Spotlight Saturday - Penny graduates!

Last Friday saw us down in Canterbury to see Penny graduate wtih her MA in Prose Fiction. We arrived Thursday night and stayed in the Premier Inn. On arrival I went to Penny's room and painted her nails for her! We had arrived late so eventually got to bed after 11.30pm!

Friday morning after breakfast we had time to kill. We had decided to pop on our clothes from the previous evening, have breakfast and then go for a walk into Canterbury and have a mooch around the shops.

It was very chilly and I was able to get a cheap scarf from Primark to wear with my coat for the graduation and let me tell you I was really pleased I had it! We got back to the hotel at 10.30ish and went out separate ways to get ready. Once I was ready I left Hugh to pack our bags and went down to Penny's room to keep her company whilst she made herself up and got ready.

We checked out of the hotel just before midday (the latest we could) and made our way to the University Library where Penny had to collect her gown, hood and mortar board and have her officical photo taken.

Our first glimpse of her in her outfit!

Once she had picked them up she changed into her beautiful boots, which have a very high heel and were not particularly good for walking long distances in but hey, they looked good!

Then it was off to the hall for the official photo to be taken. Penny of course chose the book backdrop for her photos! We are still waiting for these to arrive but I took a sneaky one whilst the official photographer was doing his thing!

Penny and I had been tweeting photos and comments all morning using the CCCU hashtags for the day. In the entrance hall they had a board showing the tweets and mine and Penny's were both up as we walked past!

We then made our way over to Canterbury Cathedral where the ceremony was going to take place. We got there nice and early so that we could take our photos. We whipped off our coats whilst taking the photos and tried not to shiver too much!

 

Then it was time to go into the Cathedral. We were not allowed to take photos during the graduation ceremony but there was an official one which we bought afterwards.

After the ceremony we returned to the Uni to hand back the gown etc and to go to the reception. We only stayed there for about 20 minutes as none of Penny's fellow graduates attended so we didn't know anyone! We had however booked a celebration meal at Bill's in Canterbury so walked back into town to have our evening meal.

We had a lovely meal together and then made our way back home. It had been a fantastic day and we were (and are) extremely proud of our beautiful, clever daughter.

Now, if anyone knows of a job going part-time in retail or admin that is local to us Penny would be thrilled to take it! She has been job hunting so hard for the past few months and so far nothing has come to fruition. I am sure it will soon, but if you can help we would appreciate it!