The Lab.

Apart from the morning school run and frantic round of after-school activities, this week I will be virtually devoid of actual human contact.

I should hear any day if I've got an interview for the job I recently applied for and as well as a mountain of post to deal with, forms to fill in and bills to pay I've got to carry out two experiments for my Ecosystems course and do my best to break the back of its next assignment.

The most exciting thing is that by Friday I may have the feedback regarding my project course plan. Officially I'm not supposed to start anything until I get 'approval' but I really need to start practicing using all the equipment and chemicals so this morning I set up my lab (a.k.a 'The Dining Room'), got some water from the pond, filtered it, put it in a tank and took my initial measurements. I also remembered the couple of things I still need to get - oops!

The idea is that I adjust the nitrate and phosphate levels and then keep them constant but that will have to wait until tonight. It's too scary - there's way too much maths involved for such a sunny day!