And Breathe ...

It's a blistering hot day at Gamma Science, and getting our heads around such sticky issues for the Blog as "How secure is the Internet of Things (IoT) anyway" or even "Could someone hack our hypothetical hot-tub?" just somehow isn't cutting it.

We work on a Mezzanine, the Board Room is downstairs, and everyone knows hot air rises!

So let's take a look outside, shall we?

Our Address is "The Apple Barn, Pippin's Farm", and the environment around the office really is as glorious as that simple phrase suggests.

Next to the office is a small farm shop that sells cherries, in season. So Roger, Head of the Geekforce, and my real-life Partner, and I,the "Everything But the Geek" staff member, smile at the lass behind the counter, and buy a punnet of cherries. They are fat, and black, and lush and sweet, and every now again you come across one, bigger and blacker and juicier than the rest, which tastes of all your childhood memories of the perfect cherry ever!

Unsurprisingly, our barn is located in the Apple Orchard, but there are a few trellises of Blackberries growing along the track, still hard and green, but with the odd one higher up beginning to swell and ripen. The track dips down towards a small wetland, with bullrushes, and willows. Simon, one of our developers, says he's seen a Red Kite down there.

The Apples are all beginning to swell, but it's still too early to tell whether the apple in question will be a Cox, or a Russet, or something really interesting like a Pitmarston Pineapple, a plain, unassuming, russetlike apple with the most intense, almost pineappley flavour you can imagine. It's that sort of farm.

Over on the horizon there's a neat Equestrian Property with a field full of jumps. I've never seen a horse going over them, which seems a shame. Then the land rolls gently down to the Medway Valley, and up again to the North Downs, where we live.

Suddenly the IoT seems less bothersome, and we couldn't care less about Hackers in our imaginary Hot-tub. We spit out our cherry stones and start bantering ever wilder ideas for the Blog back and forth, slightly out of breath as we climb the rise up from the wetland to the Oast House, and its pond.

A lone dog bounds up, and seems unimpressed with Roger's earnest explanation of AI versus Machine Learning, and equally unimpressed with my sarcastic comment. His owner puffs up, unimpressed that his dog has jumped all over me, though my smile, and enthusiastic fussing of soft spaniel ears would indicate that I don't mind in the slightest!

When we reach it, the pond is green and brown in the shadows, but in the middle, blue and white clouds chase each other past the reflected Oast House roof. If you look carefully in those shadows, you can see small fish, nosing among the weeds.

We consider moving summer meetings to a picnic table behind the barn, and finish the last couple of cherries.

At the end of the day, you take your edge where you can get it. Some companies have glass fronted towers, dress down fridays, and a gym.

We have a punnet of cherries, and half of Kent at our feet, and today, I'm not swapping!