This week I was in Manchester for my new contract. I was only there for two days for the project kick off and tech setup.

Monday and Tuesday was a blur. I couldn't focus on anything. I did some of my freelance work. Friday was pretty much spent on the train coming back from Manchester.

Work

The first day was spent getting to know the project, colleagues and getting my machine set up to work with the GOVUK prototype kit as well as the project tech setup - which is Ruby on Rails - something I've never worked with before.

We had a bit of trouble updating Ruby from the system version, at first we thought it was because I was using Fish Shell and I didn't know what I was doing with it. But it wasn't. We ended up installing rbenv - a ruby version management tool, which just switches ruby to whatever version the project is using.

Then I added the GOVUK prototype kit to the app and had my first PR merged! I got all this done with a lot of help from a colleague, Meyric, the front-end developer on the project.

I'm very excited about this project but also to be finally working with the GOVUK prototype kit and working as an interaction designer again.

Freelance

Not a lot of progress made on the e-commerce project. I spent some time tidying up the product details page. Specifically, styling the price/sale price module. So if the product is on sale, it shows the previous price, with "was" before and it has a line through, with the word "now" and the new price.

It's one of those things you have to do, but don't know if the client will ever see or use it.

I also added some if else statements for product details, like height, weight etc, if those aren't populated, then I don't want to show an empty section on the page.

Reading

Another week that I haven't read any fiction books. This happens when I have loads of work on, I end up working in the evenings and then watch some TV before going to bed.

Watching

My wife and I have finished watching the second series of Travellers - we really liked the first two series and hope they carry on making it. We've also gone back to watching Sabrina, we stopped watching it for a bit, but we're back on it. Also carried on watching Blindspot - but this is getting to the point where they just need to end it, it is still good, but if they carry on stretching it, it won't be so good.

I've carried on watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Office (US) - love these two series, so funny.

Family

We got a new addition to our family - another pet - a snake. My eldest is going to be eleven at the end of the month and she's been wanting a snake for a while now. She originally wanted a corn snake, but they'd sold out. So she went for a Royal Python instead. Shes spent a few days choosing a name for him. I set up the vivarium for her as she was at a friends birthday party. We already had the vivarium and most of the kit needed as I had a bearded dragon until recently.

Articles I read

Until next week

I'm writting this on the train as I make my way to Manchester. I managed to get table, so I can try and do some work! Next week will be my first full week at my new contract, so ill let you know how it all goes.

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