Monday
Dropped Phoebe off later into school, her condition means she tires easily so she has a reduced timetable on certain days. After that I headed to Wickes to get paint stuff to paint the dining room. Han needs a bigger space to demonstrate larger exercises for her nurse tutoring YouTube channel. The wall is kind of a meh beige so I’ve painted it white for now. I really hate painting, any job that takes longer to prepare for than to do won’t float my boat. I’m not very good at it too, I suspect these two facts are related!
Tuesday
Caught up about the next contract, looks like it will be delayed slightly to mid July but still looking likely and still exciting, I need to do some more to get head into work mode in July.
Very exciting change of plans on Tuesday, my best mate Chris had messaged me the night before to say he was in Polzeath surfing. I’ve not been to Polzeath for years. We first met in Polzeath in 1997, we were on the same course at Uni learning how to drive very big ships and we both went to the University surf kayak championship with the Uni canoe club. Much fun was had as we surfed in conditions way beyond our abilities, the highlight being surfing a topolino duo kayak, Chris was in the front and got absolutely drowned so decided to try and stand up, it didn’t go well we got absolutely battered and became friends for life
Coming up on Bodmin, the battery warning light in the van pinged on and the indicators stopped working, I frantically searched for a mechanic and headed to the nearest. About 200 metres from the garage the van completely lost power.
The mechanic gave an absolute masterclass in stakeholder management. He had an initial look at the van to work out what was wrong (seized alternator and snapped belt) he then said it would take until Friday to fix the issue. Obviously this wasn’t great so he then offered a number of other options before finally agreeing to do the work and a price. (Making sure I was aware he was pushing back another client to do it). He told me how long he expected it to take, and phoned me when he had to change plans (wrong alternator part delivered) again giving me options and involving me in the decision. If you ever find yourself stranded in Bodmin with a broken vehicle I would head to Dave Macdonald motors.
I ended up spending a couple of hours mooching around Bodmin, getting quite bored, luckily Stephen Amor offered me a coffee, we had a lovely catch-up. We talked about the challenge of giving teams autonomy in large orgs and running and he told me about how he has been busy setting up services for the Euros and Olympics, very exciting!
Eventually the van was fixed and I pushed on to Polzeath, too late for surfing alas but it was still great to catch-up with Chris. It was weird being back, Polzeath has definitely gentrified since the last time we were there, and of course we were now significantly older than the stupid teenagers who used to go surfing there.
Wednesday
Next morning the campsite crows woke me up at the crack of dawn, I did get to see lots of bunnies nibbling the grass though. I set off early back home, van made it! Finished the painting and took Phoebe to her drum lessons and Freya swimming.
Thursday
Put up a fence in the front garden, it’s been on the DIY list since Christmas when we came home to find the hedge had collapsed, we suspect someone fell into it on new year’s eve waiting for the bus. Not sure how long the fence will last but it’ll give us some privacy, it’s a busy bus stop.
Also caught up with Priyanca. We’re doing a talk at SDinGov about discoveries and are dog-fooding and taking a discovery-like approach to creating it. We want to talk to people about their experiences. Watch this space for more details.
Friday
Friday was a bit of a lazy day, played a bit of red dead redemption 2, did a few chores, had a regular catch-up with Ben, watched the football, took Freya climbing, that was it.
Reading
Still ploughing through Rubicon, learnt about Sulla hadn’t heard of him before which surprised me, I had heard of Marius for his legionary reforms and of course Caesar but not the first person to seize control of the senate by force and then give it back to the people.
Haven’t really gone back to crucial conversations or radical candour this week.
These posts caught my eye this week:
An excellent AI rant
Clear eyed guidance on AI from US Federal Trade Commission, with a title that goes hard
US Digital Response talent toolkit, the US government are smashing the posts this week!
Discover blindspots
Did we kill the disco?
A great post from Audree about working the endless desire for certainty
A timely post from Steph, I suspect this will be extremely useful advice in the next gig
Watching
Endless football, I’m really enjoying it. Tour de France starts soon, and the Olympics, why is the best telly on when it’s nice?
Planning
Next week Han and Phoebe are at Stoke Mandeville for the wheel power national junior games so I’m not planning a great deal in. I have two face to face catch-ups with Oli and Will on Monday and Wednesday which I’m looking forward to.
Planning to start putting some bones on the SDinGov presentation, and get talking to people about it.