Trotters up proper this week… I've been on holiday.
Yes.
Nothing special. Just a week away from my laptop (mostly) with ample opportunity to indulge in a recently adopted hobby obsession: rummaging through second-hand shops! What for? I hear you ask. Well, I have discovered that there's nothing more satisfying than picking up a bargain, specifically the paperback kind.
Twelve months ago, I realised that it's actually possible to actually read an entire actual book cover-to-cover... and to actually thoroughly enjoy reading. Since then, I've read over 50 books, sometimes having as many as five on the go at the same time. Sure, over the years I've dipped in and out of the classics: Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (a solid favourite, a real page-turner), Code Complete, and The Pragmatic Programmer to name a few, but I'd never actually read any real books... I never read any fiction.
So now I have a to-read list and an incessant urge to frequent every single second-hand shop that I come within a five mile radius of.
During my week off, I was delighted to pick up:
- Casino Royale - Ian Fleming
- The Buried Giant - Kazuo Ishiguro
- Normal People - Sally Rooney
I also visited the New Forest, those pony-horse-ponies are something special!
And (sob) I had to return my new Benq RD320U monitor after a wandering, beady eyeball fell upon a dead pixel... once you see it, you cannot not see it. In fact, you see nothing BUT the dead pixel. The DEAD pixel. Goodness knows how I'll manage until the replacement arrives.
It hasn't all been ponies and fairy tales, I have been reading some code. I've been reviewing the Mastodon API module that Phil has been working on, seeing if there's anything I can do to help get a stable release out. I think I'll submit a pull request or two next week.
Talking of next week, I'm excited to get back on my primary project: I've got an exciting few weeks ahead with some integration work, which I'll write more about next Friday.