Latest thoughts, if any, of Rachel Lawson...

I’ve watched a lot of Driesnotes. A lot. Goodness me, I don’t even know how many.

Over the last few years, and I promise to find out exactly how many, Dries has had a lot of help with the design of them from an awesome designer at Acquia who I just have to shout about - ASH. 

(yes, absolutely go give the shout outs!!)

So, last week was quite a big week, really. Both for me personally, more of that in a moment, and for the Drupal project as a whole, I think. 

I’ll fill this out with more info later but here’s the slides I presented at the Overland Event today.

At the beginning of 2025, I had this lovely idea to spend maybe a couple of months in Morocco, renting a flat or something, and working from there rather than Norfolk. In the end, it didn’t work out so it got me thinking where I could go for a ride this Spring that was just a bit different and then it hit me: Algeria 🇩🇿

The idea formed and all I needed was the paperwork…

The Open Source community has been through some interesting times over the last five years. COVID19 created a situation where many of our community who were at greater risk of its effects were effectively denied access to in person events. The community did a lot, frankly not enough at times, to facilitate access with things like mask mandates, remote participation etc. Now, we find another barrier to participation – extreme politics.

My iPhone has developed a kinda strange aversion to typing correctly. To be honest, I thought it was just my bad typing but, after spending some time typing slower, I realised certain parts of the screen are not reliably responding to my touch.

After calling Apple Support, they reminded me that, rather than jumping on the train to the Cambridge Apple Store tomorrow, they could simply send me a replacement as I have the AppleCare Plus package - great!

England and Wales have a somewhat arcane but interesting set of laws around what tracks are rideable by motorcycle. Some of them are nice simple lanes that could be ridden on any motorcycle by anyone. Others appear to be just a jumble of rocks that need a superstar to ride.

I must come back and write more about the laws but what interests me right now is being able to identify those rights of way and being able to navigate along them when I'm out for a ride.

I don't think I'm known for keeping quiet about my love of overland travel, especially by motorcycle. Jumping on my KTM and heading off in search of distant lands is what my life is about these days.