So on Wednesday, Maddie, Joyce, Scott and I left the house at 06:30 to drive to Rochester in Kent and met up with Becky, Charlotte and Phil. It was a day Maddie and I have been looking forward to for such a long time.
It was Becky’s PhD graduation day!
The day was as wonderful as we had expected and well worth the early start. I am lucky enough to share my life with three truly amazing ladies (well actually a lot more than that in the rest of my family) but this day was all about Becky. I don’t know anyone who has a wholly enjoyable time doing their PhD, but Becky found the four years particularly tough for many reasons – mostly outside her control. There were several times when she was close to walking away. But she is fiercely determined and independent and stuck at it through the darkest days and Wednesday was a chance for us to celebrate her fantastic achievement.
Becky is a constant inspiration for me, but having seen her determination and commitment to get to the end of her PhD, I don’t think I have ever felt so incredibly proud of her as I did on Wednesday. I hope she is as proud of herself as her mum, Charlotte and I are, but knowing how self-effacing she is I doubt it, so we are going to have to do the whole pride thing for her.
So this is a pretty self-indulgent post to highlight the success of our very own:
Dr Becky Birch
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- Looking Gawgeous…
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- Nice hat
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- Very colourful
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- Inside Rochester Cathedral
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- Poor man who had to read out the PhD titles
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- Officially graduated as Dr Rebecca Birch
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- She doesn’t scrub up too badly
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- Phil was a real pillar of strength through the PhD process
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- My two gorgeous girls
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- Proud nana
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- Probably even prouder mum
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- And a proud visitor from Canadia (last time Scott I promise)
But it wouldn’t be a day out with the girls without their usual attempt to take a bad photo…
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- Bootiful
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- Seventeen years – my life for seventeen years…
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- Not quite
