Livre d'Or

Wow, that's really lovely to hear, it's so rare for someone to have such a massively positive experience of their relationship with their supervisor. I agree that geographically absent doesn't necessarily have to be a problem; my main PhD supervisor disappeared to Singapore while I was still studying under him and even before that he was fantastically busy being famous and rarely actually in the lab, but he was really helpful remotely.

Personality I agree you can't really control, and you so often end up matched to the person you're working closely with for several years based on little more than a half hour interview. I really like my minion; she's a bit quieter than me, but otherwise as far as I can tell so far we're pretty compatible.

That's a really useful thought about dealing with disagreements. In some ways I have more experience than the minion, but I also intend to take her ideas and suggestions seriously. very receptive but honest is definitely something to strive for. Keeping in touch regularly is very much my plan, and luckily I pretty much live on email, so there should be few issues of minion not being able to get hold of me when she needs to. I've set a weekly meeting for the time being, with the idea that we may reduce the frequency later on once she finds her feet.

Pressure and deadlines is a really tricky one. I don't want to be a slave-driver or cause unnecessary stress, and it does look like I've picked up a student who already has a strong work ethic of her own. But I know when I was a student I somewhat needed a bit of a push from my supervisors. As you say, it does depend on the type of student.