Balding Note

This week we have plants for main, with a side order of family, and a petite dessert of caramelised web design/development. Dessert comes with custard, so don't worry too much about the taste.

It's been a full week of relative freedom post-test-and-trace-isolation. Alice and Rowan have had to isolate for 10 days too (I'm sorry, that sucks!) They're way less of a baby about it than I was.

I visited some of my dad's side of the family for the first time in almost a year(!) I have two very young siblings and it was fun to spend time with them. My youngest sibling is younger in years than I am in decades. They were suspicious of the strange man that appeared in their home, but I think I won them over by the end of the weekend. My second youngest sibling was looking forward to my visit, which is pretty sweet. We did colouring competitions, drawings, I taught them how to make paper airplanes (this was a lot of fun), we even played hairdressers:

• E: "Why is there a patch at the back? 😱"
• Me: "Because I'm going bald, like daddy."
• E: *shakes head, silently, in shock or disbelief or in embarrassment of this news* 😱😱
• Me: "I am! That's okay though, I still look pretty with clips in right?"

Back home, I woke up to find a mystery envelope by my door. It had "good luck!" hand-written on the front. My sleepy self took that as a threat and was pretty alarmed when bulbous green contents spilled out. I forgot that Alice was very kindly sending me succulent cuttings through the post. 😂 I'm so excited to see if they'll take, especially the fishbone cactus 🤞

My chillis are growing pretty well, even outdoors in Sheffield's torrential rain. Feast your eyes on this curious little fella I found on their leaves.

At first sight it's pretty scary looking but I learnt it's actually a gardener's friend. It's a Harlequin ladybird larvae! It roams around quite impressively, like a tank, an absolute machine. I'm sure it's hunting down unsuspecting aphids that could otherwise damage the chillis.

That's family and plants, I also promised dessert. I've discovered Smashing Magazine membership is a great way to access Smashing books. If you're a designer or developer of digital products, you might want to check it out. I've joined and downloaded a couple of e-books that are design orientated, it feels good to re-focus on design again and do some active learning.