Permanent Tourist

The personal website of Mark Howells-Mead

Posts from 2020

  • Loch Eriboll

    Spending three weeks in one of the most beautiful parts of the world this summer.

  • Copse, Le Noirmont

    Hiking in the snow between Le Noirmont and Le Creux-des-Biches in the Swiss Jura mountains.

  • Warnscale Bothy

    Of all the walks Jo and I have undertaken, the path to Haystacks in the English Lake District seems to be the most prone to failure. The attempt we made in 2020 was no exception, although a sudden change in the weather led us to an alternative success.

  • Meadow at Eggboden (Grindelwald)

    Ever on the lookout for new views – and new variations on old views – I spent a fair amount of time on days out hunting for picturesque meadows this spring and summer.

  • The first part of my personal retrospective of a year which – to my eternal relief – wasn’t as bad on a personal level as it could easily have been.

  • Thousands of second chances

    I spent the afternoon working at home in front of the computer, and listened to Kenneth Williams – a well-known actor, comedian and diarist – reading from his autobiography, Just Williams.

  • WordPress expert Mark Howells-Mead

    WordPress’ block editor “Gutenberg” allows us to register custom block styles for a particular block. But since WordPress 5.4, we can use Block Variations to add other presets with different default settings.

  • Snow in Lauterbrunnen

    A stomp in the snow

    Note to self. When the cloud is low, the snow is falling gently and the village paths are empty, get out and enjoy it.

  • WordPress expert Mark Howells-Mead

    Explaining how to use WordPress hooks, and how to fine-tune them to improve legibility and code efficiency.

  • The memory moon

    When the full (-ish) moon rises above Interlaken at this time of year, it always reminds me of a photo my Dad took in south Wales many years ago, where the reflection wasn’t on a lake but on the smooth surface of the sea off the coast of Freshwater East.

  • Remote working

    The beginning of 2019 saw a huge change for me; both having an office close to where I live and gaining the freedom to work wherever I want to be.

  • Giving up on trying to make sense of the public attitude to the coronavirus.

  • Back in May, Sardinian ”open source evangelist and programmer” Matteo Enna got in touch and interviewed me for his blog.

  • Loch a'Chroisg, Scotland

    After buying a Fujifilm X-T3 camera, I took it out into the Scottish Highlands between Garve and Torridon to capture the remote landscape.

  • “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck…

  • How to mock up a website design when every page can be built individually and controlled completely by the editorial staff.

  • Oberaar, Switzerland

    Hiking along the milky Oberaarsee to the ice cave at the terminus of the Oberaar glacier.

  • I met with a client yesterday at their modern office in a part of central Bern which is a former hipster area and which is plagued by graffiti artists and substance abusers. Although the building is new and freshly-finished with some attractive brickwork, it’s only a matter of time before it, too, will be sprayed…

  • St. Martin's in the Fields, London

    If you’re huffy, you get what you deserve.

  • Letter size comparison by Alexander Andrews @ Unsplash

    There are three main options for setting the size of text in the web using CSS. The font size can be set in “pixels”, in “EM”s or in ”REM”s. It can be a little difficult to understand where the differences lie, and which unit of measurement is correct.

  • Photographing the crocuses and the view from Rämisgummen in Emmental.