thedunnthing.co.uk

July has been an awful month. I lost my uncle, my good friend had an adverse medical diagnosis, and our beautiful granddaughter Penny passed away on 6th July.

She was only 3, all set to be 4 in September. Without any warning, poor Penny had some seizures, likely caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain caused by the eventual diagnosis of dilated cardiomyopathy, or “saggy heart”. She had successful surgery the Saturday before she died, and signs were promising, but subsequent seizures on 6th July meant her brain and body could no longer cope, and she quietly slipped away.

It’s devastated the whole family, and beyond. Such a bubbly, bright, beautiful little girl stricken off, no reason. The cruelest blow to my amazing son and his beautiful partner.

I’m taking some time out from work to try and come to terms with this, and to help my son where I can. We will all love her and miss her terribly. She was unforgettable.

There is very little consolation other than my son and partner have a beautiful 4-month-old lad, and I’ve seen just how strong they are together in dealing with this.

Donations can be made at:
Fundraiser by Rebecca Dyos : In Memory of Penelope Hope Dunn or at
The Grand Appeal – Bristol Children’s Hospital Charity

Welcome into the world, Bobby Arthur Dunn! Our 3rd grandchild and 1st grandson. Born this morning 06:01, 8lbs 13 ozs. Can’t wait to see you in a few weeks, son!

The Hobbit – I love my new Kindle, just not using it so much. I’m about 3/4 of the way through the book!
I’ll use the Kindle more in the evening now before getting some shut-eye (if I can pry my eyes off the iPad and those daft YouTube shorts).

I’ve just finished Duma Key by Stephen King, now it’s time for Under The Dome.

I’ve decided to revisit “Make Time” by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. I’ve been a GTD fan-boy for years, but I need something that’s simple, less heavy maintenance-wise… and fun. I’ll probably put a review up about the book when I’m done.

2 months down already? Wow.

Things are good, it’s been super busy at work, and me & Liz can’t wait to welcome our 3rd grandchild (and 1st grandson) Bobby into the world. Any day now…..!

This month will see the clocks rolling forward – very much looking forward to longer evenings. Loads of gar-Dunning to do.

This month will seal up the first quarter of the year. Loads to do this year!

I’ve already submitted the first of my (many) horticulture assignments – really hoping to make progress on another assignment this month – all about “how plants work”!

I’ve started GH900 and AZ204 studies, although work being so busy has meant not as much as I would have liked to do.

I’m still undecided about whether to set up a complementary YouTube channel. It might be fun -but it might all be more work than I have time to devote to. I’ll continue to drop in blog posts for the moment while I organise my thoughts about YouTube.

I decided to take Naomi’s (from Todoist) excellent post, suggesting we use the whole of January to decide on the best learning activities to take.

I think it’s really helped me pause for breath and play around with a few learning topics.

And here’s my selections for ’26.

1. Horticulture Studies – this is a course I picked up around August last year, but I have not found the time to work on (lots of building projects going on last year!). I’m working through the first few modules now, and am hoping to get my first assignment in shortly. Learning and working on horticulture projects is a great way for me to learn about the gardening things I love to do – and hope to do for many years to come.
   
2. AZ-204 Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure – Microsoft certification. This will become increasingly important as my workplace is now shifting significantly to the cloud. I’m looking forward to getting stuck in to it. Time to blow the dust of my Azure subscription.
   
3. GH-900 GitHub Foundations Certification – useful for personal projects I’m working on, but even more so as it’s clear that Microsoft are ploughing dollars into GitHub. I’m betting that Azure DevOps will get morphed into GitHub Enterprise in the next few years. This looks like a fun little qualification, and will almost certainly help me bring a few Git skills up to date.