I didn’t hear a single talk during the second day of the conference. I had hoped to see the lightning talks but went to bed too late the night before and didn’t get up in time. Instead of going to see talks I spent a very enjoyable day with a friend. The only downside was that I managed to get sunburnt. I wear sunblock when I go out into the sun but really hadn’t expected my back to get burnt through the top I was wearing.

I did attend the conference dinner in the evening. The food was really interesting. I know – interesting doesn’t make it sound good but some of it was. It’s just that the food seemed to be more salted than I’m used to. I also drank too much port – too much being one glass. I hadn’t realised that it was much stronger than red wine and was also surprised by how sweet it was. I really liked the way that the dinner was organised. It was very informal and much more enjoyable than the speakers only dinners I had attended in the past. We had really hoped to have a conference dinner in Belfast last year but were unable to do this within our budget. Hopefully Birmingham.pm have the budget to do this next year. And maybe in Birmingham I’ll even go to hear some talks on the second day of the conference.

My grandfather’s party went well today. I had offered to help cook and managed to finish the starters and dessert whilst watching the F1. (I was really disappointed when Sato crashed into Michael Schumacher taking both of them out of the race).

The highlight of the afternoon had to be my 13 year old niece telling my grandfather that she wanted to be a pole dancer when she grew up. My grandfather looked across the table and said “Are you not a bit heavy to pull yourself up a pole?” My niece isn’t heavy at all and was completely outraged by this answer. She had hoped to shock but appeared much more shocked when my grandfather suggested that her mother would make a much better pole dancer.