Tl;dr: Foster kitties and back-to-school energy.
For Monday 31st August – Sunday 6th September 2026.
At work:
- Catchment project: a check-in meeting and planning for the deliverables I’m about to produce.
- Engagement coordination project: some more thinking on the chats I’ve been having with members of the partnership.
- Strategy co-design project: a check-in meeting and planning for the final deliverables and the next steps.
- Workshop in North Wales: 3 planning meetings with the client, and the outline has come together quite well. I’ve also booked my travel and accommodation, I’m not driving this time.
Deliverables this week:
- Strategy co-design project: delivery plan and content for stakeholder and partner engagement.
- Workshop in North Wales: draft session plan.
Development this week:
- This week feels properly like autumn, back to school, everybody back from summer holidays and things picking up again. Milestones are falling into place, and therefore I feel I have renewed focus, because like every self-respecting neurodivergent person I run on adrenaline and deadlines. It feels good, and purposeful.
- I wrote a short proposal for some follow-up work on the strategy co-design project, building on what I’ve done to date. It’s been quite big picture so far, and that’s been useful to pull together the strategy’s framework, but we can get more detailed insights which would be useful to flesh it out.
- I’ve been sent some information about a public appointment to a board, with a nudge to apply, and I’m considering it. Deadline is 20th September so I have a few days to ponder. I’ve also been invited to join a third sector board (as a voluntary non-exec), and I’ll very probably do it, I love the organisation and the team and their work, but I will update with more info in due course as things shape up.
- I wrote a tender proposal in a day. It’s now with colleagues for review, finetuning and submission.
- As I reflected last week, I might need a wonderings / ponderings category on this blog for half baked ideas. But also I have been thinking more about writing and not writing, and about writing using AI which is not really writing, and so as a result I have written about it.
At home:
- As well as the two lounge walls that are now green, I have painted the inside of the door, and as we all know, doors are usually my nemesis! It wasn’t so bad this time with a small roller, thanks to a timely suggestion from one of my contacts on Mastodon.
- Just one pilates this week (a 121 on Wednesday). I didn’t go on Monday because of bank holiday, and bailed on Friday because I was in full focused flow writing a client document. When that happens I *have* to make the most of it. No HIIT because, well, I didn’t feel like it. I do want to get back to a higher level of exercise though and my energy for it is returning.
- I picked up the foster cats on Monday, and they have settled in pretty well. It’s a temporary but open-ended arrangement, playing it by ear until their person is home from hospital and able to look after them again. They are friendly and easy to look after, and they charge around at night playing across the flat. Sometimes in the morning I find signs of the chaos and shenanigans that have occurred, like papers on the floor, or books in disarray on a high shelf.
- It’s the last week before Welsh classes start back. I’m off to Marseille for an extended weekend with my bestie (it’s still summer over there, 30 degC). My neighbour will look in on the cats. This time last year we were in Norway on our old lady cruise, this year we’re going to stay in the Le Corbusier hotel in the Cite Radieuse for a spot of architourism (apparently that’s a thing). Next year, who knows, but it’s officially our tradition now.
