Royal Treatment: Part 2

Before I even started my volunteering shifts at the Royal Society I was lucky enough to be offered a ticked to see the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory musical at an exclusive RADA event in central London with the Ogden Trust. Someone had dropped out last minute and although I only found out on the day of the performance I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity. Once I’d arranged everything with my boyfriend so that he’d also got a ticket for the show (and I’d cheekily asked the Ogden Trust if it would be ok for him to tag along to the aftershow party with the cast) I left the lab early and travelled home as fast as I could to change and make myself ready for an evening of a very different kind of star spotting than I’m used to!

In the end we were a little late for the show (after a debacle with a ‘fast’ food restaurant) but my boyfriend and I had a lovely time (*special thank you to Isla*). Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was an amazing musical. The songs were very funny and the sets were wonderful (they had robots on stage for minutes that must have cost a lot of money to develop as well as intricate designs that fitted within a huge television used to introduce each child). I really enjoyed the show and I even spotted Richard Wilson during the interval in the RADA event room at the theatre (complete with drinks and posh canapés)!

The following day was my first as a volunteer on my supervisor’s stall at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition. I didn’t know much about Cassini or JUICE before I started at the stand to be honest, but loved talking about comets when people asked the standard ‘so what you do you?’ question (I suppose they kind of count as icy worlds anyway…). I really enjoyed my time at the exhibit but was very tired by the time I came home again. I’d been enjoying myself so much I hadn’t noticed that I hadn’t sat down all day!

On my second day of volunteering I was a bit more careful to take breaks and as I was sitting down quietly to enjoy my lunch my supervisor decided to take his. He then asked me what I was doing that evening. In hindsight this was definitely a leading question but I wasn’t prepared for it after my mad week so far so I said ‘nothing in particular’, and he asked whether I would like to do the Soiree that evening. The Soirees at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition are exclusive evening events with compulsory black tie dress codes (meaning cocktail dresses for women), copious amounts of champagne and lovely food. I couldn’t say no to that!

It was a bit strange trying to explain science in a cocktail dress (almost as though I was either a girl or a scientist but I’d never been both before). It was a good job my (only) cocktail dress happened to be clean and in my wardrobe at the time. I saw quite a lot of interesting people (including Robert Winston, although I’d already seen him before as he lectured my friend at Imperial) and even had a nice chat about Rosetta (and interior design!) with the Minister for Science. I was a bit nervous about going (although from some of the people I spoke to over dinner they quite enjoy scientists being nervous, so maybe that was the idea…) but luckily there was another PhD student volunteering at the same time so we helped each other out when we could.

So all in all: a completely crazy, royal week. By the time the weekend came I just wanted to curl up in bed and be thankful I’d survived it. However, a few weeks ago I’d arranged to see Mumford and Sons and Vampire Weekend with my brother at the ‘Gentlemen of the Road’ festival in the Olympic Park on Saturday so the madness wasn’t quite over yet!

Mumford and Sons Finale. Amazing!