Not gonna lie, this isn’t likely to be a long one.

March, can frankly get in the sea.

Thoughts

Work’s been pretty tough, but it’s not work’s fault. If anything my working environment has been about as pragmatic, supportive, and helpful as it could be. Props to all my colleagues at the FSA who have all helped in one way or another to help me and the rest of us navigate through this.

March started with my usual start of month trips, then followed by a week long training course. I even travelled on a Sunday for it. I regret to report that it was not good. There’s an exam I need to take for it as well and now I’m more than concerned that by the time I am able to visit and exam centre, all that I learned will have been forgotten. This was the second week of March by this point and COVID was just getting into it’s stride. I left London on the Thursday of that week, and had never been more relieved to be heading back to The Duchy.

When I got back, my son, my wife and I all had at least one symptom and so we self-isolated for a full week like the guidance told us. Although at this point it wasn’t entirely clear if one person has symptoms the others have to isolate for two weeks or not. This also meant my son couldn’t go to nursery (they were still open at this point). We took some leave each and tag teamed childcare for the week.

We’ve now done the same thing for three weeks running, with only trips to the supermarket or walks for exercise. That’s it.

This has meant it’s been very hard to get traction on some of the meatier things I thought I’d be able to tackle while distancing was going on and I’d have all this extra thinking time. What an idiot I was.

Governance of our reference data and making improvements to some key sets, introducing our enterprise data models and patterns to service designs and designers, and writing down some more detailed thoughts on my approach to data architecture.

All things I wanted to tackle.

All things I have nibbled around the edges of.

All things that the stop-start nature of life right now means that I haven’t made nearly enough progress on.

My team have been great though. I have needed some of them to step up and fill in for me in some places and they have done so admirably. I’ve handed off some stuff I just haven’t had time for, I’ve asked for some stuff to be reprioritised quickly. It’s all been done. While supporting each other too. Some of us have young children, some older, some no children. Everyone is just doing what is needed to get things done and maintain a sense of perspective too. Thanks folks.

Feelings

I am absolutely exhausted. Three year olds are probably the most annoying people on the planet, through no fault of their own. Being stuck for three weeks now with nowhere to go from each other and no respite has been exhausting in every way.

We have got into this weird day on day cycle where we get up between six and seven, try and cram some work in early doors and let him watch some TV. Then a day of work and half a day of childcare, tea, bedtime. Maybe squeeze in some work in the evening because leave isn’t inexhaustible, or watch TV for an hour before crashing out early and then starting it all over again.

Mind you, that is just how I feel right now. There has definitely been some fun. In week one, sonny and I made our first piece of father-son engineering, who knows what cardboard construction heights we may one day reach.

Words

I did read a book to refresh my memory of UML for work we’re doing on data models, as well as a large chunk of reading material for that course, and I definitely read a number of articles folk were posting on twitter.

Alas, I did not save any of them as far as I can tell.

I have also not had the energy for almost anything, reading included as every waking hour has been filled with work, childcare, or jobs around the house.

I do have a couple of bits lined up for April though as once couple of the larger jobs are done and the weather permits then I will be looking to be doing some reading in my garden.

Sounds

I think music has been keeping me sane during the day. Having something to listen to, and noise cancelling headphones has been a real boon when it comes to using the shorter days I have at work effectively.

Right at the end of the month came Illusion of Time by Daniel Avery and Alessandro Cortini, which is unsurprisingly a bit of an ambient masterpiece.

Paul never fails with his recommends and EPHEM:ERA by WEN was no exception.

This classic essential mix from 1997 by Daft Punk reminded me I was 16 once. It’s definitely of it’s era, but cracking nonetheless.

This new one from Run the Jewels has me with some very high hopes for RTJ4. El-P’s production seems to get better with age.

I know this is technically cheating, but I don’t want to forget about it. Four Tet did a live stream set from isolation or Boiler Room, and it was good.

Tastes

Nothing new this month either. The struggle get bread flour has been real, seems like we’re no longer a nation of shopkeepers and now a nation of amateur bakers.

I did get lunch delivered to me one afternoon, though I am worried he thinks he’s Jesus. Although I don’t think he’s ever heard of him though. I wonder what a toddler Jesus was like?

Bread and Fishes

Fun

I still like gardening! I think one of the reasons I’ve been so tired all the time is whenever the weather has been dry I was getting out in the garden to get my first project done. When we moved into the house in September we had a very mature, but rather unloved garden.

The first project was to tackle this rather unloved patch at the back.

the garden patch before

A lot of cutting, shredding, digging, raking, sawing, and screwing later and we now have a couple of raised beds!

the garden patch after

We’re all really pleased with it, and this weekend the refurbishment of the greenhouse we were left will be finished and then it’s going to be chard all the way down.

Games

I haven’t played much, but where I could grab an hour or two I played some Vintage Cube on Magic Online. The greatest format of the greatest game? Yes please.

Again, I will happily wax lyrical about Magic in the pub to anyone that listens when this is all over. If this is ever all over, and there are still pubs.

I’m sure there will be. There will be pubs right?!

Cheers ‘n’ gone.