The skies overhead are steel-grey and uniform, an almost perfect mirror to their concrete and tarmac cousins on the ground. Even the wind, blowing around me and through me and filling my lungs like ice, feels sleeting and grey. Car headlights, always on in the evenings now, reflect from puddles on the road and complete the symmetry.

Today, though, I welcome the cold wind and the rain. After a hectic day between stuffy offices and humid labs, barely having chance to sit down, to be outside and be able to breath real air deeply into my lungs is a wonderful feeling. Only one more full day of this, now, then a half-hearted half-day, and then… For a given value of freedom, I’ll be free. And I’ll be going… home.

Three days to go.