Outside Work

Outside work, I have a lot of work.

The first activity is raising a two-year-old. It's the most demanding role on my calendar, and the only one where my performance review can happen at 5am.

You could say I'm a bodyguard, mostly protecting a small person from themselves. I'm a scooter pusher, a pebble-wall architect whose structures never survive the afternoon, a painting teacher who badly needs a painting teacher, a storyteller, a companion to sleep, officially the second to fall asleep, unofficially the first every single time.

A pebble wall outline on gravel, with some stones painted blue and green. — The kind made of colourful blocks, not software.

And through all of it, I give and receive a lot of love. That is what everything comes down to.

Gardening

Gardening is slower work. You plant something, water it, and wait. Progress happens mostly when you're not looking.

It's a useful counterweight to software. Nothing deploys overnight. A plant either takes, or it doesn't, and no amount of urgency will change the season.

Some seasons go well. Some don't. Either way, you show up again with soil under your nails and another small bet in the ground.

A collage of the garden: ripe cherry tomatoes, onion beds with yellow flowers, and rows of young plants with a yellow hose.

Baking

Baking is where I can express creativity with my hands: mix things, combine them, and make something new.

It's cost-saving too, as long as you don't count the butter, the specialist flour, or the batches that never made it out of the oven.

Part of the pleasure is stepping back for a few minutes and watching whether the process is actually going well.

Sometimes it isn't. There are failures you have to accept, learn from, and adjust your methodology for next time.

A collage of home baking: baghrir pancakes, a tuna pizza, sliced yellow bread, and dough balls on a mat.