04/05 - We didn't sleep too well, as is always the case when Kelly has to fly back in the morning - when one has to be up at 0445 it is all too easy to panic that you have missed an alarm, so we were both wide awake by the time she actually had to get up. I accompanied her down to get the 0514 bus, resplendent in the pre-dawn darkness in my dressing gown and bright red trousers. I sent Clare a birthday message and went back to bed for as long as I could manage, as I am on night shift tonight and so I must attempt to reverse my diurnal rhythm. I managed to remain in bed until about 1300 before I got up, pottered about a bit and went shopping for nighttime supplies. I made a large selection of sandwiches, as my main memory of previous night shifts has been one of hunger. I headed off to French class, which was mostly taken up with the correcting of last week's homework, and headed off to my shift feeling oddly anxious - I don't really know why, and I have been unable to shift the feeling. Maybe it's because I am missing Clare's birthday and my Mum and sister are both staying at my house in London tonight. My mood was not improved when I saw the below message on the LHC status screen:
So, I guess this means that the first four hours or so of my shift will be pretty pointless. Tanya is also on night shift, although her desk is miles away (well, metres, but far enough that we can't really chat) so this doesn't really make too much of a difference. I have already had half of my first sandwich, pictured below. There will probably be a lot of pictures of sandwiches tonight, as that is the most interesting thing going on.
05/05 - Not much going on now either. I have succeeded in doing a bit of work - well, if you count changing stuff until the program no longer functions as a success. I have had to eat another sandwich, and I am halfway through my first litre of ice tea.
Sandwich 2: Saint-Agur, merguez sausages & fried chorizo, cherry tomatoes, rocket and mayonnaise between two slices of toast.
The latest news is that CMS have done something bad which means there will be no beam for a while. It still says, rather poignantly, "no physics tonight".
Well, it is now 0618, and nothing is happening. What a sodding waste of time. To be honest though, my workload is pretty much the same whether there are collisions or not - I have to look at about 8 extra graphs, that's all that's different. The bloke on the Run Control desk has been asleep for about an hour - I think I'll follow his lead tomorrow if it's as busy as tonight. Also, I have just checked the weather for this week, and it is going to be a maximum of 8º tomorrow, which is a 19º drop from this time last week. What the hell? It also seems like this weather pattern (rainy and generally a bit crap) will continue for a week or so - the one redeeming feature of night shifts is that I thought I might be able to spend some time in the sun during the day, but that plan is now scuppered.
Oh, on another rubbish note, that sodding volcano appears to be belching out more guff, closing some airports in the north of the UK. Also James is thinking of having a little election party on Thursday night, but I will be right here at this desk. At the end of my shift I ended up waiting around for a while as my replacement shifter had not turned up, but the guy on the desk next to me said he would cover for me, so I fled and got the 0721 bus. I made it back home by 0802 (a new record), and was fast asleep within minutes. Only two more night shifts to go...
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