Progress

This morning it was lovely, so I walked Django through the Estate and the woods of Lowrie's Den, before dropping back home through the Cornbank estate. However, I failed to take a photograph! I did some admin, and after lunch went into work. There I found PhD student Y, and then intern I, and had chats with both about their work. I also made progress on Workshop accounts and expenses payments. 

Variety came in the form of an email from a journalist on Quanta Magazine (an online publication of the Simons Foundation, I learned). He wanted my opinion for an article he's writing about a recent paper by someone I know, in an area that (in theory) I'm an expert. The author is (unintentionally, I'm sure) getting a lot of attention at the moment, which is good because she's energetic and prepared to speak her mind. She even (reasonably) worked an anti-Israel stance in a seminar she gave us last year - remember this is academic maths! Although the paper's as far from my practical side of the field as it's possible to get, I found something positive to say about it!

In talking to Y, and responding to an interesting email from a HiGHS user, I ended up leaving work late. When I arrived home at 19:30, with a meeting at 20:00, I had to decide whether to restore my blood-sugar level by spending 30 minutes cooking and eating - meaning that Django wouldn't go out for a walk until 21:00 - or take him out for 30 minutes. I chose the latter, joining the call just before I got home. It was a very useful meeting, as I got expert input from users of HiGHS that allowed me to prioritise my work over the next couple of weeks.

At the end of Django's walk, we passed "Florian's Garden of Joy". It's a short distance from the main path and, for a moment I thought that it had been cleared completely. But, no, it's still there. I've seen Florian, and A has spoken to him. Clearly curating and tending it brings him pleasure, and since it's largely hidden, no-one has to look at it. And as it exists on the foundations of an old paper-mill building, so it's hardly defiling nature!