Weeknotes 213

I spent the week in sunny, rainy Cupertino.

Going all the way to California with a broken foot sounds like it should be difficult, but the privileged combination of taxis, airport assistance, lie-flat seating and a borrowed knee scooter made it easier than getting around at home.

The trip was eye-opening in many respects. The scale of everything, relative to my parochial London concerns, was overwhelming. But I got to meet several teammates in person for the first time and I had lots of useful conversations.

It was, more or less, like wandering around in a dream.

Also, I bumped into Durrell one evening! He scurried up to his hotel room and reappeared with a bag of beers that we drank in the lobby. Love it.

I still have a protective boot on my left foot and only wear my right shoe. Somehow it felt like tempting fate to go to the US with a single shoe, so I packed the other one and took it on a ten thousand mile adventure. It didn’t touch the ground once.

Being away is unsettling these days and I quickly get homesick. One reliable source of comfort is watching Cracking The Cryptic on the hotel TV but it only goes so far.

I’m home again now, happy and exhausted, feeling dazed. Brightness and saturation have been reset to their normal values.

I did my taxes just in time and got a chunky refund from HMRC for all those months I spent not working.

My second pair of glasses arrived a second time, now with the correct lenses. They do significantly improve the experience of reading tiny text on the TV so maybe I’ll shut up about it now.