At this point in time, I’m not entirely sure where Sunday morning went. I got up, had a cup of tea, had a shower, checked my email, peered out the window at the chickens, had another cup of tea, tidied the kitchen up, tidied the study up (as evidenced by somewhat orderly photo above), checked my blogroll, and now find myself at 12:10pm wondering where the morning went.
It strikes me, casting my eyes across the desk, how many damn gadgets there are in here. A laser printer, a scanner, an old laptop, a telephone, a Nintendo DS, the desktop computer, my work laptop, a camera (on charge), a mobile phone (on charge), a wireless router, an old laptop with Ubuntu on it, W’s work laptop, several drawers full of various cables, mice and chargers, and finally a floor to ceiling bookshelf replete with all manner of technical books.
Reading across one of the shelves we have “Ubuntu”, “Joy of C”, “Running Linux”, “Perl”, “Programming Perl”, “Web Design in a Nutshell”, “The C++ Programming Language”, “Python in a Nutshell”, “Programming PHP”, “The Mythical Man Month”, and various other “Bibles” to technologies of little interest to anybody in the world.
On the wall in front of me is a map of the world. It was printed many years ago, so now bears no relation to the borders that have formed following the disintegration of Yugoslavia, or the formerly eastern block countries. What I would now give for the map of the world we had in primary school with the huge swathe across it emblazoned “USSR”. They must be collectors items now.
The cork board is littered with memories of times gone by. The arrival of my cousin from San Francisco to England when she was 16. Celebration of life after surviving a sky dive. A family gathering with my cousins when we were all in our early 20s. A photo of the Great Sphynx taken by W - and the printout of a memorable Dilbert cartoon.
Adjacent walls hold star maps of the night sky, movie posters, prints of Marilyn Monroe, and 1960s advertisements for the Mini.
Strange room, this study. I can see it becoming a treasure trove for children in years to come - “what’s that?”, “what is that for?”, “who is that?”, “what were you doing there?”, “why is this here?”…