This exhaustion is like a huge wave that keeps coming back again and again. And I am not asking for much, all I want is to get back to my mediocre energy levels of six weeks ago. That would be nice, not shaking in my boots after a short - I swear, barely 3 km! - cycle to the market. No hills, no wind, old ladies overtook me with a smile of pity.

Tomorrow I will be 55 years old and I am huffing and aching like my granny did at age 102. Yes, there is that gene, she cycled until age 93.

R has to leave before daylight for another of these conferences and won't be back for two days, but we are ever so cool and grown up. There's the weekend. And I am taking the day off on account of Heidi Klum's birthday extravaganzas. She went on some workshop on office happiness and has now taken on the job of making everybody's birthday a "special event" which involves balloons and scented candles and singing, forced singing that is, in my office, around my desk. I have seen the look of despair in our postdocs' eyes at the first of these "events" and decided there and then to spare them when my turn comes.