time capsule

I stumble upon this blog every now and again when I remember that it exists. I stopped writing in it in 2022 when I started bullet journalling instead, which I did for two years, pretty consistently. But I still love this blog as a time capsule of my time during the last year of lockdown, and reading the posts let me understand the feelings I had and the mindset I was in at the time - which, if I'm honest, wasn't super positive.

Well, it's been 3 and a half years since the last post, and life has changed a lot. One thing that's stayed the same, however, is that I really feel like I'm missing some kind of creative outlet. I think writing is an incredibly value skill, and I want to spend more time coalescing my thoughts into tangible ideas. So, here we are - back again, ready to post some more!

I've made some upgrades to the blog - I'm genuinely surpised how grim the codebase is for it. One exicting new development is that I can now include code - wow!

# Look at me ma, I'm coding!

def foo():
    bar("Hello, blog!")

I'd like to make some posts about more technical topics, as well as normal life things. There's a lot that's been swishing around in my brain about topics like building strong engineering teams or developing in the world of """AI""". We'll see how it goes.

tags: self, meta

permalink | posted by nathan on Friday, the 11th of July, 2025, when he should have been sleeping

happy birthday, blog

It's been a year since I first posted on this blog. This will be the 67th post, which is a bit more than one a week.

I'm still not really sure what I want this to be. Writing posts takes a fair amount more effort than I thought, and I find myself often wanting to write something cohesive rather than just some random thoughts. When I'm busy and I have things that I've done that I want to write about, I feel I don't have interest or time to do so.

Maybe I need to care less about what I post. I did that a bit more over the summer and enjoyed that. Maybe that will be the focus of the blog's second year!

tags: meta, self

permalink | posted by nathan on Friday, the 21th of January, 2022, when he should have been sleeping

two more christies

Just after Christmas I was feeling a bit sad - I was hearing my friends all make plans back home, and felt a bit homesick over Christmas. So I went for a walk and bought myself some of books to cheer myself up. One was new, but the others came from a second hand bookstore that I am definitely going to return to.

The two I've got round to reading have both been Agatha Christies (it's about time I read some more to keep up my 50% Christie rate). The first was At Bertram's Hotel, a Miss Marple book. It was okay; I think I enjoy Miss Marple for the small village, countryside setting, as well as Miss Marple's shrewd and understated comments. Sadly, both were mostly missing from this book, and the mystery felt a bit forced.

The second was Dead Man's Folly, which was a Poirot. I thought the setup was very well done - a murder mystery hunt at an old English Manor, with a wide array of potential suspects, and a possible solution to the murder that would mirror the solution to the mystery hunt? Again, sadly, it didn't quite land: the solution felt a little rushed and like it came out of the blue. It was a little far-fetched as well, which was unfortunate.

Still, two more down!

tags: books, christie

permalink | posted by nathan on Saturday, the 15th of January, 2022, whilst sipping tea in the morning

i didn't run every day in january

It was a little goal Beth and I had set ourselves to get us into marathon training properly, and also just to see if we could.

Sadly, I've been ill the last couple of days and thought it prudent to recover properly before starting training again.

I think that's okay though. 29/31 days isn't awful - bring on the rest of January!

tags: running, life

permalink | posted by nathan on Saturday, the 15th of January, 2022, whilst sipping tea in the morning

the french dispatch

We saw this film last year, sometime in December. I think I had a bit too much going on to consider writing a blog post about it, but it was definitely one of the best films I've seen all year.

I am a big fan of Wes Anderson. I like the style, I like the humour, I like the whimsical stories that are often deeper than they seem. I like how it eschews reality, but not completely.

The French Dispatch was all that and more. It felt like a relentless onslaught of ideas and story and colours and fun. It threw jokes and left turns and plot points at you and didn't care if you kept up. And I just really, really like the aesthetic of it all.

tags: movies

permalink | posted by nathan on Saturday, the 8th of January, 2022, when he should have been sleeping