Poppies and daisies

While poppies and daisies are summer flowers, it has not felt like summer today - it started off raining and felt very cool at 15C, but we have had a mix of sunshine and showers throughout the day. I was very pleased to find these flowers, as I have not seen many poppies yet this season.

I can finally share Tommy's exciting news. He has been offered a PhD in Munich, Germany at Helmholtz. In Germany the PhD programs differ to those in the UK as he can work for a government funded research institution like Helmholtz, while being affiliated to a university - in this case TUM, the Technical University of Munich. In the UK you can only complete a PhD at a university and not at a research institution. He is on a salary with benefits and so is fully funded while studying, plus he gets very generous leave.

He applied to Helmholtz at the beginning of the year but there was no funding available for him. However, when we were on holiday in Namibia he was contacted by the head of the research lab, Vincent Fortuin, to say he had received more funding and he wanted Tommy to apply again (Tommy knew of him through Cambridge university where Vincent did his post doc research). After initially turning it down, as he was not sure he wanted to move to Germany, he did interview and had a series of interviews over the next few months. I think his recently published paper clinched the deal as last week he was made the offer for the PhD. 

Obviously it means moving to Germany for four years and that was a big factor he and Inca had to consider, but he has accepted the offer today and he will commute every second weekend - he can work from home on Fridays and Mondays so it hopefully will work out. He is very excited about the PhD which is exactly in his area of research with one of the most prominent people in that field leading the team. He will learn German - he did it up to GCSE so it won't be too difficult to pick it up again. 

He thinks he will start there in November after his current internship finishes - and with Adam also moving to California at about the same time it means I am losing two of my sons, boo hoo! It also means there will have to be some trips to Munich, which I know is a fabulous city, and San Diego which I can discover! I am sure we will be seeing Tommy often though as he returns to the UK.