Cameron Doyle
I've written 98 blog posts on this site, consisting of 91,295 words (an average of 931 words per article). The most recent post, Seventh, can be read below. The full archive is available at the bottom of this page.
Latest Post - Seventh
goals
It’s now been seven years since I started this blog. Life is very different now, lots of changes have happened, and I continuously avoid writing down any the major ones despite the catharcism that I find in writing.
I also avoid writing about the smaller things when I’m in this position too, because that feels like admitting I’m avoiding talking about the big things. Avoiding my own avoidance, what a strange concept. I should probably keep writing even when it’s not writing about the big things, but it’s like I get a mental block when there’s an elephant in the room.
Last Year
When I wrote my end-of-2020 post, I had a very different vision of how 2021 was going to pan out. I wrote a lot about Danny, my now ex-fiancée. I wrote goals about spending more time with her and our dogs, two of which I haven’t seen for months now. I miss them so much. Ending the relationship was the right decision for me, but also the hardest decision I have ever made. I’m seeing someone new now, and I’m incredibly happy, but strangely I don’t feel ready to write about her yet. Mental health is a strange beast.
2021 Goals
After turning my life upside down in early 2021, I largely forgot about the goals I had made this time last year. They felt like goals for a different version of myself, I didn’t feel connected to them after changing my life entirely. Looking back at them, I was on-track for the majority up until March / April time when I split with Danny, but only a few were actually achieved:
Zero cigarettes
Yes, although I do still vape, and probably have a stronger nicotine addiction now than I’ve ever had before. Oh well.
Get a new PB
New PBs in the 5k (18:36, 17:10 assisted) and the half-marathon (1:31:07) this year. I’ve been in good shape, and I still feel like there’s a little further to go for sure.
Don’t reduce savings
A big help here was my bonus from work, but my savings are looking a little better than this time last year. I’m settled in the new flat with a comfortable level of expenditure, which has been extremely helpful for my mental health too, I no longer feel like I’m just treading water.
2022
This year, I’m not writing any specific goals down. Yes, there are definitely things I’d like to achieve (running PBs, writing more, reading more), but for this year I’m going to follow CGP Grey’s advice and instead set a theme for the year, which will be the Year of Language
I have really enjoyed learning languages (and indeed one of last year’s goals was to speak more German), and I want to continue with this. Maybe this will be a lot more Duolingo and Lingvist lessons, maybe it’ll be enrolling in language courses, maybe it’ll be travelling to try and immerse myself in speaking. I don’t know. But I am hoping to improve myself in this area this year. It’s not about setting a target, it’s about making little decisions to improve the trend line.
2022 is also the year I will be turning 30. I am absolutely not looking forward to that, so I guess a little secondary goal is to not be too sad about getting old. But that is also my goal every year, so we’ll see how that pans out.
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Blog Archive
| Seventh |
31 December 2021 |
| It’s now been seven years since I started this blog. Life is very different now, lots of changes have happened, and I continuously avoid writing down any the major ones despite the catharcism that I find in writing. | |
| Pack |
31 January 2021 |
| Charlie is almost five now. Sometimes I can’t believe that he is so old already. Where is my little puppy?! In truth, I’m looking back at his puppyhood with rose-tinted glasses; he was an absolute shit for the first 18 months or so of his life. And now, he’s not the only dog in the household (although if you ask him, he’s still the top dog). | |
| Reflecting |
31 December 2020 |
| For the first few years of writing this blog, every New Year I wrote a fairly honest and accurate account of how I’d fared with my goals for the previous year, and wrote down what I wanted to achieve in the upcoming 12 months. For the last couple of years though, I’ve completely neglected to maintain this tradition. So, this is the first post of Part Two in the New Year New Me series. | |
| Selling Up |
23 December 2020 |
| Way back in 2015, a few months before I even started writing in this blog, a somewhat-naive 23-year-old version of myself bought his first flat, a nice wee two-bed on a quiet street in west Edinburgh. Life has changed immensely since I bought that flat, and I’m now in the process of selling it, ready for the next chapter of my life to start. | |
| A Mile An Hour |
27 June 2020 |
| A while back now, I stumbled upon a video online of a guy in Australia who spent twenty-four hours running a mile an hour around his block, in between doing odd jobs and being generally productive. I remember watching it and thinking: “I could do that”. So last weekend, I did. | |
| Dysplasia |
26 January 2020 |
| A few months ago, we took Charlie to the vets, and after x-rays and blood tests, received the news that he has hip dysplasia in both hips - a diagnosis that will, sadly, heavily curtail all of his favourite activities. | |
| Canicross |
26 January 2020 |
| Charlie and I started running Canicross competitively about 18 months ago, and racing quickly became one of his favourite things to do. We did our 20th race last weekend, but I don’t know how many more we’ll have left together. | |
| Avaloq |
01 October 2019 |
| Two and a half years ago, or thereabouts, I left my first professional job at CGI. Recently, a new opportunity presented itself, and last week I once again realigned my career trajectory towards pastures new. | |
| Injured |
15 July 2019 |
| I briefly mentioned in my last post about breaking my running streak due to contracting sepsis. While that was frustrating for me, the last few months haven’t exactly gone smoothly in getting back into running. I have to admit though, most of that is due to my own impatience. | |
| Limits |
06 June 2019 |
| My first blog post in over half a year. Not the longest gap between posts, but I definitely feel like I’m moving further and further away from writing regularly, and I think this is because I’ve found my limit of plates I can spin at once. | |
| Streak |
03 December 2018 |
| Slightly over a year ago today, I had my last rest day from running. A friend of mine challenged me to run every day in December up to Christmas, a sort of Advent Challenge if you will. And I sort of just didn’t stop… | |
| Introduction to Agility |
07 March 2018 |
| Charlie completed his last training class, Advance Life Skills almost ten months ago, and I could tell he missed the routine of his classes. So, in January, I signed him up to another course that Karen’s Dogs runs - introduction to Agility. | |
| Clean Slate |
02 January 2018 |
| Over the course of the last year, it has felt like a lot has changed. A couple of big shifts in lifestyle, and also just my outlook and mentality. And if I’m honest, before I sat down to write this post, I could barely remember what I’d decided to focus on this time last year. | |
| Men's 10k |
06 November 2017 |
| I had a short break after running three races on three consecutive weekends in September / October, and after starting to get a bit of routine back to my training, I ran my final race of the calendar year this past weekend. A home race for me, the Men’s 10k finish line is just a 10 minute walk from my flat here in Edinburgh, so I had no excuse to miss it. | |
| Great Scottish 10k |
10 October 2017 |
| With just six days rest after the Scottish Half Marathon, I laced up my running shoes again and headed through to Glasgow for the Great Scottish 10k, the little brother of the Great Scottish Run half marathon taking place the same day. | |
| Scottish Half Marathon |
26 September 2017 |
| Back in July, I wrote about the latest race I’d entered, the Great North 10k back in the North East. In the intervening three months, I’ve been training for the logical next step up from a 10k - the half marathon. | |
| Priorities |
10 September 2017 |
| In my last post, I started out by mentioning how long it had been since I’d last posted, and blamed my absence on being out of the country for a month. That was three weeks ago, but this time the reason is different; my priorities have changed. | |
| Zurich |
21 August 2017 |
| Until the beginning of summer, I’d been keeping up with my target of one new blog post a week, but as of today it has been over a month since I last wrote anything new. The main reason for this? Living in Zurich. | |
| Great North 10k |
16 July 2017 |
| After my first proper race six weeks ago at the EMF 10k, I signed up for a second 10k back in the North-East. The Great North 10k is supposed to be a warm-up race for those competing in the Great North Run half-marathon in the autumn, but I entered just looking to improve on my results in Edinburgh. | |
| Project 333 |
09 July 2017 |
| The weekend that I left my job with CGI back at the beginning of April, I decided to take a closer look at my clothing situation. My new role doesn’t require me to wear a suit or shirts, so it felt like a good opportunity to take stock of what I had in my wardrobe. | |
| CGI Euros - Knock-Outs |
05 July 2017 |
| After the celebration / commiseration beers down at the beach with Caledonia, we headed to a couple of pubs before retiring for a relatively early night in preparation for the knock-out tournament the following day, starting with last year’s runner-up Munich. | |
| CGI Euros - Group Stage |
01 July 2017 |
| After a surprise victory in Lisbon last year, the Scotland team were asked to host the tournament in June 2017. We accepted, and late last year started searching for a venue; and recruiting new players. | |
| Routine |
21 June 2017 |
| After returning from Vancouver last month, I struggled, like most people do, with severe jetlag. I’ve returned to normal now, but I hadn’t really appreciated my schedule until I couldn’t get back into it. | |
| EMF 10k |
05 June 2017 |
| As part of my motivation to complete the Bridge to 10k training plan, I signed up to run in the Edinburgh Marathon Festival 10km. Still jetlagged from my flight home from Vancouver three days earlier, it probably wasn’t my best idea. | |
| Vancouver, BC |
28 May 2017 |
| After the major delay to the Amtrak from Seattle, I eventually arrived in my final stop of the trip, Vancouver, at around 1:30am on Saturday morning. After passing through Canadian customs and a short taxi to my hostel, I went to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. | |
| Pacific Northwest |
22 May 2017 |
| Leaving Portland was an interesting experience. I’d never driven an automatic car before. Never driven a left-hand-drive. Never driven on the right side of the road. Never navigated a four-way stop. Yet, here I was, doing all of those things. And did I mention the torrential rain? | |
| Portland, OR |
17 May 2017 |
| After my first stop in the US in Seattle, I took the Amtrak train down to Portland for a couple of days. Given my slight obsession with coffee, it would almost be rude not to make a call in one of the coffee capitals of the world. | |
| Seattle, WA |
15 May 2017 |
| Seattle has been on my bucket list for a long time. After San Francisco, it’s probably the US city I’ve wanted to visit the most. Last autumn when I started making plans to visit Vancouver, I knew I needed to fit a trip to Seattle in at the same time. | |
| Bridge to 10k |
12 May 2017 |
| Following on from a reasonably successful completion of the Couch to 5k plan in March, I decided to continue building up my running distance, with the aim of running a 10km race at the end of May. | |
| Driver |
07 May 2017 |
| Since I passed my driving test as a fresh-faced 18-year-old way back in July 2010, I’ve not been without a car for more than the week or so when my various cars required repairs or maintenance. Until this week that is, when I finally sold my last car that has been sitting idle outside the flat since October last year. | |
| Dog Years |
24 April 2017 |
| One year ago today, we brought home a little eight-week-old puppy, who we’d decided to name Charlie. He’s grown and changed so much since then, but it’s so hard to remember what life was like without him. | |
| Host |
23 April 2017 |
| We waved off this weekend’s guests a few hours ago - five friends from back home in North-East England who’ve spent the last couple of days with us - and we’re starting to get back into the rhythm of just the three of us (Sasha, Charlie, and me). | |
| French Press |
15 April 2017 |
| Following the theme of my other coffee maker reviews, I figured I should write about probably the most well-known and ubiquitous coffee maker currently sat on my shelf; the cafetière, or French press. | |
| Advanced Life Skill |
09 April 2017 |
| This morning, we drove with Charlie to Livingston for the last of his Level 3 training classes at Karen’s Dogs. Along with his puppy classes and progress classes, his training has turned him into a well-rounded and well-behaved young dog. For the most part. | |
| CGI |
31 March 2017 |
| I’ve talked a lot in recent months about what path I’m taking, changes that have happened to me, where I am in my life and how I feel about how I got here. Well, today was a big change; my last day at my first professional job. | |
| Cold Shower Therapy |
23 March 2017 |
| For a good six months or so, way back in 2013-ish just after I moved to Scotland for the first time, I was heavily into self-improvement. I went to the gym religiously, ate clean and kept track of my diet meticulously; and also embraced the challenge of cold shower therapy. | |
| Moka Pot |
19 March 2017 |
| Back in January, Sasha and I spent a few days in Rome for her birthday, and being in Italy, we naturally spent a lot of our time drinking Italian-style coffee. When we got back, I asked Sasha for a specific gift for my birthday the following month; a Moka Pot. | |
| Pipette |
09 March 2017 |
| A few months back, on one of our mystery date nights, Sasha and I visited a small French-inspired restaurant in Edinburgh’s New Town. One of those hipster, artisanal, fancy-but-informal places, where they take great pride in their boutique craft beers, gourmet burgers, and extensive whisky selection. | |
| Couch to 5k |
05 March 2017 |
| When I first started this blog, back in November 2015, I was running fairly consistently about 20km a week. In fact the first couple of draft posts I started (and never posted) for the blog were centred around running, including my original 2016 New Years resolutions. | |
| Flirt Pole |
26 February 2017 |
| Along with his scentwork that I wrote about last month, my favourite activity we learned at Charlie’s Progress Training classes was impulse control using a flirt pole. It might be Charlie’s favourite too. | |
| Quarter |
17 February 2017 |
| A few hours ago, I completed my twenty-fifth cycle of the Sun. A quarter of a century since I entered the world. Halfway to fifty. Pretty soon I’ll be ‘late twenties’. How does time go by so fast? | |
| Fitbit Charge 2 |
12 February 2017 |
| Late last year I’d been looking into getting myself a fitness tracker, mainly because I like data, but also as motivation to get myself back into fitness after a long time of not doing very much at all. So for Christmas, Sasha bought me a Fitbit Charge 2, and I’m only just now getting around to reviewing it properly. | |
| Labyrinth |
03 February 2017 |
| A few weeks ago, I went out for a few drinks with one of my best friends. We’ve known each other and been friends for over a decade, and though we don’t live near each other any more (and haven’t for several years), we’ve always made the effort to stay in touch and catch up whenever we can. | |
| One For Sorrow |
26 January 2017 |
| The late morning sun was shining high in the sky, scattering warmth across the old man’s back as he walked towards the foot of the mountain. This single-track road through the Scottish Highlands is beautifully picturesque, he thought, but far too quiet for hitchhiking. | |
| Rome |
19 January 2017 |
| Slightly less than four years ago, for my 21st birthday I visited Rome for the first time. It was one of my first European city visits, and helped sparked the wanderlust that has stayed with me ever since. | |
| Scentwork |
14 January 2017 |
| One of the best things we learned at Charlie’s Progress Training classes last year was how to get him interested in scentwork. Nothing else short of a ten-mile hike tires him out quite like a good session of mental training. | |
| Chemex |
08 January 2017 |
| Towards the end of last year, I did a couple of write-ups of my two weekday coffee makers - the AeroPress and the American Press. Now it’s time for what I call my “Sunday coffee maker” - the Chemex. | |
| Refresh |
01 January 2017 |
| This time last year, I sat down with the remnants of a Hogmanay hangover and went over my resolutions for the 2015 year, marked off what I had and hadn’t achieved, and wrote down my plans for 2016. | |
| Traditions |
27 December 2016 |
| Over the last two years, as expected, I’ve drifted apart from a lot of people I consider close friends. People I grew up with, people I expect to still be friends with for a long time to come. We no longer see each other passively; since moving to Edinburgh, it now takes effort and conscious thought to maintain relationships. | |
| Tag Cloud |
15 December 2016 |
| When I first started this blog a year or so ago, I wasn’t really clear on how I should be using tags and categories. Naturally, I did neither correctly. This week I went through and corrected my existing tag/categories to categories, and added a bunch of new tags to my posts. | |
| Red Hot Chili Peppers |
11 December 2016 |
| Last Thursday, I spent the night in Glasgow at the SSE Hydro watching funk-rock legends the Red Hot Chili Peppers as they toured with their latest album The Getaway. As one of my three favourite rock acts of all time, I had naturally been looking forward to this for quite a while. | |
| Cash |
06 December 2016 |
| As of September 2016, I no longer track cash as a separate YNAB account. Aside from bus fare (Transport for Edinburgh really need to catch on to the Transport for London model), I have very little need to carry any cash at all anymore. | |
| Mystery Date Nights |
01 December 2016 |
| Recently, I realised that I hadn’t developed anything major outside of work for a while - since this blog or website a year or so ago. Wanting to change that, I dived into the extremely intimidating and fast-moving world of JavaScript frameworks, and started learning Angular 2. | |
| It's American Press |
19 November 2016 |
| Around this time a year ago, I donated $80 to the It’s American Press’ Indiegogo campaign - and then largely forgot about it, until my reward of a shiny new American Press arrived at my door last week. | |
| AeroPress |
14 November 2016 |
| For the last two years, my daily morning coffee routine hasn’t changed at all, at least during the working week. My routine is so ingrained I could probably do it in my sleep, and uses just three items; my coffee mug, my Hario Skerton hand grinder, and of course, my AeroPress. | |
| Everyday Carry |
10 November 2016 |
| When I was in middle school, like a lot of kids at the time, I had about a dozen keyrings on my keys. Or rather, key, singular. Maybe it’s just part of the ritual of being entrusted with the Front Door Key for the first time that makes you feel the need to carry half a kilo of plastic along with the single, lonely key, lest you forget and leave it somewhere. | |
| Bokeh |
31 October 2016 |
| For as long as I can remember, I’ve worn contact lenses on a daily basis, to the point I sometimes forget what my vision is actually like without assistance. In the wild, I’d have been killed off long ago by a predator I couldn’t see coming. | |
| Submodules and Subtrees |
19 October 2016 |
| You may have noticed a new addition to the blog recently; a slide-out menu on the left hand side, linking to the other subdomains. For the last few months, I’ve been thinking of ways to restructure my website, to integrate the blog back into my main homepage, as well as incorporate other subdomains as I develop them. This menu was the answer I came up with. | |
| Progress Life Skill |
12 October 2016 |
| Tonight was Charlie’s final session of his six Level 2 training classes held out in Livingston. He’s learned a lot over the last month and a half, although as he’s reaching his adolescence it sure is hard to tell at times. | |
| Definitions |
07 October 2016 |
| Most social media platforms have a space for a short biography of some sorts. An ‘About Me’, maybe a paragraph or so. Couple hundred words at the most. ‘Tell us about yourself!’, they ask. ‘Distill everything you are, and everything you want to be, into a soundbite elevator pitch’. How do you do that? How do you choose your definitions? | |
| Subscriptions |
28 September 2016 |
| Today was the ninth payday of 2016. It’s the 21st payday since I started tracking my finances in YNAB, which means it’s the 21st time I’ve filled out my budget for next month, and the 21st time I’ve been thankful for being a minimalist, because I’m no longer wasting money on things I don’t need. | |
| Growing |
26 September 2016 |
| Five months ago on Saturday, Charlie came home with us from his birthplace in East Lothian for the first time. Since he was vaccinated and able to go for walks outside, we’ve taken him to so many places we hadn’t been before, and might not have been without him. | |
| Local |
11 September 2016 |
| One year ago today, I collected the keys from the solicitors for our first flat. I’d already lived in Edinburgh for over a year at that point, but I didn’t really feel like a permanent resident of this great city while I was renting. | |
| Respecting Your Reader |
07 September 2016 |
| There are two things that I consider to be disrespectful to the reader when browsing online; intrusive advertising, and excessive page-weight. Both tell me exactly what the author or page-owner thinks of their audience, and it isn’t positive. | |
| LastPass |
30 August 2016 |
| Two years ago, if you’d wanted to access any of my online accounts, you probably wouldn’t have struggled. Rampant password reuse. Weak, low-entropy passwords. No two-factor authentication. I was an easy target. | |
| Paris |
20 August 2016 |
| A little over six years ago, aged eighteen, I took my girlfriend to Paris for our one-year anniversary. It was the first time I’d made my own travel plans, and since then I’ve visited over twenty countries and forty cities, before returning earlier this week. | |
| Patience |
12 August 2016 |
| “Good things come to those who wait.” Not a phrase that I’ve really lived by thus far. I always tend to take the immediate gratification route, rather than investing heavily in my future self. Screw him, he can deal with it when it gets to him. | |
| Puppy Life Skill |
06 August 2016 |
| Each Saturday morning for the past couple of months, Charlie and I have taken the tram and then the train to Livingston to attend his puppy training classes. The hours after we get home, when he curls up next to me and goes to sleep, is the only quiet time I get all week. | |
| Favourites |
01 August 2016 |
| One of the unexpected joys of minimalism is that I no longer own anything that isn’t my favourite. After getting rid of the excess, the duplicates, the lower value versions of all of my possessions, I was left with (in my opinion) the best of everything. It’s easier to enjoy things when they’re your favourite. | |
| Collecting |
26 July 2016 |
| When I was younger, I had a slightly unhealthy obsession with not letting go of old things. Material possessions, things I found at the back of a wardrobe that I didn’t even remember, I wouldn’t throw them out. I come from a family of borderline hoarders, so it’s not really a big surprise I grew up with this mentality. | |
| Stockholm |
15 July 2016 |
| We travelled to Stockholm by train from Copenhagen, with a few short hours in Malmö on the way. Four and a half hours is by no means the longest train I’ve ever gotten, but when the scenery outside literally doesn’t change for close to 400 miles, it tends to drag a little. | |
| Copenhagen |
12 July 2016 |
| After barely recovering from the crippling hangovers of Spain in 2015, our group started thinking of places to go next. We decided on the more expensive Scandinavian cities of Copenhagen and Stockholm, so we could visit friends who lived there. At least, that was the plan. | |
| Smoke |
30 June 2016 |
| Today marks one year since my last cigarette. A whole year smoke free, the first time I’ve gone more than a couple of months without since I was 18, and yet I’ve never considered myself a smoker. | |
| CGI Euros - The Final |
23 June 2016 |
| Having seen off the arguably strongest side in the tournament, we looked forward to the final against Munich with a relatively relaxed attitude. The semi final had taken its toll on all of us; many players weren’t convinced they could play another game, let alone win. | |
| CGI Euros - Knock-Outs |
21 June 2016 |
| Despite the drinking, we still made it back relatively early; our killjoy captain insisting on a good night’s sleep before the knock-out phase in the morning. We woke fresh, and made our way to the stadium to find we’d been drawn against the free-scoring Portuguese side AMS - they’d won their group games 5-0, 5-0, and 3-0. This did not bode well for our defence. | |
| CGI Euros - Group Stage |
20 June 2016 |
| In late June 2015, the Scotland team finished the CGI Euros tournament in Frankfurt in dead last place. One win, one draw, four losses. Missing several key players, we went into the 2016 tournament in Lisbon with minimal expectations. | |
| Lisbon |
15 June 2016 |
| Last summer, I visited Frankfurt for the 2015 CGI Euros football tournament. The very last thing to happen in Frankfurt was the announcement that the 2016 competition was to be held in Lisbon. I took the opportunity to explore the city before the tournament; any excuse to travel, right? | |
| Socialisation |
05 June 2016 |
| Over the last couple of weeks, Charlie and I have been attending “puppy parties” hosted by his vet to help with his socialisation. Up until recently, when I started seriously researching adopting a puppy, I had no idea just how important good socialisation was for young dogs. | |
| Minimalism |
24 May 2016 |
| I’m foregoing the obvious opportunity to leave this blog post blank as a statement about minimalism. It pains me to do so, but I don’t want to waste an entire blog post on a pun, however clever I might think I am. | |
| Usquebaugh |
17 May 2016 |
| I feel like all of my writing could quite easily start off describing the view outside. It’s usually how I begin; staring off into the deep blue Scottish sky. I prefer to write with a clear head, disconnected from the outside world, where I can think and type in peace. | |
| Sass |
06 May 2016 |
| I’ve spent over a year now designing, building, and tweaking this blog and accompanying portfolio site. When I first started, I was still relatively green when it came to front-end development, so I avoided CSS preprocessors in favour of the more familiar pure CSS. I wish I hadn’t. | |
| YNAB |
03 May 2016 |
| If you met me in person sometime in the last year or so, engaged in conversation with me about personal finance, or even just made an off-hand comment about budgeting or not having enough money, chances are I’ll have mentioned (okay, let’s be honest, forced down your throat) the benefits of the budgeting software YNAB - You Need A Budget. | |
| Puppy |
25 April 2016 |
| On Sunday, a new lodger moved into the flat in Edinburgh, rent-free. His name is Charlie, and he’s an eight-week-old Border Collie. I feel sorry for all of my social media contacts, as they’ve been inundated with pictures of his face since he arrived. This is unlikely to stop anytime soon. | |
| Redesign |
22 April 2016 |
| This past week, I’ve sat and read through most of the 14 posts I’ve written since I started this blog, and in doing so realised something fairly crucial. It is not easy to read. Time for a redesign (already)! | |
| Holly |
11 April 2016 |
| This time last week, I took the train home to Newcastle (can I call it home? Jury’s still out) to say goodbye to my dog and best friend of thirteen years, Holly. | |
| Third Wave |
04 April 2016 |
| While I am in no way a connoisseur of fine coffee (not yet anyway), I can definitely discern the difference between a good and bad cup. This is both a blessing and a curse; while I can appreciate the art of a good coffee, the cumulative price of continuous quality coffee does my bank balance no good. | |
| Brussels |
27 March 2016 |
| We flew to Brussels direct from Gdańsk on literally the cheapest flight I’ve ever been on. £6.69. I paid more to get the tram to Edinburgh Airport than I did for this flight; at that price, I don’t even mind if I don’t get a seat. How Wizz Air can possibly make a profit I have no idea, but I’m not complaining. | |
| Gdańsk |
26 March 2016 |
| After a whole eight months without leaving the country (seriously, this must be the longest I’ve gone without travelling since I turned 18), I finally decided to go away for a few days in March of 2016. I spent a good few days looking for the cheapest possible flights I could find, and eventually settled on Gdańsk, in Northern Poland. It was definitely a good choice. | |
| Home |
09 March 2016 |
| Everybody knows where they come from. It may not be entirely truthful, it may be hard to choose an accurate answer, but everybody has a boilerplate response for the ineluctable small-talk query “so where are you from?”. | |
| Black Gold |
19 February 2016 |
| I am a relative newcomer to the world of good quality coffee. Growing up, all that was available in our house were the cheap jars of instant, only ever used if we had guests who did not drink tea. I suspect this is a fairly common arrangement in most households in Britain, because what sort of primitive animal doesn’t drink tea? | |
| Hangover |
15 February 2016 |
| A sharp, piercing scream penetrates the air like an arrow whistling through the trees. You awake violently, the pain slamming into your head like a sledgehammer, instantly regretting any sort of movement as you slap blindly at the source of the noise. Who sets an alarm for a Sunday morning? | |
| Change |
29 January 2016 |
| When you’re a child, it’s hard to visualise the future. It’s hard to extract yourself from day-to-day life and genuinely picture what it will be like to be an adult. To have a job, to move out; to grow up, essentially. The future is an uncharted and remote destination, not quite mythical, but not exactly set in stone either. It’s hard to imagine what will be different between now and then. | |
| Unfocused |
11 January 2016 |
| I am the worst person in the world when it comes to procrastination. Combined with a short attention span, it’s a wonder I ever get anything done. Even right now, I have Netflix playing in the background, and I’ve rewritten this sentence three times already because I can’t concentrate without looking up every five seconds. Damn. | |
| Prognostications |
03 January 2016 |
| I awoke in time to watch the day break this morning. Since then, there’s been a cold winter sun shining down over Edinburgh, releasing a beautiful backdrop for deep and insightful thoughts. I’m writing next to my window; the clouds are drifting lazily by, casting long, languid shadows across the hedgerow outside. There are better views, admittedly, but it’s calming to watch the skies from pretty much anywhere. | |
| Retrospection |
26 December 2015 |
| In a similar vein to birthdays, the worst part about a new year is the realisation that you’re getting old. Or maybe when you’re old enough to realise that, it’s already too late? Damn, I sure hope that’s not the case. | |
| Audience |
18 December 2015 |
| Writing has always been an odd subject for me. It’s an integral part of life, even if it’s just in the form of emails or texts, it’s something you do without even really stopping to consider just how much you actually do. | |
| Beginning |
10 December 2015 |
| It’s been a slow couple of weeks at work. I had originally anticipated the development of this blog to take one or two months, maybe an hour or so every couple of nights, given that I’ve never tried it before, and I’ve never used any of the languages involved. But here we are, about 90% done before Christmas! | |
| Test Post, Please Ignore |
30 November 2015 |
| So. Blogging. Historically, not something I’ve ever been very good at. I always enjoyed building the blog or writing the code more than filling the pages with beautiful prose. Hey, that was almost Seuss-like! | |