Weeknote 37/2023

It’s midway through Sunday afternoon and I’ve only just had a chance to sit down. Life as a parent of two sporty kids means spending a lot of time standing watching them. Today is the first time in a long time that both of them scored in their football matches. A normal day at the office for my daughter, a striker, but a red letter day for my son, who plays as a defensive midfielder.

The weather has definitely turned this week. After last weekend’s glorious weather, there was a thunderstorm which involved a torrential downpour meaning I had to unblock a drain with a neighbour after coming back from a run (“it’s not due to rain yet, I’ll be fine”). Ever since then it’s been positively autumnal. There’s a good chance I’ve worn shorts for non-exercise-related reasons for the last time in 2023.

We’ve looked round more houses this week, and did a bit of haggling with a house builder over one particular property. Although they were willing to reduce it a bit, we didn’t think it was enough and so have walked away. The other one we viewed was lovely, but probably too far away from ‘civilisation’ (as my daughter calls it) in the sense of the centre of Morpeth, for us to buy. So it’s seeming more and more like we’re going to be renting over Christmas. Perhaps we should go away somewhere.

Work is slower than usual at the moment, although picking up a bit. With everything else that’s going on, including the house stuff, kids going back to school, football season starting again, and the seasons changing, that’s not so bad. But I probably need to do some business development not only for the co-op but also for my own individual consultancy. I did make some small changes to my website yesterday.

One of the things that it’s important to do when there’s less work on and you’re not employed is to try and enjoy it. For me, as well as ensuring that I do some business development to get new work in, that means doing more writing as well as reading up on different areas. It’s also a good opportunity to catch up with people and do some life and work admin.

I published a bunch of stuff, including a microcast, over at Thought Shrapnel this week, as well as sending out the Sunday newsletter. I’m considering switching to Substack for the latter, mainly because MailPoet keeps unsubscribing ‘inactive’ people from my list. Given I’ve turned all of the tracking off, I’m not sure how they’re working this out. Also, Substack seems to be much better for discoverability.

Next week, Hannah’s away for a day for work, I’m doing a UCL Systems Thinking one-day course, and we’re both (separately) getting our winter flu jabs. I wonder if I’ll be called for a Covid jab, given that I’ve previously been in a ‘vulnerable group’ because of my asthma. On Friday, we’ll be at the Stadium of Light for the England Lionesses match against Scotland. I might be there again on Saturday to watch Sunderland play Cardiff with my dad.