Nov 2

 Pottered around today. Hazel stayed over. She came round the evening before to babysit Athena for the day of the funeral.

Not that Athena super needed babysitting. But. Old lady. And I felt much better with her having the company of Hazel and Poppy. It's nice for my old lady.

Hazel was great. Gave me a plan of things to do on Monday when I was out of it ill. Tidied a little. And kept an eye on Athena. It's nice having someone potter around the house. Even if they just sit there.

Today we munched on some homemade toast with butter and marmite before we all went for a walk then I took her home.

And for a moment there, I was at peace.

Nothing that needed immediate attention. Didn't feel super ill.

Peace. Quiet. A cup of tea warming my hands. Silence, except for the wind outside pushing around the still green leaves of my acer tree outside.

I suppose the sense of peace makes a lot of sense. That whole closure thing I was talking about. A good thing done with the funeral. A line drawn under it all. For the moment, at least.

And with the peace came an overwhelming sense of love. For everyone. Just. Be happy. My people. You are all lovely and special. All the things you struggle with. I see them. But. Rest. Let them not beat you up. Be at peace.

Easier said. And just me bathing in a glow of peaceful zen. Love tinted spectacles.

Still. Don't push too hard at that glow. It's a nice place to be. A rare place for me to visit. A nice world to be in. Where you have zero malice or bad thoughts for anyone. Where you wish only nice things to all. A happier place. One with no immediate emergencies. A great calm and zen. And a sense we can all get there. So much trauma and problems to heal. But. It's possible. Feasible ? That's for a more cynical day. In the meantime. Hope. And be happy. And enjoy what you can. And enjoy a warm cup of tea on a cold day.

I crashed out quickly again after a while. By the time mid afternoon rolled around I felt its effects. Tired. My voice cracked and went deep. Tired and not entirely well.

But I am at peace.

I think I could just drift out of existence at this point. Happy. Turn the TV off. Not in sadness and despair. But in peace and contentment. Stop the story. Right there.

Uh huh. I get it.

Ah well.

I will always have a well developed sense of the darker side of things. Even when I am at peace. No silver lining without a cloud.

A problem at work today.

Some dubious emails for one of our clients. Hacked accounts ? Hacked email ?! It finally landed with me to look into. Our senior dev had tracked times and inputs. One of our techies was puzzling with him over spoofed accounts. What. How ? Where ?!

Eh. Easy. 2 minutes into looking at it.

Someone fucking with our testing. Turn it off. All is golden.

Although. In theory this should not be possible. No one can get to it. How did they get to it ?

It turned out it was Andy. Running pen tests. And had not clocked the problems directly related to his own pen test timings. And he had handed over privileged information that could not be possibly  obtained by a malicious actor, unless they already had the keys the kingdom.

So that explained everything.

Andy had basically, inadvertently, ended up handing over perfect hacking information to a hack test.

Oh dear.

Fair do to him, he went to the client cap in hand and admitted to being the source of the problem in the first place. And wasting everyones time.

Shit happens. Better to be safe than sorry.

I meme'd him to commemorate the day. With a scooby doo reveal. Ah, finally. The author of my misfortunes is...  me.

Uh huh.

He wasn't impressed at his own idiocy. He should, at least, have clocked the timings were his own tests. And that handing over privileged information was a shit test at best, and at worst, just false positives. But eh. Forgivable. Also a symptom of not entirely being aware of what he's doing, the whys and wherefores, just a higher level, lets do a pen test. Uh huh.