Author: Tom Gillies

Well, maybe not. I’m sure I have been much more excited, but right now I feel very peaceful.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve completed a pretty substantial change in my life. I think most people would describe moving ones home from one country to another “substantial change”! I feel much less unsettled than I expected. The weather since I arrived has been unexpectedly settled and hot… and then this evening it rained briefly. The air smells fresh and green with that “after the rain” smell.

The sun has set. I’m sure I saw a bat flit across my field of vision a few moments ago. It’s often hard to me sure with bats. They have a peculiar ephemeral property. There are clouds in the sky and from time to time the (full) moon is revealed, and then hidden.

The past seems to have faded, and be fading further. Right now I’m going back to reading my book (News from Tartary), a great travel book, by an interesting man, also describing an intersting woman.

Between Friday and Saturday I moved from one country to another. Immigration takes time you know! By some standards it wasn’t such a large move, from England to Ireland, but for me it is a big thing. There is no “going back” any more, because there isn’t really anywhere to go back to. The feeling is unsettling, but also exciting.

I’m very fond of the book The man who planted trees, and here is an article which suggests that the idea improves lives in the real world as well.
BBC: How fruit trees in India save girls’ lives

Arthur C. Clarke is quoted as saying: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic“. Some people think I’m a magician; I make things they don’t understand work. I was reminded of this just after Christmas when I watched a toddler trying to make sense of a simple radio controlled car. He understood the “forwards” and “backwards” bit, but getting it to turn left and right was beyond him. Of course, once it disappeared from sight under a chair, then it became even more confusing! He seemed impressed when I could direct it to do what I wanted, but in the end he didn’t get as much from the toy as we would have hoped.

Anyway, all of this got me thinking. Thus far, I’ve spent a lot of my working time specifying, designing and fixing computer systems. Often I concluded that the people who were my customers didn’t really understand what they were asking for, and certainly didn’t understand the characteristics or limitations of the computers on which “the thingy” was going to work. More recently I have found myself simply explaining how to use very common applications (Word processors, spreadsheets, that sort of thing). A problem when you’re cast as “magician” is: how do you explain that something is difficult, or impossible, or that there is a better way of doing something? After all, “magic is magic”! Surely as a magician all I should have to do is tell them the right incantation and everything should work, even if they are pushing a spreadsheet to do more than it should (the use of spreadsheets as “trackers” and replacements for small, or even large, databases seems to be a situation where this happens quite a lot). An odd by-product of this, is that it can put the ignorant, or the outright charlatan at an advantage – all they have to do is say “yes” and then avoid actually explaining how to do it! Hmm, must think about his a little more.

The weather in North Cork has changed significantly. The temperature has risen (according to the thermometer), but it feels much colder! Yesterday we had rain and just a little sleet. Today it seems to be rain only.

The birds (large and small) seem to be less active today. There was one crow perched on the ridge of the garage roof, but even he is gone. There is no sign of the small birds on the patio. I’m going to check the bird-feeders in the front garden and then leave a handful of seeds on the patio. Perhaps the birds have eaten all the seeds that were there (there’s no point in them visiting a restaurant that doesn’t have anything on the menu!). And as if to taunt me, a robin has appeared!

It’s now St Stephen’s Day (26th December or “Boxing Day” England). Christmas night was very cold here in Ireland. The thermometer in my car indicated -7 degrees Celcius, and the one associated with the house (which has a rather sheltered external sensor) said -5. Whichever way you look at it, that’s darned cold.

Although we had no snow falling, Christmas day started out “white”. Then the air temperature started to rise and the rain started to fall, softening and washing a way most of the snow that was lying on the ground. Unfortunately the ground temperature did not rise that much, and in places the rain turned into sheets of ice, making any movement outside potentially hazardous. My mother-in-law (who lives a few miles away) reported that it took her nearly one and a half hours to return the 3 or so miles from Mass because during the service the roads had become to treacherous.

Today we woke to find that it had rained again in the night and that the drive and any paths around our house were covered with a thin film of ice. This is bad enough where the ice is visible and appears slick. In places like that, the need for caution is obvious. Much worse are the places where the ground appears to be clear of ice but is in face very slippery. Conditions under foot could reasonably be described as “treacherous”. A further surprise awaited me when I tried to open the garage door (roller shutter), to bring some peat briquettes in for the fire. The door was completely stuck! Once I had freed it (with the help of a kettle of boiling water), I found that the rubber seal at the base had been stuck to the ground by a film of ice (and only for a foot or so of its length. It just shows how strong ice is).

In conclusion; it’s nasty outside, it’s warm inside, I’m staying put for the rest of the day!