Notes & checkins

Back to a normal routine tomorrow. Looking forward to catching up with the product team and everyone else at @zengenti. It’s been good to have a break but I’m ready to get stuck in to 2020.

Well I never knew this until today:

“Take a11y, for example. You might know what a11y means if you’ve heard of i18n—they’re both alphanumeric acronyms. A11y stands for “accessibility” and i18n for “internationalization”. The letters between the first and last have been replaced by a number representing the number of missing letters.”

Excerpt From Accessibility for Everyone Laura Kalbag

Is anyone aware of a homebrew website club here in South Wales, or if anyone would be interested in one if there was one setup? #indieweb

This year we spent time with Joys family for Christmas. We’ve been battling with Chicken Pox for the last few days. Thankfully Christmas morning saw a little bit of a reprieve for our eldest.

We spent the morning at home opening stockings on our bed, before heading to Cardiff for Christmas lunch.

Ruth could t join us with an upset stomach and my throat felt pretty sore. It’s pretty common for me to come down with something before I finish for the holidays and this year was no exception.

The day was a fairly relaxed affair, Joys mum put together a great spread with plenty to keep us going. We had a short break before pudding, time for the kids to let off some steam on the field, Esra to stretch his legs and E and M a chance to play in the park.

We got back in time to hear the Queens speech whilst E and I sat down to our first instalment of Lego. I really love those moments with her.

We managed some Christmas pudding and profiteroles before clearing up and heading to Joys brothers.

The evening continued with another family tradition of Christmas tree presents, the spoon game and more buffet food to stretch the belly further.

The nephews were a little dismayed to plug in their new Xbox only to have to wait for a 61gb download!

It was a great day, although by the time we got home we were all ready for bed. Christmas is certainly exhausting with two kids, it’s going to be a difficult ball game next year with three.

So Joy and I managed to get a date night. It’s felt like months since we’ve had child free time. I booked a table at The New Court Inn in Usk. Not via personal recommendation but from trip advisor reviews.

It was so nice to go somewhere different, it was only a 20 minutes drive from home and felt like we were miles away.

The restaurant was quiet, but didn’t feel like we were the only ones there so close to Christmas. The staff were really friendly and attentive but didn’t get in the way.

Joy choose slow braised Welsh lamb shank with rosemary infused pommes puree and poached baby leeks. I went for the Usk Valley 8oz rib eye Steak, served with confit tomatoes flat cap mushroom and triple cooked chips with a peppercorn sauce. 

I don’t usually eat steak out as it’s always a disappointment but it was cooked to perfection. Joys lamb shank was on the larger side, it just slipped off the bone and was accompanied well with the rosemary purée.

I had a pint of festive Santa’s Sack I can’t remember the brewery now but it was simple ale at 3.7abv. As I was driving was sufficient to go with my meal.

It wasn’t a late night as mum was babysitting, but was so good to spend some time together. Hopefully we’ll head back before long.

If I’ve got this working correctly. This note has been posted to my site using an iOS shortcut I’ve built, syndicated to twitter using a lambda function post @netlify build. Thanks to the work done by @mxbck loving the #indieweb

Really looking forward to giving auto layout a go in Figma next week. https://www.figma.com/blog/announcing-auto-layout/

Bought a Logitech K380 yesterday and using it with my iPad to write my blog. Really like it. Could do with being raised a little but a great wireless keyboard for £17.99

Sat down with a Hobgoblin IPA and writing a post about this very note iOS shortcut I’m using.

As it’s now December it’s acceptable to play Christmas music. Looking forward to Christmas with the girls this year. 🎄