Tl;dr: worky work work and a real weekend off.
For Monday 21st – Sunday 27th September 2026.
At work:
- Catchment project: now that most of my write-ups have been handed in, I’m on tickover on this project with the regular check-in and partnership meetings.
- Strategy co-design project: prepped and delivered an update to the board, which went down well; also, made a bunch of engagement materials to send for translation and upload. Got another bunch to do next – these are tasks I need good brain space and time for!
- Engagement coordination project: attended an all day networking event about similar projects, which was interesting, and I got to meet more people from my own project – so that was useful.
- Guest lecture: been developing the session plan, slides, and activities for my contribution to a lecture about complexity and systems change for Black Mountains College second year students.
Deliverables this week:
- Interim update to the board for the strategy co-design project.
Development this week:
- We didn’t get the London interview or contract I wrote a proposal for with a freelancer colleague last week. Ah well, you win some and lose some. We won a different contract I wrote a proposal for, with the same colleague plus others in a bigger team for the Co-production Lab Wales, so I still get to work with her on a project soon, which is cool.
- An enquiry for facilitating two days of employee engagement events in November.
- An enquiry for facilitating a board’s strategy day, also in November.
- The new Programme for Government has been released so I spent some time having a good look through – some hopeful stuff in there.
At home:
- This week: 2 pilates, 1 HIIT, 1 swim. 1 Welsh class.
- The foster cats have started going outside, because the Adventure Banana has literally been climbing the walls out of boredom. Turns out the Quiet Loaf also enjoys a little outdoors time, more than I expected her to. Spoke to the neighbour who also has a ginger adventurer, we’re hoping they will get on or at least not fight each other. So far, so good.
- I finished the fittings to set up the pop-up darkroom in my bathroom, so next weekend I’ll be spending some hours in there printing photos. And ~drumroll~ I finished painting the lounge door! I did it! Along with a whole *bunch* of small jobs around the house, car and garage.
- I had a real weekend off, with pottering around the house, a takeout and TV movie, a little exploring in a nearby city, and a big nap. How lovely.
Hwb – defnyddio fy Nghymraig (hub – using my Welsh):
- New weekly Welsh homework / task for this (school) year! Every week I now have to find A Thing to talk about in class, it’s got to be something relevant to my everyday life or work – our teacher is trying to get us to share normal everyday stuff rather than having to talk about whatever topic the book tells us, which we might have no opinions about. So I’m going to make a note every week in this additional weeknotes section, of what I’m bringing to the next lesson.
- This time I’m bringing to class: I’m going to make a card for my best friend’s dad. He’s always been helpful like my dad would be if he was still alive – when I tiled my kitchen he didn’t just lend me the tile cutter I asked to borrow, he also sent across a whole bucket of tiling tools and bits. Two weeks ago when our flights back from Marseille were cancelled, we rearranged our travel plans with an extra night over there in an AirBnB, and about a millions trains, buses and automobiles back home. Her dad gave her money to cover the surprise travel costs, and a little extra towards mine too. Such a dad! I was so touched and I want to say thanks properly.
Photo by Philip Myrtorp on Unsplash