House Note

Oh no, my schedule is messed up, I missed one. Did you notice?

So, we did a scary thing...

We put an offer in on a house! We spend hours agonising over every little purchase — shoes are a nightmare for me — but just offered hundreds of thousands of pounds to buy a house after poking around for all of 15 minutes. 😱

We found it just impossible to know how much is a sensible offer. We gather it's not unusual here for agents to list guide prices 10% below expectations, which makes things tricky, and the market is hot too. The house we made an offer on has gone to best and final offers with multiple bids over the guide price to begin with. If you're interested there's a somewhat mortifying Location, Location, Location episode where one couple report being outbid on 8 properties (but do get one in the end), and another couple who are outbid by £70,000! (poor Phil, you tried)

I doubt our offer will be accepted but our fingers are crossed! We love the area, and the house itself is a good size with space enough for family and an office. We think it would make a lovely home to settle into for the long term.

And I spent time with family...

We went away with some of my family. I haven't seen one of my sisters since... the Christmas before last? I'm so happy we got to spend some proper time together. I was a total fun sponge to begin with but did eventually take part in some of the outdoor, on-site activities 😂

And I did my job...

• At work my mid-year review went well, it was lovely to read the positive feedback ☺️ I know what to keep on doing.
• It might just be because the sun's out but I'm feeling more optimistic career wise. I have a long term direction in mind on a high level, and some interesting projects to work on too. I felt lost for a little while there.
• For one of those projects I started researching design tokens and the ecosystem of tools/services around them. They're kinda snazzy variables that can be compiled cross-platform, but, more interesting than you might be thinking. My mindset going in was a bit dismissive however since I... okay... I wrote about the surprising operational and product benefits that a company like the FT could benefit from but it was a bit involved for a weeknote. Maybe I'll write a blog post! Or share the eventual proposal, most of my team's work is in the open. 🎉
• You could use design tokens to manage design decisions for specific colour spaces so I found myself on an interesting colour management tangent, which you might find interesting too.

  “The proliferation of wide gamut displays means colour management errors are now more severe, and more common. If you own a new MacBook Pro or iMac and colours in certain apps look oversaturated, this is probably why (hi, Slack).” - Marc Edwards

It's hot...

It's hot...

It's hot...

I'm enjoying the sun though! As are my chilli plants, they're looking fabulous. I had a good chat with a passer-by about them, which was nice.

Extra...

I leave you with a super interesting article, The Truth Behind the Amazon Mystery Seeds.

Spoilers: the last paragraph is poignant.

"Few of us truly understand the machines and systems at our disposal; we click a button and move on. Meanwhile, tens or hundreds or thousands of miles away, something starts to happen. Steps are taken, wheels are set into motion, decisions—and perhaps mistakes—are made. By the time the distorted ripples of cause and effect make their way back to us, we may no longer recognize that we were the ones who threw a stone into the water." - Chris Heath

That's all, be well dear reader! Hey, it's nearly the weekend. 🙌