Dear Nikolai:

First of all I apologise in the delay in contacting you about this paper. I have had an extended period away from the lab on vacation and work related travel and it has taken a while to deal with the resulting backlog.

Thank you for responding to the various comments made on your paper. I have now reviewed these and am generally happy with your planned responses to address the comments. Formally the referees judged the paper to be in need of 'revisions' and 'major revisions' respectively, so I will now ask you to provide the revised manuscript (and ideally a marked up version) that I will review and probably for reasons of transparency and accountability ask the referees to quickly confirm they are happy with the revised version.

Thank you for your support of this now somewhat prolonged review process.

Best wishes,

Chris

Dear Nikolai:

Thanks for your patience. Both referees have stated they are happy with the changes and recommended the paper be published in its present form (although one referee made a suggestion that you may wish to consider). I am therefore happy to accept the paper and expect that you will hear from the publication department in due course.

Best wishes, Chris