In her own words, alumna Jade Harvey narrates the love story of herself and her fiancé and soon to be husband, Alex Berrill. The happy couple are due to get married July 25, 2020 at a remote mountain lodge in BC, Canada where they now live.
We met on our first day of university in September 2007 in Pooley House student accommodation. Alex was actually in off campus accommodation and I was living at Pooley, but Alex's friend had connected him with another friend he knew who would be studying at Queen Mary too, so that he could find someone to chat with right away. It turns out that Alex's friend Merry was staying in Pooley too. Alex was helping her move in and I bumped into them in the hallway. We were both going to be studying Physical Geography, we had an instant connection and we ended up being inseparable. We still are.
We spent the next three years studying, travelling for field trips to Wales, Scotland and Iceland and falling head over heels in love. We graduated in 2010 and then set off to travel the world. We spent a year in South East Asia, 2 in Australia, 3 years in New Zealand and six months in Arctic Norway and France and now finishing our third year in our home, beautiful British Columbia, Canada.
The love for nature and science that Queen Mary instilled with us, mainly due to the quality of professors - Simon Carr and Jaap Van Der Meer stand out - we took out into the world. We have taught science, biking, skiing and climbing all over the world.
We now live in interior BC, Canada in the Columbia Mountains. We ski in the winters and bike, climb, hike and swim in the glorious lakes in summer. We are getting married at a remote mountain lodge this summer after 12 incredible years together.
We run a kid's science education business together called Stoked on Science (we live in a town called Revelstoke, hence the stoke) and get to share our passion for our natural environment every day. We are eternally grateful for the magical experience of education, enlightenment and fun that Queen Mary gave us. Our degree was also vital in us achieving our Permanent Residency status in Canada which we got last Summer.
People often ask us how can you live, work and play together every day? Surely you get sick of each other. The answer is no! The integral building of our relationship was spending every minute together studying and learning. We supported each other through the stresses of obtaining a degree and continue to support each other every day.
The day to day journey of figuring out how to be an adult fresh out of school is something we apply to each new stage of our life. We are so lucky to have each other as a best friend for life.
Queen Mary was our starting point and a place we hold so dear in our hearts...