A SUNSET WALK IN THE PARK

I submitted a talk for a conference recently. I thought maybe agile documentation would be a thrilling session for a software jolly, but it turns out there were more 'relevant' ideas out there. Plus, I made a joke about time travel in my biography (I honestly thought it was funny) and only realised afterwards that my sense of humour is probably not tailored for the kind of people who organise software developer conferences.

Meanwhile, the whole agile documentation thing is going really well. For the first time in a long time I feel like I've had an idea that's actually worked, and not just my idea, but a sort of organically growing one that Louise and Junko took on and developed and now is being tweaked across the whole department. These are the best ideas of all - ones that you can let go of so that they grow without you; what we've come up with is way better than anything I could have invented on my own.

In any case, who wants to invent things on their own? That seems rather a dull and old-fashioned way of doing things to me.

It turns out that a small window (no, not a porridge window) of opportunity has opened up for me to take a break, hopefully in June. The dates work out; all I need is a secret destination and the courage to get there. To be honest, with the quality of my sleep languishing around the sixty percent mark, and me moping around like Eeyore all the time, it'll be a wonder if I make it through the next six weeks.

I went for a sunset walk in the park tonight. The sky was layered in strips of sinking cloud and there was woodsmoke in the valley. Lights twinkled in the dusk. High above the bare arms of the trees, the crescent moon was beaming through the pale blue twilight. It was really beautiful, and for that one moment in time, I had the park to myself. I smiled as I realised that the solitude and silence of it was actually cheering me up a bit. It was a classic INFP moment, absorbing the peace and refuelling myself with the isolation. I scrunched across the grass and thought a whole load of things through.

That feels like what I do at the moment. I think a whole load of things through. I'm not much company and my quiet introversion drives me into terrible guilt about being antisocial and pathetic, but at the end of all that, I come out of the shell and emerge from the park with some deep deep thoughts. Then, I go crazy talking about them to people who will listen.

Not at software conferences though. At least, not yet.