Tl;dr: all the medical stuff was A Lot this week, it’s been a roller coaster.
For Monday 20th July – Sunday 26th July 2026.
At work:
- Catchment project: more engagement, more talking to stakeholders, the project has progressed really well and I’m starting to think about the remaining time – allocating resources wisely to deliver everything I’m supposed to, and not go over time.
- Strategy co-design project: wrote up all of the work so far for circulation, and developed the next phases in partnership with the client’s comms person, it was a super helpful planning meeting.
Deliverables this week:
- Wrote up and circulated the outputs from the 3rd session in the strategy co-design project.
Development this week:
- Had a planning meeting about a sikrit project that me and a colleague started a long time ago, and then parked because other stuff took priority, and also because we weren’t entirely clear what we were trying to do with it, so it was hard to take action. We have clarity now! We’re doing to do stuff! 💙
- I love living and working in Wales. The minister sent me a nice letter to say thanks for my presentation the other day and that my XKCD cartoon had a good message, about listening to people’s voice and lived experience. I mean I work with public services so I do cross paths with various government civil servants and elected representatives as part of my normal work, but she didn’t need to do that, and I love that Wales is tiny and friendly and this kind of thing can happen. Never 6 degrees of separation over here. 🏴
At home:
- After a week or two of exhaustion, I re-found some energy and focus at the start of the week, even after a short night of broken sleep because of external reasons and being very sleepytired. There is no direct correlation across any of my physiological or mental states, it’s annoyingly unpredictable.
Yay neurodivergence?
“Have a good night’s sleep and wake up rested and ready to seize the day”? Heck no.
“Operate on 2 hours’ sleep and have a newfound zest for life”? Why tf not. - The rest of the week overall was super stressful, and involved spending many cumulative hours on the phone sorting out several different urgent and non urgent medical appointments and things, and having an MRI of my Giant Tonsil, and this week overall has been A Lot, and at the end of it I feel a bit battered and tender both emotionally and physically.
- Had another weekend of peopleing, which was all lovely while it was happening, but it killed my social battery again, and I went to bed Sunday evening totally shattered. Next weekend I need plenty of non-peopleing time, especially as I will have family visiting for a week in not too long!
- No swim for me because I was going to go Sunday evening and instead I needed to just sit very quietly and stare at a wall for several hours, so I bailed.
- Many weeks ago I tried HIIT (high intensity interval training), and I found I really enjoyed it, and I did HIIT for like 6 weeks, and then I found my weeks had just gotten much too full and I took a hiatus off EVERYTHING this week to reset – zero exercise, no classes. I’ve decided I will now be alternating 1 week HIIT and 1 week pilates, rather than doing both in the same week and having to get up early EVERY SINGLE DAY. That was just Too Much. I love it all but I also need a couple of chilled mornings per week where I don’t have to rush off to be somewhere early, y’know?
- I did so some Welsh practice this week yay! Having re-found (re-created) some unpressured morning time in the week should give me the headspace to do a bit more, a bit more regularly. That’s the plan anyway, I’ll report back.
- It seems that the French kitten is back on the cards, after some crossed wires with the lady who rescued her. She’s now started going through the vet processes to get her ready to travel across borders. Thinking of possible names for her, she is yet unnamed while she awaits her permanent home. Was going to call her Luna, now also considering Elodie. But also, cautiously making plans and not counting all my
chickens(kittens) yet!
