Hi. I'm Sarah Pearce, and I work for GridPP, the UK particle physics Grid. I arrived in Manchester on Monday to set up our stand in the exhibition hall. The advantage of getting here early meant that we could take, well, perhaps a little more than our allocated space on the UK e-science stand. Sadly, we were put back in our box - but the stand still looks great.
Mainly thanks to our research council events staff, for driving hours on a bank holiday to bring our masses of equipment - 3 large screens, 3 small screens, 6 computers, 4 backdrop stands...

Also, our freebies turned up, which was exciting. Come to the GridPP stand for free pens and mints!

This being Manchester, imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning to find it was raining. Sadly (idiotically) I failed to bring an umbrella - but at least I brought a coat, which is more than some people managed. Last week everyone was saying how sunny it had been in the UK for months. Bah.

So, yesterday I was all day in an NA2 meeting - a gathering of lots of the communications people from across EGEE. A long meeting, but interesting - we discussed what freebies people like, the difficulties of translation and brainstormed how best to attract industry to the Grid. Then we all went for a curry - I haven't had decent Indian food for a long time, so that was one of the highlights of my conference...