Flat White

I started a long overdue job on the train yesterday and I've been continuing with it all day. It's been a case of total immersion and I need to stick with it until I've finished. I'm kind of in the zone right now. I've been trying to think of an appropriate analogy and the best I can come up with relates to a time very soon after I was married, when, being very poor and desperate for any kind of work, my wife and I found ourselves helping to set up Christmas at the World Trade Center in New York. Not being trusted with anything creative, I was given the job of untangling and checking the fairy lights from the previous year, which had clearly been dismantled in a very great hurry. There must have been at least one hundred intertwined sets to sort out. It took me the best part of three whole days!

I hate to admit it, but one key part of my software is like that. Most has been rewritten and restructured into elegant classes, but this one last bit remains. So, I've been untangling the mess all day and separating out all the logical threads. It's very fiddly, but also rather satisfying at the same time. The end result will be the web page displaying in exactly the same way as it does now, so our end users won't be aware of any change, but under the bonnet all will be purring as opposed to clunking away! Most importantly, it will be so much easier to maintain into the future. And that will feel like a millstone being removed from around my neck.

Sorry about the poor return of comments yet again. Once started, this is a job I just have to finish as soon as possible. It sure seems like a lot of you have had similar passport mishaps, and a lot of people have a connection with Durham. It really is the loveliest city. I can certainly recommend it for a visit - but hopefully not the Passport Office! Today was a very grey, dull and bitterly cold day here. This picture kind of sums up the feel of the weather rather well. I really wish it would just snow!