Disconnecting

I’m on holiday, a staycation, this week. It’s also a big week at work. This thing I’ve worked on for the last year is expected to start rolling out. It’s been hard to disconnect.

First I uninstalled the app from both devices. I’m on an internal release track, and every app update triggered anxiety about whether things had gone out, whether things were still working.

Next deleted the Slack app. We don’t use it at work, but I was on ASG and KS on it, and they’re work peripheral.

Just now, uninstalled phanpy from both devices. It’s the gateway to androiddev.social, which, like ASG Slack, is work peripheral.

I’m finally starting to feel disconnected. The exercise was a reminder of the number of anxiety triggers I have on the two devices. Valuable learning and networking resources, yes. But also anxiety triggers.


Update: Another disconnection – signed out from personal GitHub account in the browser.

Sunday diary

Cleaned, tightened and oiled the wooden garden bench.

Planted out a tray of alyssum.

Ate amazing pepper chicken for brunch.

Went for a swim.

Ate a full pack of triple chocolate cookies.

Slept an hour, huddled up next to the boy.

Planted the first hydrangea I got few years ago into a bigger pot (this time with ericaceous compost mixed with soil).

Planted three new hydrangeas into medium pots.

Planted two acers into bigger pots.

Ran out of ericaceous compost, so had to stop potting.

Took the kids for a short walk. Then lay in the rec for a bit, enjoying the setting sun, the chestnuts, the breeze, and the soft grass.

Went out for a quick takeaway dinner.

Now lying in the bed with R and two dogs, trying to remember what was that one thing I wanted to do before sleeping.

Weekend diary

Saturday

Lazy wake-up. Walk to the pool, swim, sauna, steam, walk back.

Brunch. Croissants with ham. Wash & dry clothes.

Cleaned kitchen. Cooked lunch – chicken schnitzel with stir fried beans.

Went to David’s, checked out the table (👍🏽) and dresser (🖐🏽). He also offered the garden set (👍🏽).

Went to town after ages. Got a haircut. Didn’t buy anything.

Got pizza from the good local place for dinner. Our old cleaner delivered it; he now works for just eat.

Went for a late walk with Chewie and R. Sat on the mount and watched the setting sun while taking about work and people.

Sunday

Lazy morning in bed. Did a bit of work converting Autoconvert to typescript.

Went to Tesco. R did grocery shopping. I bought a 4 pack of Asiatic lilies.

Went to Lidl. Bought 2 Acers. R bought some misc stuff.

Walked over to B&Q. Bought coleus seeds and some planter trays. R finally got her jumbo sponge.

Walked back to Lidl. Bought 2 more Acers (☺️), some compost, a watering jug for me and, tomatoes for Benu.

Heated lasagna for lunch. Fixed the Virgin router (again!). Saw Leclerc was already out of F1, so lost interest.

Installed two new hangers for hanging baskets. Moved the small petunia basket to backyard, and large petunia basket to the front.

Spent more on garden – ordered lavender plugs for planting under the hedge, and lots of valerian seeds on eBay.

Went back to Tesco to get rajmah. Didn’t buy any plants this time.

Went to David’s to negotiate the cost of tables and dressers. He said yes to my first offer. Had mild regret that I could’ve gone lower. Got his spare, old step ladder (for free). Got two Roxanne geraniums. Saw a painting of 18 month old Maisie. Saw puppy photos of Maisie. Missed Maisie. A lot.

R came over to tell the scores – Liverpool had equalised, City were losing, United were losing, West ham were winning. She was grinning ear to ear.

Returned home and got back to the garden. Planted all 12 marigolds. Topped up last year’s chocolate & chili begonias with fresh compost. Planted the remaining red begonia tubers and 11 new chocolate & chili begonias. Planted the two Roxanne geraniums from David. Cleaned up a few weeds.

Sometime in between, city scored 3 goals and won the league. House went silent. R has been sulking and mourning since. Garden was a safe place to be for me. Chewie joined me too; with his ball.

Did more gardening. Then watered everything – front and back. Forgot the grass, but it was already quite dark.

Now getting ready for a shower and shave, before crashing for the night.

Good weekend. Lazy, but not very 🙂

(Post written to be read as if the John Gregor voice from Marley and me was announcing it)

Meh

I’m suffering from lethargy, remnants of a fever, and post-good-vacation-spoiled-by-unrealistically-high-expectations ennui.

We arrived back from the vacation on Friday night. I wasted the weekend under a paracetamol powered haze. Spent this morning preparing for an interview that didn’t happen. The afternoon was a fight between a paracetamol powered haze and the awesomeness of Dark Knight Returns, with my sick partner, Chewie, by my side.

Now I’m sitting here waiting for dinner so I can have dosas and retire.

I’m so meh right now.

Almost a five checkmark day

Missing 17 mins of sleep.

Morning in bed with coffee, books and hugging boys. Followed by another (nearly) 10K run—felt and ran better than yesterday. Then a short walk, with a little chase play, for the boys. Lazy, hot afternoon. Capped off with another evening spent in the cool river water with Chewie and Dudley. All ready to crash now. Happy! 🙂

All in a day’s work

Morning—Work.
2 horas of work, 2 commits, one publish. An hour off. 2 hours of work, including responding to half a dozen emails.

Break.
Walk the dogs. Lunch. Watch an episode of Star Trek Discovery.

Afternoon—Fix the tap.
Clean the working area under the sink. Wiggle into the tiny space under the sink and remove the old kitchen tap. Boys try to join me under the sink, and lick me to ensure I’m fine. Find two right sized pieces of wood from the pile under the shed (thank you previous owners). Spend another 5 minutes trying to get both the dogs out from under the shed, and into the house. Saw them (the wood pieces, not the dogs) into correct size and shape. Measure, mark, drill holes for the piping into the wood pieces. Fit the piping and the tap on top of the kitchen board. Realise the hole is too small for the top, thick part of piping. Disassemble everything, drill a smaller secondary hole. Reassemble everything. Wiggle back under the sink and fit everything together. Connect the water pipes. The little dog has dozed off with my right leg as his pillow. After a few minutes of fruitless cajoling, replace my leg with my rolled-up hoodie for his pillow. Get up and test everything is working. Wiggle back under the sink and tighten all the connections. Clean all the tools and the removed tap. The little one is still sleeping on my hoodie next to the sink. Open the fridge. Both the dogs are awake and ready for something, anything, from in there.

All this while cooking the little one’s meal (boiled chicken and rice) for next 24 hours.

Late afternoon—work.
The big one is sleeping behind me on the carpet. The little one is sleeping across us on the bed. I’m trying to work. Good luck to me!

This weekend

Learnt to use the WordPress.com API with Retrofit. Stumbled over various undocumented quirks of the API. Nearly achieved what I’d started off to do.

Finished (re)reading my favourite Frederik Backman book: My grandmother sends her regards and apologises. I wish I could live in that house in the kingdom of almost awake.

Named one of the flavours of the new app ‘Elsa’. The other flavour is named ‘Granny’, but I might change it to ‘Wurse’.

Dug and relaid the stone tiles in the middle section of the backyard. Weeded the full upper flower bed from end to end. Aireated the rear lawn – one fork pitch at a time!

5+ back breaking, knee stiffening, hand cutting hours in the garden. I could barely move my arms in the shower afterwards.

Rewarded myself by watching a bit of the old sweetheart movie, You’ve got mail.

Now, convinced by Elsa, I’m reading my first JK Rowling book: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Bon Nuit!