Tonight was the first time

that I've lit the stove since summer.

Not by too much - but it was 13'C and dropping quickly out there this evening around 7.40pm. Got back from the prayer meeting around 7.45, and it was pretty chilly.

On a completely different front, it's interesting when you bump up against the effects of your psychological DNA.

Over the summer I had a young lass work as an intern with me. She'd completed her first year at a *good* uni, and was intelligent, quick, kind and just generally nice. She learned quickly, and listened to what was said as well as what she was told, if you get my meaning. After 6 weeks she was doing things that people can take several months to learn, and if she'd been working for me, I'd have been happy to trust her to do things unsupervised after a bit more experience.

But here's the thing: now that she's gone I have become aware that she was becoming another daughter. Fatherhood seems to be in my 'DNA' as inescapably as baldness and making bad jokes about the English language.

Now please understand that there was nothing inappropriate or untoward about our relationship. But I found that it was natural to care, to want to put in the best and to hope that the outcome was for the best too, rather than just treat her like someone passing through, to be used for whatever could be squeezed from them. Tomorrow I shall be back in the lab, and will miss her, even though it means I shall be able to focus on my own work undistracted.