Tl;dr: A sad slow week because of bad kitten news.
For Monday 24th – Sunday 30th August 2026.
At work:
- Catchment project: Moving into the deliverables and writing phase of the project, and also doing a last beach engagement event and another facilitating a stakeholder partnership meeting, these are both going pretty well now.
- Engagement coordination project: Working with the team and having wider conversations with stakeholders to shape our thinking about what we can support with over the coming months. It’s a slow start but it’s enabling us to have valuable data gathering and reflection time, which will mean that when the team’s ready for us to leap into action we’ll be clear and purposeful.
- Strategy co-design project: Testing some prototype thinking with the wider team and gathering feedback to get the materials right.
Deliverables this week:
- Nothing yet, background work in progress. There will be a flurry of deliverables in a bit!
Development this week:
- New project designing and delivering a workshop in north Wales, so far only email comms so a partial picture, scoping and planning meetings next week.
- Been thinking that I am not blogging any more, and that my main posting on here is these weeknotes (which I am now solid and regular with, which is great), but I have a bunch of half started drafts and bits of thoughts that are not solid enough to stand alone. Maybe I need a wonderings / ponderings category for half baked ideas. I know this is meant to be a digital garden but I still feel hesitant sharing partially processed stuff!
At home:
- 1 pilates this week and that’s it. Treating myself gently as I had some more colouring done on my back tattoo and I didn’t want to turn and twist and lift and sweat into the protective film that keeps it clean while it heals. Also period pain kicked my ass this whole week, pre- and during, super fun. My right knee is aching at rest though and I think I need to kick up into a higher amount of exercise to strengthen it – also, I miss moving properly!
- Went on a mini adventure and a walk by the Severn Bridge on the English side, and did some sketching for the first time in… at least 4 years, maybe more. It had been so long in fact that the last time I drew anything I didn’t need to wear reading glasses for close up! It was a tiny, slow, and tentative sketch of a house and hedge, but it felt good to re-learn how to hold my pens and how to really properly *LOOK* at something.
- I was pretty much all prepared for the Epic Kitten Mission, but I found out on Monday that she’d had an accident and had been at the vets overnight, and on Tuesday the update was that she didn’t make it. I’ve been sad all week and in a strange sort of place, as I hadn’t even got to meet her in person and she was mainly the idea of a kitten at this stage, but I was so ready for her arrival.
- On Sunday my friend told me of 2 cats who need a foster home while their person is in hospital, and as the flat was cat-ready but will now be cat-less, I have said that I can help for as long as is needed.
- On a practical level I turned my sadness into painting 2 walls in the lounge that I had been meaning to do for ever, and they look nice in moss green now. I also tidied up the garage. Sorting out my space is quite grounding.
Photo credit: Mark Vasey