Boston

When I woke in the night I spotted an email from the head of a major open-source project whose steering committee I've just joined, and I couldn't resist reading it. He wanted me to represent the project at the annual meeting of NumFOCUS, the charity that handles funding for a lot of the world's major open-source scientific software projects, and will soon be paying me handsomely for my work on HiGHS. I also want HiGHS to join NumFOCUS, and it would be a chance to progress that, as well as meeting in person people who run important projects. Unfortunately, it would mean a trip to Boston for just three days. The environmental cost and the jetlag both made me want to say "no", but it's potentially so valuable for HiGHS that I agreed. 

When I woke, the skies were blue, but they clouded over as I went out to walk Django. We had a dull walk around the Estate, during which time I booked my flights, and deciding to have a day to recover before the meeting, and one more afterwards to visit Boston, meant that I could take a direct flight from Edinburgh.

Back home, I spent much of the morning chasing up admin related to the trip, and then started reviewing the work my co-author has done on the Royal  Society memoir. After lunch, I went into work, where I spent time on the memoir until researcher J arrived for our meeting. They are working well with our genetics collaborators, so there wasn't much to talk about. 

I got back home well before our visitors, and prepared food to be finished quickly once they finally arrived. With A and daughter L, we had a reasonably convivial evening with them.