Solitary Sapling

This week at the office is proving to be a rather stressful one. You can happily skip this paragraph if you're not a techie but I need to get some things off my chest! I've declined to talk about it up until now but is has been the case of having to fix one annoying problem after another in a kind of software domino effect, mostly centred around the idiosyncratic implementation of Internet Explorer. Our main client is a Windows house and we've, out of necessity really, developed our software with IE as the target. Trouble is that IE is rather loose and free with standards and it often lets bugs go which other more stricter implementations will catch. Today, being Feb 29th, a bug in the code that's been sitting around for just under 4 years was exposed to wreak havoc! It was a very subtle issue and took some finding. The support-desk phone started ringing off the hook. We had to put fixes in place for all our many systems in the UK and in Europe. And that's when more fun started. Weird windows security issues on one server caused some very odd behaviour which took much of the afternoon to understand. It's now 5pm. The day has disappeared in a flash but at least normal service is now resumed and the world makes sense again. There is always an underlying logic. It's just that with Microsoft software that logic can be frustratingly obscure.

I was planning on cycling in again this morning but I'd forgotten to recharge my lights and hang up the laundry, causing a few complications, so in the end I decided to take a rest from the routine and went for a short run on the moor before getting in early to the office. My eyes continue to be drawn to these solitary trees. There are many juveniles growing in amongst the bracken - where I guess they get some kind of protection - so they can be seen everywhere on the skyline on this northern scarp of the moor. Having now blipped this sapling I will try to repeat the exercise on an annual basis to follow its growth. Now there's a commitment to blip longevity!

The week's stresses and strains with work and cycle commuting have left very little time to be social here and I'm sorry about that. I'm definitely not working tonight so I hope to show my face a little. Looking forward to that.