Alasdair Craig

The week of Jun 1, 2026 – Jun 7, 2026

Monday: Visited HiDe Flooring to choose a laminate floor colour and discuss a quote for the flood repair. Skipped spinning because of the sprained ankle.

Tuesday: Made interesting use of a local LLM to automate the translation of a .po file for our software’s Spanish possible localisation.

Wednesday: Gym for the first time in a week. It looks like .po files and Spanish internationalisation of our software is in my immediate future. Louise came to visit in the evening. Susan made Tom yum soup.

Thursday: Work from home day. Working on the translation mechanism. Quite interesting doing something different.

Friday: Quite enjoying working on something else for a change. Gym at lunchtime and after-work drinks.

Saturday: Morning spent in the workshop making a compact rack for my small parts storage. Also got sidelined into finding a replacement circuit breaker that had packed up. F1 qualifying watching and a marathon TV-watching session. A good day.

Sunday: Lazy morning, followed by raking up leaves. Lunch at Salushi. F1 watching, chores, and a Rob & Marian chat. Another good day. Grateful for the easy, relaxing weekends we’ve been having lately.

The week of May 25, 2026 – May 31, 2026

Monday: A good day at work. After-work spin class.

Tuesday: Checking items off a work to-do list.

Wednesday: Satisfied with the progress I’ve made with the tiling backdrop project at work — three sprints to get to this point. Gym. Susan and I booked a holiday in September to celebrate our anniversary. Also another weekend away planned with Paul in July. Can’t explain why I find the thought of multiple holidays in a year stressful.

Thursday: Finished reading Breakneck, by Dan Wang. Work from home day. Frustrating day at work. Indian takeout.

Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future by Dan Wang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fascinating insights into modern day China.

View all my reviews

Friday: End of sprint day. My review went OK. After-work drinks.

Saturday: A little time in the workshop while Susan was at Riverlands. Met up for lunch at Dashi’s. DIY, raked up leaves and watched TV.

Sunday: Lightly sprained my ankle. Lunch at Barracudas in Fish Hoek. Good seeing Barbs, Helga, Julia, Paul, Andrew and Di. A little walk along the pipe track. Chores and a Rob & Marian chat.

The week of May 18, 2026 – May 24, 2026

Monday: Two walks up and down the road. After-work spin class. Little else to report.

Tuesday: Frustratingly unproductive day at work. An evening walk around the neighbourhood.

Wednesday: Bad news from one of my tenants — they left a tap running when the water was off, and there’s now water damage.

Thursday: What was meant to be a work from home day turned out to be in the office instead, due to IT issues. Still didn’t turn out to be a bad day.

Friday: Gym, then after-work drinks. Nice having the boss there.

Saturday: Morning spent trying to locate a 1.25 thread pitch bolt — turns out it’s a hard thing to find. A very nice lunch at Wang Thai. We did our grocery shopping. Then I raked up leaves; the trees are starting to shed.

Sunday: Lazy morning spent reading. A walk around Rondebosch Common and some time in the workshop.

The week of May 11, 2026 – May 17, 2026

Monday: A very stormy day in Cape Town. Susan’s DStv callout wasn’t successful. A well-intentioned gift is now becoming expensive. After-work spin class.

Tuesday: Bored, unmotivated and distracted at work. The empty office didn’t help. DStv is now up and running, and the lounge is back in order.

Wednesday: Little to report. A chat with Dawie. Gym at lunchtime. Little else really.

Thursday: Work from home day. Susan and I offloaded the cutlery, the hookah and the ornamental scale to Ashbey’s Galleries for later auction. Feels good to get rid of things I don’t want. Pretty good day at work. We had dinner out at a Vietnamese place in Claremont.

Friday: We had a long-awaited AI meeting at work, where I got what I wanted: agreement that we experiment with Copilot.

Saturday: Franschhoek Literary Festival. Zapiro was entertaining, I’m inspired to read more Tan Twan Eng, the bee talk was fascinating — like a TED talk — and Deon Meyer was, as always, such a polished public speaker. Great day.

Sunday: Grocery shopping. A browse around Hout Bay Market before meeting Paul for lunch at The Lookout. A very enjoyable afternoon. Back home for chores and a Rob & Marian chat.

The week of May 4, 2026 – May 10, 2026

Monday: It looks like AI usage at work might be on the cards. After work, attended a spin class.

Tuesday: Bored and lazy at work. Still don’t have a clear set of goals.

Wednesday: Woke up to the realisation of having lost my wedding band — I had left it behind at the gym on Monday night. Thankfully, it was at the front desk when I returned. I had honestly been quite distraught about it. Later on, returned to Dr Omar to have the stitches removed. Confirmed as a BCC.

Thursday: Work from home day. Flu vaccination at Rosmead Medicross. Productive day at work. Lunchtime walk around the neighbourhood. A good day.

Friday: Pretty good day at work. Missed the gym because of an IT meeting. After-work drinks.

Saturday: A day mostly spent troubleshooting a DStv connection on offer from Claire. The problem appears to be the cable from the dish. We still managed to have lunch out, and went to Burger & Lobster in town.

Sunday: A rainy day. While Susan was out with Claire for a Mother’s Day spa, I did some computer-based admin. I also got AI assistance to make uploading these diary entries to WordPress much simpler. Packed cutlery, the hookah, and the ornamental scale, ready for dropping off at auction. A very productive day.