresses which took about half an hour. After that, we started to move everything back in. I wanted to take the rubber glove off the fire alarm and was wary of bringing any wooden furniture into the bedroom (all of ours was bombed), so elected to use what felt like a sturdy shelving unit. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was deceptive and I fell straight through, breaking the shelves in the process. Cuts and scrapes are up my leg but luckily not that hurt.

We also forgot to wash our duvets so slept under clean duvet cases. So, safely tucked in we're just about to go to sleep when this noise started. I barely had enough time to ask "What was that?" when the mirror fell off the wall and shattered into a thousand pieces.

So begins our seven years of bad luck.

Return of the Teddy

We've been nagged and begged, implored and demanded, to update the poor folk living vicariously through our New Zealand experience. To that end, we're back with an update!

The most important, biggest, news is that we are delighted to announce the addition of a new member of our family. She was delivered by stork last month, the sister of Fandango, she is of course Scaramouche. She is the second Welsh sheep of our small clan. This was her first photo shoot, so she was rather shy.

Since our last post, we *finally* *finally* moved into our new flat! It's lovely and spacious, and we had a really nice flatmate who spent most of her time out of the flat. She has now moved out, and we're in an interim period awaiting another couple to move in in a few weeks time. We had our choice of people, but they were the most accommodating to our vegetarian needs. Although we only met one half of the couple, he was keen to cook with us occasionally and to also store any meat in a fridge in their own room. Everyone else who came to see the flat responded to the question of food with "Oh, that's a shame. I LOVE meat".

C: So, Gwenllian, what have you been up to since we last posted?
G: Well, I've been working hard at ballet and have been doing point again. I'm about to finish working at Inland Revenue and start a month's revision period before going to Australia to do the GAMSAT. That's a 6-hour exam which will test my knowledge of science, maths, and verbal reasoning that universities at home will use to ascertain whether or not to let me be a doctor.

C: That sounds like quite a slog!
G: Yeah, that's why I'm taking the month off. Luckily my contract is ending and I have another job to see me through.

C: Oh yeah?
G: Yeah :) I'm working for a psychology professor at the University of Auckland as a research assistant. We're replicating a study done in America to determine how the parents of eating disorder patients can benefit from online resources. I'm spending most of my time at the moment writing funding applications, and finding out statistics such as how many Maori people we think will be involved. I'm really enjoying it.

G: But you got to be involved too!
C: Oh yeah :) Last weekend I entertained the daughter of the professor whilst you and she were in the living room doing adult stuff. We just watched science cartoons and played Rummikub!

G: That sounds like what we did with your parents...
C: Somehow I always end up playing Rummikub :) Mum and Don came to visit and they took us to the Bay of Islands for a four-day weekend trip to a gorgeous guest house. We will likely write up that trip in a separate post, but suffice to say it was really lovely to see people from the hood.

G: How about university? 
C: !Brag Alert! I received my grades from last semester and got straight As all around! I've just started Semester Two and have already been working quite a bit. One of my courses this semester is writing a computer model with two other people. We have decided to model desertification in a semi-arid region in response to grazing pressures. It's been a really fun project so far, and it's been great to get back into coding. Speaking of coding, I've also had a job on the side with a web company thanks to a friend from silks. It's only PHP but it's been nice to be back in the company of computer geeks. Plus, Curry Wednesday last week was brilliant (free yummy curry on a Wednesday if in the office)!

Well, that's a brief summary of the last few months. We will write up more this weekend.

Silks and Silk-abilities

Last week, after Ima's on Friday night, C took G to see DubFX after having booked the tickets on a whim several months before. DubFX beat-boxes his backing track and using foot-pedal technology adds beat-boxed layers of instrumentals and then raps over the top. We arrived at the club at half nine and watched a DJ on stage with his Mac, gradually dancing our way to the front of the audience. By the time DubFX was being chanted for, we were at the very front and had already been introduced to a very crazy fan with a hand-shake. She and DubFX had "conversation" the whole way through his set. He was joined on stage by a sax and piano player, Andy V, who gave D some much needed support by grinning maniacally and jumping up and down with his arms in the air. Apparently it was the 42nd gig in 7 weeks and D's voice was breaking and he looked to be in pain at several high notes, so as a crowd we cheered him on to the end of his set - the poor guy!

The next day, Sunday, we took the bus to Tingting's house to discuss the possibility of a hiking weekend with one of T's friends. Upon arrival we were put to work in the kitchen making dumplings. C turned out to be a natural at this, and so went round instructing everyone else in dumpling-making. Simply take your rolled flour, add some stuffing quite compactly, fold the dough, put water around the edges, press the edges together, and seal in whichever pattern you like. We were kicked out of the kitchen after half an hour because the roommate on cooking duty was grumpy at our "school-girl attitude", but who says you can't have some fun in a kitchen when you're not working for Ramsey?

We went upstairs and waited for dinner, chatting for a while until the gong sounded (in a house of 20 people you need a dinner gong). The dumplings, accompanying vegetable curry, carrot and beetroot salad and sauce were delicious. We took our dinner upstairs and discussed the trip. A four-person tent was then brought down and we quickly put it up only to be hit with the smell of damp, so moved it onto a pile of mattresses in the gigantic living room to dry out. We attached a note indicating it must not be moved, and received some strange looks from other housemates. Following some table-tennis (C) and piano playing (G), T's friend's boyfriend came to pick her up, and they very kindly gave us a lift back into town.

On Tuesday afternoon, we went to Glen Innes to meet the psych professor and he drove us to circus class. There C had her first go on the silks. It was just like the monkey bars: muscle memory kicked in and she was hanging upside down and performing the grade 1 routine in no time- a born circus natural. Looks like Tuesday nights are now silks nights for C!

Wednesday brought Python and ballet! G went to a double ballet session, and C attended a meeting of New Zealand's Python User Group (Auckland branch) and headed to the pub afterwards and had some OK beer. If anyone is au fait with beer in the Auckland area, where can we get a good pint? Not one has yet been consumed. Wine tips also please.

This week, C made spinach and kumara ravioli (from scratch), and used the remaining dough to make mushroom and walnut ravioli. The idea came from her new-found proficiency at dumpling making. G made delicious Tom Yam full of chilli and flavour, and banana, peanut butter and chocolate cookies. Needless to say, most were finished by G... C's sweet-tooth is just not up to that level yet.

The Grapes of Wrath

Over the last week, we have both been busy bees indeed. Last Saturday, C was slaving away on her assignments, and G went to ballet as usual. Then in the afternoon, G went to Glen Innes to meet the psych prof and someone from her ballet class (who also happens to be a postgraduate psychology student) for a silks class, i.e. climbing and swinging and posing on long silk ribbons hanging from the ceiling, circus style. For G, this was a completely new experience, and given her lack of any considerable upper-body strength, a challenge.

The class started with some 'gentle' warm-ups, which included doing press ups. Then the class moved on to the silks themselves, and learned how to climb them. It's similar to climbing a rope, where you have to pull yourself up with your arms, but the silks have to be arranged in a specific way around your feet, which allows you to climb, but also saves you from falling off/dying if your hands slip. Climbing the silks was hard, so it wasn't done for too long. Then there was learning some different knots for your feet which allow you to do various moves, and trying some poses, which were elegant when demonstrated by the instructor. The class finished with a gentle wind-down of push-ups, chin-ups, carrying other people across the room with bent legs and handstands. G did not fully recover until Thursday.

On Sunday, we were feeling a bit worse for wear following a night out with Linda, but this could not hold us back as we were meeting Tingting to go to One Tree Hill, another extinct volcano a few miles out of the city. First we went for brunch at Olaf's cafe in Mount Eden, where poor C had some issues with vegan options (which Tingting very determinedly resolved), but once we got our food it was tasty, if a little on the pretentious/rip-off side. We then made our way in T's car to One Tree Hill, which used to be an important Maori settlement. We arrived in the midst of a dog show, so watched the adorable dogs parade around the ring to commentary from a less-than-enthused adjudicator.

After best-in-show, we made our way to the top of the hill, where we admired the views of Auckland (you could see for miles around). There used to be an old tree at the summit, but this was cut down by Maori activists to protest injustices perpetrated by the NZ government. Strangely, there is a 'towering obelisk' at the top of the hill, a monument to a British aristocrat's admiration of the Maori people. That's right, not a monument to the Maori, but to some white colonialist's admiration of them. On the way back to the car, we saw a tiny metal plaque on the side of the hill. The plaque said it was the true monument to the Maori people who lived on the hill, and that that the chief used to live on the summit, probably where the obelisk stands now.

On Monday, G started her new job working for Inland Revenue. There is an initial training period of 9 weeks, and much to learn, but everyone seemed very friendly and helpful so G finished the week with good feelings about her new post. On Monday night, we had Mel and Kate over for dinner, and C made a delicious kumara risotto, finishing off with some vegan coconut ice cream (yum) from M&K. On Thursday, our landlord returned from Thailand. and informed us that he would no longer be keeping our current flat, so we would be moving to our other flat by the end of April. We'll believe it when it happens! G also got some good news on Thursday- the psych prof think he's secured some funding for G to be a research assistant on one of his projects which will be a study of parents of eating-disordered children. It sounds like an exciting project, so G said that she'd be interested.

On Friday, we went for dinner at Ima's, an Israeli restaurant that C found through one of her classmates, to celebrate the end of a good week, with G staring her new job and C finishing assignments. We had a small mezze to start (small=really not small) which consisted of olives, hummus, tahini, fried lemony cauliflower, aubergine, tomato, pita, and other assorted goodness. G then had fried halloumi and C had a vegan dish- we couldn't stop praising how good the food was! Unfortunately we ordered some red wine which was less than drinkable. It was an NZ wine from Hawke's Bay, which tasted nothing like wine- we could barely swallow it without gagging. We apologetically sent it back, and we chose a different one, this time it was almost acceptable, but G still couldn't finish hers. Although the wine was a disappointment, we'll definitely go back there, as the food was heavenly!

The Perks of Being a Wallclimber

Friday night. G and C head to Juice Bar in Parnell, for an amateur burlesque night with Mel and Kate who we know from Rainbow Youth. The show was packed and the drinks a rip-off, but it turned out to be a fun night nevertheless. Most of the women on-stage clearly hadn't been doing it for long, but it was nice to see people of all shapes and sizes get up and strut their stuff. It looked like they were having a lot of fun, so in the interval when the troupe's instructor asked who wanted to have a go, of course we volunteered! Unfortunately by the time we made it to the stage, they had run out of feather boas, which seemed to be used in about 50% of the moves. We bravely carried on without boas, executing each turn and move with utmost grace and finesse.

On Saturday, G finally awoke to the message she had been waiting for. Apparently she was 1.2% below the mark required to gain entry to medschool in 2014. This was disappointing, but G resolved to work even harder and do better next year, take some different exams, and review her uni choices. Also this way she gets to spend another year out in this beautiful country with the lovely C, so it ain't half bad! G then went for Saturday morning ballet class, leaving C at home to get on with her essay on biodiversity policies in NZ.

The psych professor met us at Glen Innes train station just after lunch, and we picked up a speech and language therapy PhD student on the way to the climbing centre. C had climbed before, but G had no prior experience so wasn't sure what to expect! We had an induction from the friendly instructors, and were then left to try for ourselves! The professor seemed to be somewhat of an experienced climber, scaling the walls upside-down. The student was Muslim, so would be climbing fully covered, in loose garments, which reassured G a bit, as if the student could climb in her clothing, it couldn't be too difficult!

We both climbed three walls each, starting with the easiest. G seemed to take to it well, so we progressed onto a slightly harder wall, which we both completed. The final wall was a bit harder. C managed about half before returning, as her arms and legs were unable to bend the sufficient amount to reach the next marker! G attempted the wall, falling off three times, but eventually managing to make it to the top, which she was very pleased about. Post-climb we all had coffee, C got into a heated religious debate, and we were both invited to go along to a circus skills (trapeeze, silks etc) class the following weekend. Why not?

Sunday was a lazy day, the highlight being the purchase of a new laptop for C and Bananagrams. C met up with a friend from Imperial, and they had some compsci chats over a few pints. On Monday, G and C cracked on with work, C finalising and submitting her first essay in seven years, and G reading a paper for the psych prof about how to best promote self-caring to the parents of eating-disordered children. He is hoping to replicate the study in NZ, which would be great to get involved with.

Curry cravings set in by late afternoon, and we set out to Dosa Plaza, to see what they had to offer. C had a hot and sour soup and masala dosa, and G had a paneer tikka combo. It was rather delicious, and definitely more flavoursome than Raviz. We then went home and had a productive evening, C excitedly setting up her new laptop and G doing some more reading, whilst indulging in our new Father Ted addiction.

Great Barrier Island Part 4 (as told by C)

Today we would be measuring carbon and salt-marsh species in Whangapoua (Wh in Maori is Ph). We headed to a white sand beach: pristine and beautiful. From the beach one group laid out a 500m transect (tape measure) through the salt-marshes and into the mangroves. We took it in turns to leapfrog down the transect, laying out a plot, and recording the two dominant species along with an estimation of their cover.

The work was fairly tedious because there were only a few species present, and getting a look at ground level involved much squishing. The carbon measuring (which groups did in turns) at every plot was much more interesting! Luitgard (lecturer) stuck a device over the soil which records the influx of carbon, R stuck a thermometer in the ground, I took the GPS, and S made notes.

The mangrove forest was really fun: squelchy and muddy and smelly, a great end to the data-collection / work part of the trip. It was time to head back to the beach. We had waves to catch! We all "tog"ged up and ran into the sea and spent about an hour swimming and playing in the waves - it was lovely. After dinner (potato curry) we got dressed up and went to the pub. There we played pool, darts, spoke random languages, and had a really great evening. In the bus on the way home we serenaded Sandra and George with "Teenage Dirtbag" and unloaded to head to the jetty to see the bioluminescence of the water.

Due to Y and I being particularly keen, we got onto the jetty just as the boat owner was heading home. Not knowing he wasn't one of our group, I accosted him about not climbing in other people's property. He turned around and I apologised profusely, and he offered to take myself and Y on a boat ride to see the bioluminescence more clearly. The wake of the boat glowed silver, and the sides and into the lake were all silver: it was really stunning. Back on the jetty, a group of us hung out and star-gazed, finding the southern cross amongst other things.

The next day we started the drive back to the ferry terminal, but stopped off en-route to go to the hot springs. On the path to the water, we saw a Morepork - New Zealand's last surviving owl - and it was so sleepy and looking at us, blinking, clearly not happy to have been disturbed! At the spring we were warned not to put our heads under-water as we could contract amoebal meningitis and die. With that message ringing in our ears, we plunged into the pools and carefully had a relaxing time.

Back on the road we stopped off for ice-cream and petrol and then back to the ferry. I had a good old nap for the first couple of hours, but was awoken by a very powerful smell of chips. Heading downstairs I enquired as to whether or not they had any, to be told I must be hallucinating! Later on people started getting beer, so I headed downstairs to get one for myself, to have the following conversation with the barman:

- Are you from Newcastle?
- erm... no...
(random guy: isn't that quite insulting?)
- where are you from?
-  london
- south london?
- the insults just keep coming!

We spent the last hour on the front deck chatting and watching Auckland grow bigger as the sun set. We docked, said our goodbyes, and G came to meet me at the ferry terminal.

All in all: a bloody good trip!

Great Barrier Island Part 3 (as told by C)

Wednesday morning was the usual breakfast, make lunch, pile in van. This time, however, we drove to meet an esteemed ecologist: Mr Ogden. His thick Yorkshire accent made it hard for me to follow what he said, I was too busy enjoying his voice. He led us through the peaty bog and told an anecdote whilst we waited for Janet and George to find the place for us to core. We would be looking at the charcoal contents of the core to gain a history of the island.

The area we were in was originally marine, but excessive burning of the vegetation meant the topsoil had slid down and ended up filling in the area. This in turn meant that salt-marshes and wetland forests started to form. The plant species we would be recording tomorrow were introduced - three types of rushes. There was also plenty of sea-spinach which is delicious and would have made excellent sandwiches.

At the coring site we were introduced to the equipment as Janet introduced us to the coring process. After she had extracted the core, she asked if there were any willing volunteers to get their hands dirty. Of course, I was the only one who stepped forward. I held the corer and posed for the photo that George took (core-nography) as she rotated and scraped it into a piece of pipe cut to size. Other people then had their chance to push the corer into the ground and extract the boggy earth.

After coring a couple more times, we headed back to the accommodation to begin extracting information from the cores. We split into two groups and were given one core each. We then sub-divided into four groups and cut the core four-ways. Every 2cm we scraped a tea-spoon's worth of peat into a beaker. After this we added bleach to the beakers and shaked them around and left them to bleach.

During the bleach we headed upstairs for a lecture on statistics (not before managing to squeeze in another game of bananagrams!). After the lecture, the samples were ready and we began to filter the bleached solutions. This involved plenty of water, so the other S in our team took to running back and forth refilling everyone's bottles. Y and I were on one bucket, and S and R on the other. Two other people went upstairs to start counting the charcoal. We finished filtering just in time for dinner (chickpea curry and rice) and another game of bananagrams!

That evening we spent counting charcoal by pouring the solutions into channels, placing them under a microscope, and clicking a counter every time we saw some. The first solution I examined had so much charcoal in it I almost broke my thumb. This high level of charcoal means that humans had definitely arrived by this point in time. Throughout the world, the arrival of humans at any particular place is always coincidental with high levels of charcoal in samples. Wherever we go, we slash and burn.

As the charcoal was being counted, we started to make graphs of our results. At first we tried to use the computer to draw the graphs, but it was configured to the person's tastes and no-one else could use it. Also, Excel is not intuitive in producing histograms. S and R therefore hand-drew this beautiful graph replete with illustrations of rats and waka (the canoes the Maori used to get to NZ). My histogram was upside-down, back-to-front, and very badly shaded in. However, it got the message across and was almost exactly the same as the published data so that was quite exciting.

The other group presented their findings to us, and we to them, and all-in-all Janet was very pleased with the session: it was the first time this had been done and so no-one was sure it would work. Bed on a high!