Happy Sad

Saw the first wisteria bloom on the commute to office this week.

It brought me joy. I love them. I look forward to their bloom every year, even more than I do the spring bulbs and the autumnal leaf colours.

Then I realised the date. It made me sad. This bloom was early by a month. Wisteria don’t bloom till well into May.

Red kite hunting

While out on the walk this afternoon on the mount, I saw a red kite hovering ahead of me. I see them around often, and they usually fly away. Not today. This one was still there when I got to it, flying about 10m above me

I stood under it enjoying watching it stay in the spot in moderately heavy wind. It reminded me of kayaking in strong water, or balancing on a wobble board. The tail feathers were tightly clenched, but it’d occasionally unfurl them for a moment of additional stability. The wings were spread out, the (equivalent of) wing flaps doing most of the work of keeping it in place. Occasionally, it’d slightly fold or raise a wing to handle a particular gust. Like a kayaker tapping the water, or me spreading arms briefly on the wobble board to stabilise. It’d flap the wings once in a while, to maintain height and position. Like a kayaker occasionally paddling to hold position.

It was focused on a movement in the bushes in front of it (and of me). But still, it took a glance at me and generally behind it every so often. I loved how it could be doing all those little things to hover on the spot so effortlessly, and yet be comfortable enough to turn it’s head (and just the head) around to stay aware. Again, kind of how good kayakers can twist their heads and upper bodies to scan around while still continuing to keep the boat stable using their core, legs, arms, and experience.

After about 5 minutes, the kite suddenly half folded its wings in the stuka wing shape, and dived. It landed about 5m ahead of me in the bushes with a clear thump (audible in the moderately heavy wind). A moment later, it rose and flew away with (what looked like) a field mouse in its mouth.

I took a long breath, smiled, and walked on. Lucky day 🙂

Continue reading Red kite hunting

They cut down my tree 😢

Over summer weekends, I go and spend a few hours every day on a bench on a less used path below the castle. I read, rest, and just be.

Branches full of red leaves, with lightly clouded blue sky peeking through the canopy.
A part of a large red leaven tree on one side, and a fraction of the castle keep on the other, with grey sky in between.
A large red leaven tree's canopy

Opposite the bench was a beautiful tree with red leaves. I loved laying under the tree’s beautiful red canopy. It was great for my head and heart. It was my favourite place to be when I wasn’t working or with Chewie.

I went to castle grounds today for the first time in a couple of months. It was a beautiful, if chilly, day and I wanted to spend some time in the quiet with my tree.

The tree is missing. All that is left is a stump. They cut down my big, beautiful friendly, red tree 😭

A view from above of my bench. The cut top of my tree's stump is partly visible just on the other side of the wooden fence.

Work from office

Yesterday at work, I hid in the quiet room (door shut, no windows), put on headphones with white noise, sat on the floor, and worked for an hour.
That was my only hour of working with code yesterday.

I’m sure all the “creativity” and “spontaneous conversations” I must be making on my work-from-office days makes up for the hit to my productivity and mental health.

Continue reading Work from office

What’s odd

Saw someone yesterday who, from a distance, felt like was wearing a Napoleon style hat. It really piqued my curiosity.

When I got closer, it turned out they just had a really odd hairstyle worn in a way that could look like a Napoleonic hat from certain angles. Boring.

Made me think how cultural expectations reverse.

Today, wearing a hat like that would be odd but an outlandishly weird hairstyle isn’t. A century (or two) ago, no one would notice the hat, but that hairstyle would get all the heads turning.

What’s odd today and here is probably not there or then.

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.

I’m scared

I’m scared for me. I’m going out for a longer hike today. It’s expected to be warm. Both the peaks and the final gill descent are rocky/bouldery.

I’m not sure whether I’m strong enough yet. And on the last similar long hike that I did, I ran out of water and struggled with the last descent in dehydration.

I’m scared for my boy. He’s not been well. He’s visibly sluggish. He hasn’t enjoyed the lakes like he used to. He sticks to me when he’s in this state, but I won’t be around today.

I’m scared for R. She has to manage the boy and my mom today. Mom switches between dumb and forgetful, and scheming and pigheaded. She’s a handful even when I’m around. R will have to manage her alone today. While also taking care of my boy.

Continue reading I’m scared