Normally in these posts I just wrap up what I’ve done in the last year with work stuff and then maybe mention something in my real life in passing. This year has been different, work has very much taken a back seat as I’ve got married, celebrated the birth of our first child and, in the last couple of weeks, moved house. I’m not sure it was entirely sensible to try and do three of the most stressful things in life all within the same year, but we did it, and it’s been great fun!
In February, post Lotusphere, we were lucky enough that nearly a hundred friends and family made it to south London on a freezing cold, snowy Saturday afternoon to see Alison and I get married. The day really was pretty much perfect.
But we didn’t get much of a chance for recovery post wedding. In April, Miranda was born, a little late but perfectly healthy and, as you may imagine, our lives changed dramatically right away. We’ve been really lucky on the sleep front but even so the old days of being lazy in the evenings and weekends have pretty much gone. But the changes are all for the better, having Miranda in our lives is a wonderful thing.
Boy I am just a walking cliché aren’t I?
In between the feeding and nappy changing there was actually quite a lot of work to get done. The London Developer Co-op continues to go from strength to strength. We’ve completed several large projects this year, some of which are public, some not so much (yet). The common theme for the projects I work on continues to be XPages. But increasingly it’s also with a view to mobile, so that’s mobile first or at the least a responsive design that handles all screens.
The main issue I faced for the year was that we ran out of space at home so I ended up renting office space and having to commute. There simply weren’t enough hours in the day to get all the work done and still see my new family enough. Which is what pushed us to move house. We’ve stayed very close to where we were, in West Norwood but even after only two weeks we already feel very settled in the new place.
So what awaits for next year? Well on the family front I think it’s time to slow down a little and recover, maybe take some holiday (which got rather neglected this year with everything else going on). And we have plenty of projects to get on with in the new house, so lots of painting and decorating ahead there!
The better news (given that I’m terrible at DIY) is that work projects continue to show up, we’ve got things booked up into March at the moment, which, if you’re a freelancer you’ll know, is a nice situation to be in. But the LDC can always handle more (or we can put you in touch with people we trust and work with).
And then of course there’s IBM Connect (formerly known as Lotusphere). I’m lucky enough to be speaking again with Tim Clark and Warren Elsmore. It looks at the moment as though I’m going to be on stage every day of the conference, plus there’s the usual meetings and parties. Hopefully I’ve become a little better at doing without sleep.
I suppose I should also commit to blog more, but I think we’ll just see how I do there.
Anyway, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and enjoy a fruitful New Year.
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