Our apologize for not writing a newsletter earlier. We were very busy starting up our online glassware shop at http://www.kimart.co.uk, and as so often these things take more time then we thought. With this newsletter also the last pictures of Spain will be published. It is already beginning of October and Kees starts his new job in Leicester. It means traveling every day from Rubery and back so at the end of July, first time in our life we bought a car. It is Fiat Punto, small, but comfortable enough. We went a few times to Leicester to find the best way for Kees to travel. Hopefully there will be no massive trafic jams on motorways. If it takes very long time to get there, we will try to move next spring. We will probably chose the east part of Birmingham, as I (Ania) should be able to reach her work in the centre by public transport. I have my contract for 5 years.
At the end of August Diana, our Italian friend from Holland married her Dutch boyfriend Jeroen. Unfortunately only Kees could go for this wedding, but we both wish them all happiness!!
It gave me (Kees) also the possibility to visit my parents. The last time we saw each other was when they were last September in Birmingham.
We had also first family visit from Poland this summer: Magda, my step-sister and her boyfriend Krzysztof (Chris) stayed with us for two weeks. A week later Marjanne, the youngest sister of Kees arrived from Wageningen. We went together for a day trip to Bath, beautiful, elegant city. We spent most of the time just in the magnificent complex of Roman baths. The city is built among the hills with limestone Georgian and Victorian houses. It is definitely worth visiting. Earlier this summer we went to Whitley Court, impressive remnants of noble house. It was destroyed by fire at the beginning of XX century and only the outer walls survived. But it is still possible to imagine its former glory.
I work now for 2 weeks in Leicester. Driving up and down takes around 75 minutes, one way, if the traffic is not to bad. Although I not feel it as to intensive, I seem to lose my energy after arriving at home. Hopefully that will improve in the next few weeks. The new group is very nice and the work itself at the moment is to learn to grow my own yeast strains and get used to the Zeiss confocal microscope. I seem to have the freedom to chose my own research, but will first continue with the work somebody else already started, in situ hybridization with telomere specific probes. Next time I will tell more about the research.
Ania and Kees