How is it December already?

[selenay]

Really, how is it December? Where did the last two months go?

I was really busy, that's where.

I moved into my flat, I did so much in October that it was ridiculous, and November was only quiet by comparison.


The move went surprisingly smoothly, considering how many moving parts there were to it. Everything was delivered on schedule (early, actually, which kept throwing us as we dashed around trying to clear boxes out of the way for an Ikea delivery that came half an hour earlier than it's earliest estimate) and almost everything fitted.

Almost. A sofa bed I'd brought from Canada wouldn't fit through the door no matter what we did, so sadly it had to find a new home through Freecycle. Thankfully all the other larger furniture items were flat-packed so they fitted in. My flat is small, but nicely kitted out and comfy now.

We unpacked frantically on the Tuesday, but concluded we just hadn't got enough done to set up my bed that night, so I didn't spend the night then. Mum and I had a ridiculously early morning the next day for the Ikea delivery and then the day was an exhausting blur of unpacking and building things. Mum had a funeral that afternoon, so Dad and I did most of the building and had the house habitable by late afternoon, so I moved in that evening.

It was such a relief to crawl into my lovely comfy bed that night. And almost as nice to have an extra half hour in bed because I didn't have to mess about with buses. I had an after work thing on the Friday and the taxi home from that was much cheaper - I've been going to a lot more after work things since moving here because it's more affordable.

Everything is now unpacked and put away. I bought some extra storage units a couple of weeks ago so there are no more stacks of stuff randomly in the flat. It had been feeling very small and claustrophobic, but getting everything sorted out and knowing I've got spare storage space if needed has helped a lot. This isn't a place I'd live in for life, but it'll be fine for a year or two.

It may be small, but I've got it arranged comfortable and I'm happy with it. Best of all, the kitchen is great and the oven is fantastic. I made the Christmas cake on Sunday and it came out beautifully. I can definitely live here for a while as long as my kitchen is good :-)


Work continues to be great.


I'm really enjoying the variety of what I do at work and I'm getting to learn lots of cool stuff. I've been messing about with JavaScript a fair bit due to Google App Scripts and I'm feeling much more confident about it. I've also just started learning Go, which is a surprisingly fun language and it powers a lot of our ETL, so it's a good one to know.

Last week I also got to do my first paired programming session with The Boss. We talked over Google Meetups and used VS Code to live share our coding environments, which meant we could take turns driving the keyboard (The Boss let me do a fair bit of the coding under his guidance) and The Boss could explain a lot of the Go quirks as he went. He's a good mentor and it was huge fun to code with someone. I'm looking forward to doing more of that!

My backlog of work is huge and there are fierce arguments right now about who gets my time, so after Christmas we're planning to recruit a junior data engineer to take some of the load off. I can train them up and they can take over the smaller, simpler projects, which will free me up to do the bigger architectural and strategic projects we want to do.

I've got plans for creating simple views on the data, so that people with a smattering of SQL can get their own simpler requests, and building some tools for people with no SQL to self-serve the requests they regularly make. I also want to do some cleaning up of datasets, really dig into improvements to do the data model, and set up streaming loads for some of our data so we can do real time analysis.

Then there are plots The Boss and I have for developing forecasting tools to help product improve availability. But none of these things will get done while I'm chasing around trying to build all the smaller things that are requested and responding to a dozen and one ad-hoc data requests every day. So we're getting a junior in for me :-D


Life outside has also been really busy.


I was out doing social things every weekend in October. Every weekend! Culminating in a fantastic weekend in Edinburgh to celebrate katlinel and kilbswhitecrow's birthdays. I fell in love with that city so hopefully I'll be back early next year for another visit.

I slowed things down a bit in November, trying to keep every other weekend quieter and freer. It didn't always work out, but I didn't feel quite so much like I never stopped, and I got more done at home.

I've been going to various tech meetups and I've also made a one-a-week rule for that for myself, because otherwise it's exhausting. And I joined the local community choir! So I have choir practice once a week.

I've also been going out for Sunday lunch with the parents and some friends every now and again, which is really lovely. I went board gaming again in Oxford with paranoidangel a couple of weeks ago, which was brilliant fun and something we're planning to keep doing.

When I lived in England before, Mum and I always used to go up to Oxford for the day in December to do a bit of Christmas shopping and enjoy our favourite city prettied up for the season, so we're resuming that tradition on Saturday. The train to Oxford is a marvellous thing.

Christmas season is upon me. We'll be doing lots of family Christmas stuff. I've got a concert with the choir on Sunday and we're also singing in Marylebone on December 17th (5pm to 7pm, if anyone commutes through there and wants to see us). Office Christmas do is December 14th, choir Christmas meal is next week, and I think my work team is organising a team Christmas lunch next week. Then there are church carol concerts (I'm doing readings) and...

Yeah. I have a social life! I'm really enjoying it.


The consequence of having a social life is that I'm realising it's not really practical to go entirely car-free after all. After Christmas, I plan to look for a second-hand Toyota Yaris Hybrid (the smallest hybrid on the market). Borrowing Mum's car works sometimes, but it's not a good solution and there are times when she has to run errands for me that I just can't do, which isn't fair. I'd love to get an electric, but there's no way to plug one in here, so a hybrid is the next best low-emission option.

I've been feeling much happier over the last few weeks, which I think is because I'm feeling more settled both at home and at work. It's great having my own space again, being able to relax and veg out when I want, cook what I want, make spur-of-the-moment decisions because I don't have anyone waiting for me...in short, I'm so happy to have my own place again :-D

I am seriously considering seeing whether I can afford to buy a house next year, rather than waiting until 2020. It's possible I won't be able to get a mortgage for what I need, but I'll see. That's an adventure for next year.

Right now, I'm just enjoying being settled and not having to think about moving or packing for a while.

Comments

[celli]

<333333

[selenay]

:-D