Summer Staycation
I wish I had something else to write about. The pandemic is preventing us from traveling far, although I don't mind it too much. We explored all the nearby parks within 5 km from our place, and even went on a small adventure just outside the city borders to see a bit of open fields. There's still a lot of daylight and that dull gray that's characteristic to Ireland most of the year is still not in full effect. Sure, they say the green is dominant, and the grass is very soft, but being placed north does funny things to the diurnal cycle.
We went around the city to see Wicklow Head Lighthouse, Kilmacurragh Botanic Gardens, the town of Athy and spent a night in a countryside accommodation. Then the next day we saw the rock of Dunamase, Emo Court, the town of Monasterevin, Kildare National Stud and Japanese Gardens, St. Brigid's Well and went back home.
It seems a lot, but in reality, it's a small circle around the capital and getting outside was to run away from the city concrete, glass and steel. Two days in total.
Aside from that, there was a medical emergency in my family involving an open heart surgery, which had me worried. The pandemic is not helping, I am 2k km away, no visitations. Croatia is not on the Irish green list. Still, it turned out OK in the end so that's one thing less to worry over.
I also handed in my notice and will be joining the ever-growing family of remote workers. It was a tough decision to make, but it should be the right one. Hindsight is always 20/20. I'll write more about it once it starts.
On other fronts, I ordered some more hardware for my hydroponics project. I cut through some plastic bottles and as a proof of concept, it seems to work. It's still a long way to go before I can give out details about it. I use Shamrock in the software part of it and I had to publish a new version of the library I already wrote about. Trefle released a new version of the API so I had to keep up. It went well.
Right now I am on my holidays so I am getting all of the things I missed doing in order. I am actually glad I got on track the first day which is always good, even though it's sometimes as dull as figuring out the finances. We have a year of orderly payments for the apartment loan behind us.
I am still drawing/painting digitally, but lately it's just been to get it done each day. I have to focus to do something proper while this period was as turbulent as it can be. Hopefully, aside from the status update, I can write about something substantial in a few days. Staying put.