Kissing Gate, Dog Race and Ugly at Village Underground

In light of the recent AI news I hereby renounce my 1254-day Duolingo streak. Finally, I am free.

So, two weeks on, got to try and bend my finger and it…doesn’t. At all! Even with force applied. So that’s a bit scary. But I did get to choose the colours on this fetching new splint so that’s something.

Met some new types of guy yesterday

Taking quad bikes through the Sahara desert to a 2000 year old Roman fort might be the coolest thing I’ve done on a holiday ever

Saw these in the wrong order

More Tunisia exploring, saw Berber villages and the place they filmed The Phantom Menace. Breathtaking country.

Salt flats in Tunisia (yes I did taste it)

Exploring Djerba!

It’s been quite a day

Think I might have caught the mechanical keyboard bug alas

Dream come true

Beededededoop. Sam. It’s Die Hardman. If you eat too much banana bread too quickly, you’ll get a status called “feeling a bit sick”. You can clear it by waiting, going out for a walk, or having a coffee. Give it some time before having more banana bread.

Yeah that’ll do

Let’s go

Lovely day for a big walk

In the queue for the Jack White gig thinking “fuck there’s loads of ageing rockers here” and then had a terrible moment of self realisation

It’s been a horrible old grey day today but the blossoms have come out on our tree and that’s just lovely. I remember once my friend Antosh told me when I was in a bad place something like “the seasons keep changing, that encourages me”. It does yknow

Had a lovely time at the Debug Awards - saw our game on a big screen, saw our game on the cover of a magazine, saw lots of lovely pals and wonderful games getting their flowers.

Went to cat yoga at the cat cafe for our anniversary!

Ah lads it feels good to read poems in front of people again

Transatlantic Sessions, what a treat

When I was 21 and doing poetry gigs several times a week it used to drive me mad when older poets said “keep writing!”. Found it so patronising. Now I am 31 and just wrote my first poem in over a year and I think maybe they were onto something

Went up to Leicester yesterday to do a tasting for the food for our wedding and now I’m somehow even more excited.

She has other ideas

People fear he’s writing poems again

My anxiety checklist: am I hungry? Am I tired? Have I watched the lord of the rings in the last year?

Just watched all the LOTR extendeds in one day so that’s me emotionally restabilised for the next wee while

Brought the in-laws to visit The Good Place (Ireland)

Happy to have experienced the best Bluey episode, Sleepytime

My granny made this tapestry and I think in another life she could have been a kickass pixel artist

Back home for Christmas. Little traditions.

Lucy got me this pegboard for Christmas and I bloody LOVE it

Made the longlist for Best Cuddles

This was fantastic.

Our sixteen year old cat brought this little guy in today, thankfully unharmed. First time she’s done this since we’ve known her, didn’t think the old girl still had it in her!

Alright then, who am I mutually planning to see at Glasto but realistically we’ll never align our schedules or energy levels

Now that is a post climbing luncheon

My pal Scott been raving about this stuff for literally over half my life and I finally tried it and…yeah it’s pretty great actually

Went to the KattenKabinet (cat art museum) today and was delighted to discover they also had actual cats.

Cycled up to Zaanse Schans to see the windmills! Had to be done really

Amsterdam is real pretty

They say it does rain in Bristol but I’ve never seen any evidence of it.

Parents are visiting so had a wee wander round Greenwich.

One other photo from the weekend I forgot to upload…

A 22km walk today. We saw hares, red deer, buzzards and about a billion pheasants. Scotland in autumn is just staggeringly pretty.

Gorgeous day walking in Scotland.

Not as pretty as the outside though. I’d missed you Edinburgh.

Missed our train and have an hour to kill but at least Edinburgh Waverley is pretty.

Made it home in time for bowls.

Vancouver’s really pretty.

First time I’ve managed a 5k in under half an hour since I was a teenager. To most runners I’m sure this is nothing but I’m ecstatic.

Had a very cute visitor today.

A lovely day at the footy. 7-0!

I am seized by energy and a desire to Do Things, which will probably translate to spending the day having choice paralysis and then Doing Nothing.

This was wonderful.

A lovely day wandering at Castle Ward.

Belated birthday treat was this sauna on a beach in Northern Ireland! Running back and forth from the sea to the sauna definitely gets the aul circulation going.

The evenings getting dark earlier is sad yes but I got my first whiff of autumn air on my run last night and it was just lovely.

I have learned to make banana bread and now I am unstoppable

Cornwall’s bloody gorgeous, it turns out. We saw dolphins by the boat and it was like a religious experience.

Went to see the robot ghosts of ABBA and it was really really good actually.

I threw the big axe

“Can’t climb this weekend because foxes ate my shoes” sounds made up. And yet.

Off on an excursion today

Down in Brighton for Develop and what a joy it is to be around wonderful game devs again.

Brittany Howard and Hozier at Finsbury Park

Much to unpack here

She’s just admiring the views.

It’s heatwave week in London, which means cold brew season is here. You absolutely can heat it up, it’s got a lovely round flavour, but it’s a faff so I usually only bother when it’s real hot outside (and, because this is the UK, inside).

There really is nowhere like Northern Ireland in the sunshine.

Home for one of my oldest pals’ 30th. Been friends with these two my entire life.

A wee day in Belfast with some very old pals.

Doing my best Jim Holden face

Cuttin about in a boiler suit tied at the waist holding a coffee, fully living out my James Holden fantasy

Arrived in Bristol a little early to meet our friends (by three weeks…) but decided to have a lovely day anyway.

Things change every time I go home so it’s somewhat reassuring that Belfast International remains the world’s worst airport.

First geocache in years!

Went to my cousin’s wedding yesterday - a gorgeous day.

A wander round Mussenden today

A walk along Castlerock beach last night. I love how late it gets dark in NI - I took these after 10pm.

Took our wee nephew to the Belfast Transport Museum, which was a real favourite when we were wee and it’s still great, actually

Zeret Kitchen in Camberwell remains one of my favourite restaurants in London

Sure it’s the day for it isn’t it

Post-climb park-nic

Managed a fair few V2/V3 routes bouldering today, which isn’t all that exciting but for us it’s a big step up, chuffed

Flo Fest 2024 begins

Well, it’ll be a while before it’s a home, but we bought a house!

Had a few pals round to sit on the empty floor and drink champagne out of paper cups. Now the real work begins…

Not a huge fan

Northern Lights visible from Nottingham!

Not AC though, never that

Central Line has 4G now, truly living in the future

Had a rather lovely weekend seeing friends old and new

New build smell

It is with deep regret I announce that I am back in the UK, a country I already had a strong dislike of which has blossomed into deep hatred from simply being elsewhere for twenty days

Lamb is traditional at Easter, and even more traditional is making stock the next day

I introduced Lucy to Tunic and now it’s 2am and she won’t come to bed

Trying to retrain my brain from “I’m tired, I don’t want to do exercise” to “if I do exercise I might feel less tired”

A lovely spicy Sunday

Cycled into work for the first time this year and I feel great

My wee nephew just said “bye bye” to me on the phone, first words I’ve heard him say 🥲

Yesterday’s mammoth cooking project

My favourite thing about living in the UK is those magazines that report on what happens in soaps like it’s news. Must be utterly baffling for anyone who moves here

Older gent in front at the pharmacy, kept insisting he had something to show them. Pulled out of a brown envelope…a picture of Charles & Camilla? On closer inspection, a 100th birthday card! Don’t think I’d ever met a centenarian. Amazing.

I knew my partner was The One the first time I visited her parents and in her childhood bedroom was a full run of Artemis Fowl

People who self-censor swears are so f*cking funny to me

Upon the High Weald yesterday

Day 2 of being off sick and can’t shake this guilty feeling that I ought to be Doing Something Productive with my day, despite the fact my brain is absolutely not capable of it right now

Two years with this wonderful human 🥰

I think this might be the most onion I’ve ever seen in one place

Feeling deeply, profoundly demoralised today, despite a weekend of making big strides forward on my game engine

At what point is the deadline for working my way through the leftover Christmas chocolate? At what point does it just become “we have too much chocolate in the house”?

I’m the biggest clean freak of anyone I know - to a probably unhealthy degree - and a past me would have absolutely had a panic attack, but at this point I’m so fucking cat-pilled I just went “aww sorry baby”, cleaned up and gave her an apology cuddle.

Managed to startle the cat when she was in her litter box today…which unfortunately meant in her haste to get away she trod on one of her recently laid delights. And then proceeded to run around the flat, which I could prove because she left prints. Cats!

Walkies

Was quite proud of my 900-ish day streak in Duolingo until I looked at this calendar

We have been climbing

This rewatch of the Expanse is great, actually even better for having now read the books. Though it does mean we now say “we should space her” when we put the cat outside when she’s being annoying at 4am

Well, they got the name right.

Had some lovely Japanese food. Shout out to the couple next for us who asked for spoons for miso soup

Spotted so many red kites on the bus to Oxford. Hard to believe these were once extinct in England!

My new profile photo is from a New Years’ Day walk near the farm my mum grew up on, which is still farmed by my uncle. This old house and the area around it are referred to as “Macaleese’s” after the family that used to live there nearly a century ago. It was used to store hay bales until the top floor collapsed. I love it.

We finally harvested our Lion’s mane! It became some rather nice crab cake-like things.

We got the modelling clay out the other weekend so I decided to make this lightly deranged toothbrush holder.

Oh hey the fire worked

When I worked in the games industry I remember being told the average tenure was six years and thinking that was crazy low. I lasted…five and a half years.

Last night I went to the launch of Amy Acre’s new collection, Mothersong. There were readings from Amy, Fran Locke, Cai Draper and Jess Murrain, and it was lovely.

We lost my wonderful Granny today at the age of 92. I’ve never known someone so warm, selfless, and caring. She died peacefully and surrounded by her loved ones, so it’s the best it could have been, but I am devastated. Love you forever Granny.

Rye’s summer with us came to an end last week and now she’s off to see her mum and dad in Australia! I’m going to miss this lil pudding so much. 🥹

I’m at day four of going cold turkey on Sertraline (ran out, pharmacy being slow) and lemme tell ya I am having nil craic with these withdrawal symptoms

In ’the naming of cats’, T.S. Eliot posits that every cat has a secret name known only to themselves. I have determined that my cat’s secret name is ‘piss goblin’

A glorious, if slightly muggy, day walking on the High Weald.

Someone created this evil-joel emoji on our work Slack and honestly it is quite useful for when I need to be vaguely menacing

I’ll be wandering around WASD this week if any pals want to hang out! I’ll be at the Thursday night thing and at the expo on Friday and prob Saturday. Please be aware I have been doing gamedev again so will probably trauma-dump.

We went for a walk/forage on the Ridgeway today which was very muddy but gorgeous. We found:

• Jelly ears!
• Oysters!
• Gorse!
• Nettles!
• Wild garlic!
• Turkey tails!
• Ground ivy!

So after posting my Manifesto I tried some pizza from Veggie Crust on the Old Kent Road and while it was no Mario it was some pretty good Good Shit Pizza.

We went to a couple of cool exhibitions today - the ASMR one at the Design Museum and the one about Japanese silk braiding (Kumihimo) at Japan House.