Today was very much a continuation of yesterday at work, in that I was still pairing on the same piece of work, and we got quite a lot done.

In the most basic terms, it’s a Java Spring Boot server that has a few endpoints, and a database. I’m not exactly excited that I’m writing Java, seeing as I’m a Swift developer, but it’s something the team has been assigned to. Deadlines 🤷🏻‍♂️. However, I’m now properly writing tests, and I’m learning a lot of fundamental things that I take back to my Swift code.

In this specific piece of work, we have unit tests, integration tests, and also functional tests in the form of BDD/Gherkin scenarios. It’s interesting to see it all working together.

After work, I’ve mainly been doing house work. Things like washing up, laundry, and in general tidying up.

I did however, get a chance to look at Text Case for a bit, and I’ve started work on supporting parameters in Shortcuts actions! It will only be relatively simple, have a text input, and a text output, so hopefully I can get a build out via TestFlight soon.

I did notice one cool thing in iOS 13 beta 3 while I was doing this, and that’s that a bug that was introduced in the 1st beta, has now been fixed. It’s where in the custom icon select page, the icon images would expand past their bounds, and overlap nearly half the screen. I tried various ways to fix it when it first came up, but thank god the latest beta simply fixes it. That’s one less thing to think about.

I finally had a productive day at work for once! I was pairing with another developer, and we were finally left alone to actually get some work done for once. There was the odd thing I was needed for, but it was a nice change from yesterday.

Since finishing work, I’ve been at my girlfriends parents house. They invited us round for a BBQ and we then stayed to watch the football. Sadly USA beat England, which means I’ll be supporting The Netherlands from now on.

I also managed to write something on my blog today. Nothing major, just a realisation I’ve had about light and dark themed interfaces.

So it was back to work after a sunny weekend.

Today was full of discussions and meetings. It was pretty boring to be honest. Seeing as the end result of the meetings were pretty much what we were already doing.

However, Arsenal did announce their home kit for the 2019/2020 season, so I made sure I bought myself a shirt. It’s a throwback to a much earlier design, and it’s been very welcomed by the fans.

After I got home, I went out for a coffee, done some chores in the house, and now I’m sat in the garden with the cat writing this entry!

I think I can fit in some World of Warcraft now before I go to bed.

Today was a big day! We finally let the cat out of the house.

He’s been housebound for quite some time. For multiple reasons, including the few holidays we’ve been on recently, and the lack of time where myself and my girlfriend are both in the house together.

But, today we were finally both in, it was a sunny day, and in the afternoon we were having a cat flap fitted. He absolutely loved it, and it didn’t take him long to be out circling the block. Luckily he came back though.

So in the afternoon we had my girlfriends family round. Her dad fitted the cat flap, and everyone was doing some kind of work, whether it as housework or gardening.

In the evening we went to my aunts house for a big family party. And that ended up lasting until about 11 pm! So hopefully that won’t affect me tomorrow at work.

It was a very nice day today, and turns out I spent most of the day inside!

My girlfriend was at work, so I had the day to myself pretty much.

I started with some World of Warcraft and Fifa, but eventually I got around to do so some chores. I got the lawn mower out and trimmed the grass in the front garden, so that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about for another few weeks.

Seeing as it was sunny outside, I enjoyed the afternoon sun by watching Stormy’s Glastonbury set on television. It was really impressive, and I can certainly see why he was the headline act.

In the evening, I basically played more games, entertained the cat, and relaxed with some television!

Finally, it’s Friday.

After a long week, it was surprisingly a more relaxing day at work. There was a lot of discussions about things, but it was more an issue of time rather than effort. Which can be annoying sometimes, but I didn’t mind as it was a Friday.

After I got home, it was my turn to make dinner, as my girlfriend was working a super long shift. Basically all day. So I made a chilli con carne, and it was pretty tasty!

Not long after I ate that, I went out for a drink as it was a pretty good day still. It appears summer is finally arriving in England.

In the evening, I was still on my own, so I spent that time playing Fifa, and watching an episode of The Origins Podcast. It’s hosted by the theoretical physicist, Lawrence Krauss, and the first episode was with Ricky Gervais. It was a mix of intelligent conversations and humour. And it’s also the first thing that I’ve ever become subscribed to on Patreon, as it’s only $2 a month for full video access, and they tend to be over an hour long.N

I was slightly more productive today than the rest of the week. Work was okay, and I made some good progress in a new service we’re building. So that was pleasant.

When I got home, it was still sunny, and my girlfriend was cooking dinner. So I made the effort to get the lawnmower out and cut the grass in the back garden.

After dinner, we had my mum and sister round for coffee. Once they were gone, it was basically time for bed!

Today was just like yesterday. Work, home, dinner, sleep.

I desperately need the weekend to refuel.

Today was a really boring day to journal, so I’ll keep it boringly short.

It was the second day of work after the trip to Cyprus, and I’m really not used to the early hours yet, so I was tired nearly all day.

After I got home, I managed to watch one episode of Good Omens while eating dinner, and then I had to go to bed.

See. Boring.

I’ll start with what is essentially the prequel to what should be my journal entry today.

Technically, today started on a plane. It was only 0:45 when our flight from Larnaca, Cyprus, landed in Stanstead.

We then took what I always find as being a strangely long duration of time, to simply get up, grab hand luggage, and make it off the plane. Then there’s the maze around the airport, leading up to passport control. Where usually only around 25% of the electronic passport machines are operating, which are then removed of their efficiency by having two or three people members of staff getting in the way. We British know what a queue is, we understand that a green arrow on a newly empty passport gate means it’s ready for the next person, and we also would all like to talk to other people a bit less.

Of course, that isn’t quite the end of the journey through the airport. As you then have to collect your luggage that has been kept in the plane’s hold. I’ve always found airports in mainland Europe to be a bit more efficient than English ones, in that by the time you make it to the looping conveyer belt of luggage, your bags are already there, waiting for you. What happens here, is you have to first make it rhgough the crowd that has already gathered for their bags from another flight (there’s never just one flight on one conveyer belt), find a good spot to be able to quickly identify your luggage and lift it off, and then simply wait until it comes along. Sometimes it involves you picking up another bag that is similar to your own, or you don’t recognise your own bag and just let it loop a few times before realising.

After this step you are basically free to leave.

We did have to get on a free shuttle-bus to one of the airports long-stay carparks, but luckily this required minimal waiting, and was pretty fast. Then my girlfriend drove us home, which took us about an hour, but luckily she let me get a bit of sleep.

Once we were home, we greeted our cat, and went straight to bed.

Who would have though all of this so far would have been about the first 12.5% of the day.? Anyway, back to the regular scheduled content…

I woke around 6:30. Not quite enough sleep for a full day back at work, but honestly not much less than I would usually get. I had a shower, got ready, and left for work. The commute went pretty well, which was probably helped by the good weather and lack of congestion on the trains.

However, being back at work was a bit of a weird experience. As we have quite an open floor, and there tends to be a lot of fun discussions going on, people chatting, and just a nice (for me) level of background noise. There had been a few desk moves while I was away, and this led to people just not talking at all. It was near silence all day, and I was totally not ready for it. In the late afternoon it did liven up a tiny amount, but nowhere near normal.

After I’d finished work, and completed my commute home, I was greeted by my girlfriend before she imminently left for her night shift. So I ate dinner, and then went for a coffee with a friend.

I spent the evening mainly sat in my office with my cat, learning about SwiftUI. With all of the travelling I’ve been doing, I had only watched the Keynote and SOTU from WWDC so far, so I was glad to spend some time to finally introduce myself. From what I can tell early on, it looks like it will be really fun and beneficial to work on, but I’ve still got a while to go before I can say I fully understand it and have it replace my UIKit code.