More Science

Newcastle is *cold*. Like, hardened locals have put the office heater on. I've lost my tolerance for cold from living in the poncy south for years; I'm wearing four layers of top today and have not at any point been too warm. It'll go up to five when I put my jacket on to go back to the flat. That won't be for a while yet because while we were getting the basics of the methods down yesterday, the rest of this week will be all about getting as many of these samples done as possible - four a day on each reaction is the aim, to get them all done, and given that the longer one takes about two and a quarter hours including equipment turnaround time, you can see that means long days. Everything is based around the fifteen minute sampling interval and the ten minutes of spare time between those intervals, which can get used for analysing results, setting something else up, eating food or chinwagging as appropriate. It's going to be a rather hermit-like week, but never mind. 

I'm getting occasional updates from Chris by text - he's on a train from Berlin to St. Petersburg for the next 36 hours, and apparently it's like the wall never fell in there.