Hello! I have finally got around to setting up my personal website. I decided to do this in 2019, so only 18 months late. There are two things that have enabled me to finally make this happen.

The first is the covid-19 enduced lockdown. It has meant I have been able to find some time in a busy family life to sit down and make it happen. Life always seemed quite hectic, with commuting, the school run, a more active social life and busy weekends. Lockdown has meant slowing down and doing less, which I will admit has not been universally good, but it has meant I have found time for some side projects. And this website is one.

The second thing is I got a new laptop. We had been sharing a laptop at home and it wasn’t up to the task of the wildly different requirements of all of its users. So, I invested in a new laptop. I bought a StarLabs Star Lite II. It is fantastic. This is the first time I have owned a linux laptop (it is running Ubuntu 20) and I am smitten. There is of course a bit of a learning curve, but most things have been pretty easy to set up. So it is all go now!

So now i have a website, what am I going to do with it? My intention is to write about things I am doing in my professional life as well as my side projects. This will largely be focused on ecology and environmental data science (a sub-field I might have invented!). But no doubt I will stray into other topics.

What does this mean? R code mostly! I love working in R; it is so incredibly versatile, particularly for the type of work I do. It can of course be incredibly frustrating, but I enjoy learning more each time I tackle a new project. And I am really starting to enjoy building things in it as well. Some of those things I cannot share outside of my workplace, so I am starting to work on other things that I can share.

I also love working with QGIS. So expect maps and other spatial data-related things.

But until then, I am off for a cup of tea.