March 2021

March 31, 2021

Feeling pretty awesome this morning! Fell asleep by 10:30pm mid-meditation, and aside from a couple of minor wake-ups, I slept through to almost 6:30am. Result!Did my meditation then headed out for my first run in a week. It was a glorious morning — bright, fresh but not cold, buds and blossoms everywhere. I clipped along at a brisk, easy pace and improved my current best time for the Ally Pally route.

Started an interesting podcast on the walk home on relational mindfulness — the idea that while it’s great to look inside while “on the cushion”, most of our lives are spent relating to others and discussed ways to be outwardly mindful. One thing that made me laugh: “Family — the final frontier of spiritual progress…”

Did more work on the fitness website then had a kickoff meeting for the Jx website rebuild. Our new marketing manager is leading on it, but I can imagine I’ll have a certain amount of work come out of it as well.

Popped to the shops to pick up a couple of things I needed to make Thai yellow seafood curry for dinner. Nova pitched in and we had a nice time cooking together. Such a welcome change from the usual scenario around here.

Watched a couple of episodes of The Good Place (we’re trying go through the whole thing while Nova’s home) and then a Schitt’s Creek before bed.

March 30, 2021

Pretty good sleep last night for a change…:-) Definitely made seven hours, and I’m pretty certain it was unbroken. (If it wasn’t, I don’t recall being awake…)Dropped Lyra at the bus stop then returned home to meditate with Adam. I could have run this morning, but decided to walk instead and resume my usual schedule tomorrow. Did a shorter walk — closer to three than four miles — then got stuck into my work day.

Adam, Nova and I were able to have lunch together, which was nice. A number of her friends are back from uni also, and she’s been going for catch-up walks since getting back.

Worked on my new fitness website in the aftsernoon including a brief Board meeting. I’m finally getting to grips with their website builder (Bakery), which I have had only minimal contact with up to now. Always pleased to add a string to my bow, though I am overwhelmed by how much learning there is for me to do, exacerbated by being a “one-stop shop” for clients.

Lyra had Luna (the schnauzer) round for a playdate this afternoon. Richard and Rachel are concerned about the current spate of dog-nappings, and anxious about Lyra walking Luna.

They also recognise that Luna is a little clingy and weird as a result of never being separated from them. So instead of being paid to walk the dog, Lyra is being paid to hang out at our place. I’m sure there are a lot of covid puppies that have developed similar issues…

Nova came up to help with dinner, which was most welcome. We made kimchi meatloaf, steamed rice and stirfried broccoli with chilli and garlic. Watched a Schitt’s Creek and a Good Place. In bed before 10pm…

March 29, 2021

Lyra phoned from her bedroom, waking me from a deep sleep at 6:30am to say she had a stomachache and didn’t feel well enough to go to school today. Could have done with the extra sleep, but there it is…

Meditated, but no running today – we had six preliminary interviews with potential senior consultants scheduled between 8-10am. I was on the call for a second pair of eyes and to take notes so we could discuss more fully afterwards.

Nova popped up and made me a coffee, then returned at 12:30 so we could have lunch together…:-) Managed a bit of work after lunch, then broke off to go for a Heath walk in the sunshine. The forsythia and magnolia are in full bloom as are some varieties of cherry tree. I love this time of year…

Ratatouille for dinner, which I prepared before my evening meetings. First up a committee meeting that was a bit of a bust as the chairman lost internet access and was unable to log in.

After that we had two more first interviews to knock off, then we sat down for dinner together. We’ve decided to start a new series together while Nova is with us, and the girls convinced us to make it The Good Place. In bed about 11pm.

March 28, 2021

Terrible night’s sleep, made worse by the clocks going forward last night. I was feeling sorry enough for myself already before I realised that it was actually 4am not 5am…

Tried and failed to go back to sleep – my mind was already revving. Listened to a couple of interesting podcasts, then finished most of my current novel – Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam.

Met Millie for a walk in Highgate Woods. She was feeling beat and wanted to keep in gentle so we grabbed a coffee then did a slow loop round the perimeter. We were about to leave when Daniella texted to say she was just arriving with her dog. Ended up doing a second (illicit) loop with her, in a slightly awkward triangle-type formation.

Fry up for lunch, then retreated to the sofa thinking I might take a nap, but it never happened. Adam went off for a little visit with Beulah (it is their wedding anniversary today, and also Pesach), before driving to Paddington to meet Nova’s train from Bristol.

Baked my sourdough bread, and prepped Thai satay chicken and spicy slaw for dinner. Ate about 8pm, after Nova had a chance to settle in and hang out with her sister for a bit. By a happy coincidence, Nova is only a couple of episodes behind us on Schitt’s Creek. Adam had dozed through those very episodes just the other day, so we rewatched them together before calling it a night.

March 27, 2021

Awake too early, as ever… I don’t really distinguish between week days and weekends in terms of sleep patterns. I guess I maybe stay up a bit later on Friday/Saturdays, but without a social life, there’s not a lot in it.

Meditated, then went for a walk on the Heath. Adam was doing a workshop so I popped my earbuds into catch up on a podcast. I wasn’t at the top of the path before Richard and Rachel called to me. They were heading to the Heath as well, so I walked with them until their meet point with their friend Kate.

It was a beautiful morning if a bit chilly and I did a very pleasant 5 mile loop round the edge of the Heath. By coincidence, I bumped into R&R again leaving the Heath and we walked home together.

Adam and I had scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and tarragon for lunch — truly a combination made in heaven. Made time to read the Guardian afterwards — we were too busy to even unfold the previous two editions.

He moved on to client work while I did a bout of housework — hoovering throughout, cleaning Nova’s flat in anticipation of her arrival tomorrow, and sorting out a chaotic bathroom shelf.

Made cauliflower and sweet potato tacos for dinner and watched Mank — a biopic of Herman Mankiewicz (the guy who wrote the script for Citizen Kane) starring Gary Oldman. It required patience and attention to get into it, but we both thought it was very good, and worthy of Oscar nomination.

March 26, 2021

Awake from 5:30am. Mooched around a bit listening to Rachel Maddow, then changed into my running gear, but it was too early for the Woods to open.

After Adam got back from dropping Lyra we meditated, but unfortunately I’d already been sucked into the IT issue from last night. The new installation isn’t working either, so I got support involved. That stretched on for ages and I blew off my run in the end…

We never properly resolved it, despite conversations that stretched across three support staff and most of the day. Happily, in the process I discovered that the issue didn’t occur in Chrome so I shifted to working in that.

Ended up with an initial build that I could share with the client by the end of the day. I was a bit anxious about what she would think as she’s a self-described “I know what I like when I see it” type clients, and hadn’t given me a lot to go on, but she emailed back almost straight away to say how much she liked it. A good note to end the work week on…

Takeaway from Turquoise for dinner, and Widows for movie night…

March 25, 2021

Another broken sleep with periods awake in the middle of the night and stressful dreams… I’ve noticed lately that I’m losing more hair than usual, and am starting to wonder if that’s connected to stress as well.

I can think of three sources of stress – the pandemic, my workload, my change in diet. I can’t do anything about the first one, aside from meditate, get some exercise and hope my second vaccination isn’t delayed by the latest friction with the EU.

I’m exploring ways to manage my workload and number of clients. I’m using Trello to project manage and maintain worklists, and aim to set up SLAs with ongoing clients to clarify expectations. (I also cancelled on a 1.5 hour Festival meeting today, which felt good to do.)

On the diet front, I’m pretty much at my target weight now, and notice that things haven’t really shifted in more than a month. I’m going to increase my calorie and carb intake and try to find the sweet spot where I can eat a wider range of foods but not gain weight. Annoyed I can’t get my blood test until the summer to see what the impact of this has been on my diabetes markers, but there it is…

Meditated then at my desk by 9am. A guy turned up soon after to install the new blind in Lyra’s bedroom. Glad to have that sorted as the days are getting longer. Her room catches the earliest morning sun full on.

Pretty productive day until the end when I was trying to set up a new website for a therapy client. There is some sort of conflict with the web theme where saving causes to page content to be wiped. Very frustrating, and ended up deleting a good couple of hours work and reinstalling everything to start fresh tomorrow.

Made chicken thighs roasted with onions, celeriac, garlic and lemon, with a side dish of sautéed courgette with feta and mint. All very tasty. Penultimate WandaVision then a dose of Schitt’s Creek before bed at 10pm…

March 24, 2021

I was wake for over an hour between 3-4:30am, but otherwise slept like a log. Very vivid dreams… the kind that stay with you all day rather than slipping away like water the moment you wake.

There was a big theme of neglected housework and maintenance – dirty dishes, leaking roof etc and not being on top of things. At one point I got into a car with Nova (we were in McBride Crescent at this point). I drove down the hill and turned into Winnipeg St, heading towards Parkwood Mall. The car was set up wrong – I was leaning too far back and not fully reaching the pedals. I could tell it was dangerous, but for some reason didn’t stop. When I needed to hit the brakes suddenly there was a scary moment where they didn’t engage before finally catching.

The next bit was about this decrepit, ancient, little house full of memorabilia and random objects that I had a sense I should have been looking after. I had a key to the door, but when I used it the door sort of caved in and fell off.

Things spun on from there… with an overwhelming sense of chaos and decay, a sense of failure on my part, and people intervening and taking things or invading. All pretty unpleasant…

Dropped Lyra at the bus, meditated and did my run. Second fastest time I’ve done lately for that route – so that was nice.

Had a long meeting with Cami (our new marketing person) about our various areas of intersection, then lunch, squeezed in some housework, then other projects for the afternoon until a second meeting at 5pm.

It occurs to me that I am trying to manage three part time jobs plus run my own web business on the side. It’s not necessarily the volume of work (though at times that’s an issue). It’s more the time/project management and all the shifting of gears and number of people I’m answerable to. Will have to think on what to do about that one…

Sausages, lentils and cauli mash for dinner with another episode of WandaVision. Not really my thing, but mindless fun. Adam headed over to Beulah’s afterwards and I finished my novel – The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. I wasn’t convinced by the premises from reviews I read, but ended up enjoying it very much.

March 23, 2021

Awake around 5am, partly due to dozing on the couch while trying to watch Line of Duty, and partly because it’s light earlier I think. (Note to self, dig out my face mask…)

Started my day with Rachel Maddow (mass murder in Colorado, the second such incident in a week). Found this tweet by Jeff Tiedrich to be pretty much on the money:

“Well-regulated militia opens fire in grocery store in Boulder, Colorado; cheap thoughts and useless prayers now being rushed to the scene… more on this soon-to-be-forgotten-and-then-repeated story as it develops…”

Adam dropped Lyra down and met Doron for their regular walk. He’s winding up his UK business at the end of May and Adam is helping him with the communications around that.

Sort out a number of house things, meditated and was at my desk well before 9am. Put in a good chunk of time on my new fitness website in advance of my first meeting with the Board to present what I’ve done so far. I was a bit nervous about it, but it went over pretty well. Picked up on a bit of feedback then shifted gears to pick off a few things for other clients.

I was worked out by 6:30 and shifted again to food prep mode. Made lamb-feta burgers, couscous, chopped salad and garlic yogurt for dinner. Made a crustless tomato-basil quiche while I was at it, which will be good for weekday lunches.

Watched a couple of episodes of WandaVision with Lyra. In bed at 10pm. Living the dream here…

March 22, 2021

Slept okay – not long enough (as eve), but according to my FitBit I managed an appropriate amount of deep and REM sleep.

Dropped Lyra at the bus stop, meditated then headed out for a run. I’m sticking with the 3.5-mile Ally Pally route, aiming to speed up before adding more distance. Maybe build a longer run once the weather improves further or if I carve out time on the weekend again…

I’m buried under work at the moment – new sites to build, a heavy amount of development for the beauty website, pressing projects for Junxion. It’s a good situation in some ways, but stressful in others.

I’m starting to wonder about ways to limit my total number of clients – largely because nobody ever really goes away. Some people do their content updates, some have some technical skills to change/develop their sites, but everyone comes back for something. The more people who come to me for web-something, the more scheduled and unscheduled requests cross my desk each week.

Ate lunch with Adam – the last of the smoked ox cheek made into a tortilla with lettuce, pickled peppers and avocado. Dinner was a Thai-style tofu soup with lots of bean sprouts, spinach and fresh herbs.

Watched a couple of episodes of WandaVision, which is starting to make sense. Pretty good, but not great. Watched the opener of the new season of Line of Duty. Been a long time since I’ve watched a police procedural where I’m on the side of the police…

March 21, 2021

Still busily digesting when I woke up this morning. Not used to pushing the boat out like that food and drinkwise. Still, it was a fun evening and no regrets.

Finished the cryptic crossword, meditated then tackled a bunch of home admin – contracts for the flats, financial forms around investing the money. We usually do that sort of stuff on a Saturday, but didn’t want to spend Adam’s birthday on our computers obviously…

Had our usual fry up for late lunch. The timing was such that none of us were hungry at dinner time, then things drifted and we didn’t end up eating dinner, instead we individually snacked as and when.

Watched a couple of episodes of Schitt’s Creek before bed…

March 20, 2021

Happy 54th birthday, Adam! Hadn’t got round to my present wrapping yesterday, so flew at that while Adam went upstairs to make coffee.

I got him airpods, plus a couple of books, socks, Nova bought him sunglasses. Dave W sent a book and a Glastonbury DVD. Moisturiser from Lyra, Sacred whisky from Doron, an adidas hoodie and teeshirt from his mum. I’d say it was a pretty good haul…

His second lockdown birthday limited our options, but we thought walking somewhere different to the usual Heath-Woods-Waterlow routes would be nice. Took an Uber to Maida Vale and walked home along the Regents Canal.

Came off the canal path to circumnavigate Regents Park, and stopped at Camden Lock Market for an early lunch of chicken bhanga burgers. Left the canal (which continues to Kings Cross) and headed north towards Chalk Farm, then over to the Heath.

About seven miles and three hours in the end. It ties in nicely with our Mother’s Day canal walk last weekend. We should do the middle (Kings Cross) bit next weekend, or sometime soon…

Adam headed over to see Beulah for a visit. When we returned we broke open our dinner box from SmokeStak. There were a number of intriguing little pots and packages, a QR code for the assembly instructions and even a Spotify playlist.

Cranked that up and got busy cooking. First up, margaritas, then the pork belly starter. For main course, we had smoked, pulled ox cheek, charred greens with chilli mayonnaise and chips. Dessert was brownies and salted caramel sauce.

Lyra was back from Suffolk by this point, so she joined us for some of the food. Meant to feed two, will still had leftovers at the end. The food was great, and the whole experience fun and different. Would happily do it again…

Watched The Trial of the Chicago Seven on Netflix — what a fucking travesty of justice that was…

Adam’s birthday

March 19, 2021

Slept well again – very strange…;-) Ran Lyra to the bus stop, meditated and then headed out for my Ally Pally run. Got a bad start, bumping into Richard just after starting my timer, after which I missed the lights on the Archway Road. Even if you stop the app, it’s surprising how much difference it makes to my pace. Maybe to do with how the thing revs itself up again after a pause?

Took a while to switch into work mode after my shower, but got down to it eventually. I’m trying to make Friday my small clients day – I have quite the crop of them at the moment.

Went for a walk with Birgit in the afternoon. We haven’t seen them in ages, and it was nice to catch up. Interesting to talk to her as well – she’s a GP, so right in the thick of the vaccination effort – some interesting intel there.

Straight back to work when I got home. I had two fucking IT issues to resolve today – hate it when that happens. I sorted out something on my Irish fitness site, and a couple of other little tasks, leading to some sense of accomplishment by the time I knocked off at 8pm.

Lyra has headed to Suffolk with her friend Sissy’s family for the night, along with Ellie and Lucia. I was torn about it, but decided to say yes. All the girls have been tested twice in the last week, and are wearing masks the whole time they are at school, and all the relevant parents have had at least one vaccination. On balance, it seems a pretty small risk…

Cheese and wine for dinner. Usually we’d have a takeaway, but with it being Adam’s birthday tomorrow, are going to do it then. Watched a few episodes of Schitt’s Creek, keeping things light…

March 18, 2021

Another great night’s sleep… I could get used to this! Adam dropped Lyra at the bus stop on his way to meet Doron for their regular Heath walk. I did some unguided meditation, then dove into my work day.I want to keep at the speed improvements on the beauty site, but there are a lot of other things clamouring for my attention.

Heard back from Thames Water today, in response to our complaint about our massive bill. Unsurprisingly can’t find any reason for it their end, and totally pooh-poohed the idea that it could have anything to do with their repair work.

This despite the fact our water usage has been incredibly consistent for the fifteen years we’ve been metered, aside from this instance. Our next idea is to speak to our nearest neighbours and see if anyone else has experienced a spike.

Met Jane in the afternoon for a wander through the cold, damp streets of Highgate/Archway. Always good to catch up with her regardless. When I got back, I had a long phone call with Jess (Iris’s mum). Haven’t talked to her in a while. She has non-Hodgkins’ lymphoma, and has been super-careful about shielding. Despite which, the whole family came down with Covid in January. Surprisingly, despite her chemo-suppressed immune system, she fared better than her mum and husband.

Groceries came this evening. I’ve now decided to starting working through my stockpile that I was maintaining when food security due to Covid and Brexit seemed more of an imminent threat…

Dinner was spinach salad. We started watching WandaVision. Not really my thing, but it gets good reviews and willing to give it a try. Total switch of gears after Breaking Bad…

March 17, 2021

Happy St Patricks Day! Slept well and woke feelling full of energy and purpose. Meditated with Adam then set out for a run. My legs felt really strong, and I wasn’t surprised at the end to see that my pace/mile was 30 seconds faster than last time.

Quick shower and then down to work. My first task was to sort out the caching on the beauty website, which has been running like a dog lately. What I hoped would take two hours stretched over most of the day, but at least it’s loading better now. Still not scoring very well on external tests though, so more work to be done.

Made lamb stew for dinner in honour of the day, which we ate in front of the final episode of Breaking Bad. What an incredible piece of television that is. Decompressed with some Schitt’s Creek before bed…

March 16, 2021

Aside from meditating, I didn’t do much besides work today. Lyra was off school, but had to travel in for her second Covid test (also negative). From this point on, we need to do them ourselves at home… Marketing and HR work for Junxion, a couple of meetings about the new fitness website, updates to the beauty site, etc etc. Lots to juggle and barely moved from my desk all day. My butt was actually sore by the end of the day…

It was 7:30pm before I got round to fixing dinner. Chicken piccata – chicken thigh fillets and green veg in a lemon-caper-butter sauce, which was extremely tasty. Penultimate episode of Breaking Bad – Adam and I would have happily pushed through and finished it, but Lyra wanted to retreat to her cave room.

March 15, 2021

Woke feeling weirdly cheerful (for me at any rate). Nothing external to bring it on – the opposite if anything. Listening to the UK news for a change. Radio 4 made me so mad the way they reported on Brexit, I ditched twenty years of listening loyalty and turned them off. The outrageous policing of Sarah Everard vigil this weekend had me listening today.

Another fly in the ointment is our latest water bill which is five times larger than usual. Our water usage goes down in the winter, and there have only been three of us in the house showering and doing laundry. I think it has to do with the burst water main in October, when they did all that work on the pipes, but I expect they’ll insist we’ve used it somehow…

What with talking that through with Adam, meditating, changing the bed and hanging up laundry, it was gone 9am by the time I left for my run. It was a nice morning for it. I did the Ally Pally route, which was pretty good underfoot if a bit mucky in places. I clipped along okay and finished in good time.

Got caught in an icy rain shower right at the end. A real cloud burst that soaked me through, and left my chilled by the time I walked home. Had to go straight into a pair of meetings, so an hour before I could have a shower.

Listen to a really interesting podcast by Ten Percent Happier, titled How This Plague Ends, and What It Tells Us About Human Nature by Nicholas Christakis. According to him, we are just about at the end of the beginning. It was really interesting – I want Adam to listen to it.

Cottage pie and green beans for dinner with Breaking Bad – real end-game stuff…

March 14, 2021

Happy Mother’s Day to me! Woke way too early as per usual, but I didn’t feel too bad for it. Headed upstairs for coffee and meditating by 7am.

Got a nice collection of things from the family – vegan truffles from Adam, a sweet little European Union pin from Nova, and a big bunch of flowers from Lyra. When Adam got back from visiting his mum, the pair of them made our usual weekend fry-up.

Afterwards Adam and I went for a walk along Regents Canal from where we used to get off the bus for our office in Reliance Wharf. Carried on past the office to Victoria Park (haven’t been there in years) and did a lap before heading back the way we came.

There were a lot of people about, to the degree I felt more comfortable wearing a mask, which very few people were doing. Nice and warm for the face as well.

Adam caught the end of the Arsenal Tottenham match when we got home. Amazingly Arsenal managed to win. Made ginger lime chicken for dinner, which I finessed with toasted coconut and chopped fresh chilli. Cabbage salad to go along with it.

Finished an episode of Breaking Bad we’d stopped part way the other day, then carried on with our Finnish drama – The Man in Room 301. Predictable but good enough…

Canal walk on Mother’s Day

March 13, 2021

Woke up early, and had coffee in bed while tackling the cryptic crossword. Meditated then out for a walk on the Heath. It was very blowy, but at least we managed almost all of it between downpours. Leftovers for lunch when we got back.

Adam gets his jab today. Richard and Rachel had their appointments as well, so they all drove up together. They dropped Luna around for Lyra to dog sit. Lunda was pretty bummed by the idea. I was going to send them a cute picture of her having fun with us, but Luna looked so droopy and miserable that I couldn’t use any of them.

Set up a new client with web hosting this afternoon. I’d sent her detailed instructions for doing it herself but preferred to come from me. Did that then kicked back for the rest of the day.

Sushi from Atari-ya for dinner, with a slice of the crab apple drizzle cake I’d made earlier for dessert. Beulah’s next door neighbour is a prolific jam and chutney maker, and I’m pretty sure that Beulah just passes everything they bestow on her straight to us.

She gave me a jar of crab apple jelly last summer that hadn’t set at all. I had the brainwave of using it on a drizzle cake instead of the lemon sugar mixture. Pretty good, but no improvement on the original recipe…

March 12, 2021

Lyra’s first day back at school. She got up promptly to sort out her breakfast and packed lunch, but I hadn’t considered that she’d want us to run her to the bus stop…

Adam had got to bed very late, but needed to get up again to finish a proposal. He agreed to drive her, which meant I got out my run to Ally Pally in early as well. Showered at at my desk by 9:30.

Serviced some of my smaller clients I hadn’t found time for in the week. The cricket club with an ancient Wix website that wasn’t working. The couple’s therapist who’s striking out on her own and needs a web presence. Also some work on the beauty website.

Second pitch meeting with an agency based in Canada. They presented three options – the two that were in our specified budget didn’t result in a website at the end of the process. Pretty clear we aren’t going to go with those guys…

Pulled together a quick supper of crustless quiche and salad, which we scoffed in time for a quiz night. Some kind of FOE reunion thing in support of the Bradford Green Party I think.

We were on a team with FOE colleagues of Adam I vaguely remember – Penny, her partner Neil and a Canadian guy called Steve. Not a night where we covered ourselves in glory – very much middle of the table. To bed about 11pm…

March 11, 2021

Meditated then started work a bit earlier than usual. Lyra starts back at school today. Or rather, she travelled to school for a rapid covid test. If it’s negative (and it was) she starts in-person school tomorrow.

Cheese plate for lunch. Through most of lockdown, I supported Neals Yard Dairy with a monthly cheese box delivery. So altruistic of me…;-) A lovely choice of cheese this month – a lemony soft rinded goats’ cheese, a wedge of cashel blue and a hunk of coolea.

Had a Zoom meeting wth a financial advisor today. Freddy left some money for the girls in his will for us to give them at the age of 25, and it makes sense to invest it in some way.

In the past, I’d have probably just stuck it in a term deposit, but interest rates are non-existent. Spent an hour talking to a nice guy from an ethical investment company about portfolio wrappers and junior ISAs.

The grocery order arrived during the call, so I stepped away to take care of that, but otherwise busy until 7pm. Whipped up sausages, mash and leftover ratatouille for dinner afterwards. Watched half a Breaking Bad – Lyra wanted time to get ready for the big return to school tomorrow…

March 10, 2021

Feeling pretty much back to normal now, aside from some lingering arm pain. After meditation I set out for a run. Did the usual Ally Pally route at a relatively gentle pace, and felt better for it afterwards.

Had a kick-off meeting with a new small client – a cricket club in Crouch End that needs help getting their Wix site ready for the new season after months of downtime and neglect. I don’t usually work on Wix sites, but it’s not rocket science…

Made myself a salad for lunch. I eat a lot of salads these days, or rather I eat meals where lettuce or spinach acts as a bed for things I would previously have put on bread or rice.

Lyra and I rustled up an Asian-inspired chicken dish this evening, which we served with broccoli, and a beansprout salad. More Breaking Bad – we’re cracking through this final season…

March 9, 2021

Happy 18th birthday Liam! Didn’t feel like running yet, but went out for a morning walk after meditating and before starting my work day. Headed down the private road and onto the Heath, making a loop round Kenwood and then back through the side streets and up North Hill.

The main focus for my day was writing a case study for the Junxion website about EntrepreNorth, a programme that “empowers indigenous and community-based entrepreneurs to build sustainable businesses and livelihoods across Northern Canada”.

Ratatouille for dinner in front of Breaking Bad…

March 8, 2021

And another week begins… Decided against running this morning. I’m feeling pretty much back to normal – maybe a bit tired – but I’m going to give myself a pass.

My arm is even worse than yesterday. It feels like I’ve been kicked by a mule and it feel hot and a bit hard to the touch. Not that I’m complaining… I’m more than happy for a little discomfort a the cost of being vaccinated.

Last week I carved some time out of my busy work day to make an email template for the 2021 Festival. My committee member who has taken on responsibility for the newsletter assured me that she was an experienced MailChimp user and could take things from here. So I was surprised to receive a Festival newsletter this afternoon that was about three miles long, written in broken paragraphs, and bold red italics.

I immediately logged into MailChimp and discovered that rather than using the template to create an email campaign, she’d edited and destroyed it, even managing to change the return address back to the previous editor who is no longer with us, so the email appeared to come from him.

She’d sent the thing to our 250 person mail list, which is not great. I repaired the template, and wrote full instructions on how to send newsletters, and emailed them to her. Apparently, that’s exactly the process she followed…

Had the first pitch from one of the two agencies we’ve shortlisted to develop the new Junxion website. They seemed fine, and it’s a plus that they are UK-based, but they didn’t blow me out of the water. I’m sure Zoom doesn’t help…

Made veggie soup and fresh sourdough for Adam and Lyra’s dinner; a lo-dough pizza and salad for me.

March 7, 2021

Terrible night’s sleep… I was feverish and my right arm was painful to lie on or even move. It might have been the three hours’ sleep, but I had a nasty headache and was woozy when I got up, but a couple of paracetemol made a good dent.

On the plus side, my tinnitus seems to have disappeared. It’s a constant whining companion, and I’ve become pretty used to it. It was so strange to realise it wasn’t there…

Went for a walk with Millie up to Ally Pally and back. She’s attending a Zoom meeting with the PM tomorrow for International Women’s Day in her capacity as CEO of the British Beauty Council. Hashed through what she’s planning to say for her five minutes at the podium…

Had our usual fry up for lunch when I got back, after which I took to the couch for a nap. Felt even better afterwards, though sadly the tinnitus is back… That was so strange the way it dialled down earlier. Make me wonder if it disappears at other times and I only noticed this morning because I was doing a body scan for vaccine symptoms.

Adam headed off to visit Beulah mid afternoon. We had a Zoom call with Dave’s family to watch Devlin’s short film when he got back. It’s very sweet and Devlin does a good job – he seems very natural in front of the camera.

Prawn Thai curry and rice for dinner with a side of Breaking Bad – the shit’s really hitting the fan now…

March 5, 2021

Meditated then started work early. I needed to launch a podcast series on the beauty website. It’s not the kind of content you can set to go live – I needed to be on hand to flip the switch myself.Had a meeting with my new fitness client. I was dreading it a bit – there is a lot of politics at play, but it was fine…

Takeaway night… It was my pick and I opted for chicken wings from the Bull; the other two went for burgers and fries. Something went awry with the order and they sent burgers and fries all round.

I took that as a sign that I was meant to ditch the keto for the night, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Watched Election for movie night.

March 4, 2021

Happy birthday, Ceinwen! Skipped the meditating for once so I could squeeze in a run before my 9am meeting. It poured all afternoon yesterday, so I decided to give the Woods a miss. Headed to Kenwood instead then back through the side streets and up North Hill.

The beauty site tied me up for most of the day. It was an intricate puzzle getting the different levels of membership to display the right blocks of content, especially as the rules about who could see what changes from section to section. Eventually got it working across three levels of access with seven different content pots. Yeeps…

The site is currently running like a dog, so I also spent time trying to configure the caching plug-in to improve things on that end. Caching is a fiddly, interative business, which required a lot of testing as well.

Crammed in some other client work at the end of the day. New bookable courses for the art school, and other minor housekeeping duties across my roster of websites. Got a text inviting me for my first jab – leapt on that and am booked in for Saturday morning…

Lyra helped with dinner – we made little beef-pinenut meatballs with a tahini sauce, chopped salad and couscous. Very nice… After yesterday’s bruising episode of Breaking Bad she wasn’t ready to dive back into the drama, so we watched an episode of Parks and Rec instead. Watched a couple of Schitt’s Creeks after that.

I was enjoying a chilled Friday demob vibe when the client text to say that the beauty site was corrupting in Safari, so I ended up rolling back all that caching work anyway…

March 3, 2021

Decided not to run this morning. I’ve got a lot on workwise and wanted to get another early start. Plus I needed to knock off at 4pm to give myself time to do the reading for my book group.

Lots of work getting ready for the student membership launch at the end of the week. It’s tricky to get the different levels of access to play nicely together, but I’m getting there…

Cut it too fine for my book group reading though, and didn’t manage to read the last two stories in time, which was a shame. We talk about the stories individually but they are all connected thematically as well.

During the meeting the topic of enneagrams came up. I’d never heard them, but a number of the group were familiar with them and knew what their type was. After the meeting finished, I did an online test. While not overly convinced by the explanations and trappings around the whole Enneagram thing, the result itself seemed strikingly accurate.

Sausages, mash and green beans for dinner, which we ate in front of a gut wrenching episode of Breaking Bad…

March 2, 2021

Started the day with meditation as per usual and then got straight to work. Yesterday wasn’t very productive what with the festivities, and I had a number of urgent things to push across my desk.

Broke off for a lunchtime walk with Kate on the Heath. It’s turned cold again, though not so bad as before. Overall, it was invigorating and led to a very productive afternoon afterwards.

Spicy peanut chicken and Asian slaw for dinner, with leftover birthday cake for dessert…

March 1, 2021

Happy 14th birthday, Lyra! Not quite the birthday she’d imagined when we hoped we were putting lockdown life behind us last autumn but here it is. Lyra prepared an itinerary for the day, and did my best to deliver on.

7:00-7:30am: Present opening. We got her fluffy Ugg slingback slippers, a Fiorucci tote bag, sweat shorts, bubble tea making supplies, a 50th anniversary reissue of the novel Love Story, and a weighted hula hoop. Beulah gave her a box of makeup and Margo and Aaron sent body scrub and a light/sound display, posters from Nova and Pasc, and money from Uncle Wade. A pretty good haul…

7:30–8:00: Breakfast. The schedule was already slipping when we got round to making blueberry waffles. Running out of milk didn’t help. Fortunately I remembered a pot of buttermilk that’s been languishing in the downstairs fridge.

Once online school started, I hopped into my running clothes and did my Ally Pally route before getting down to work.

12:45–1:15: Lunch. Egg mcmuffins as requested. I briefly considered making myself a mug bread for mine but ditched the idea. Those mugs breads are so eggy I would have been eating an egg mcegg.

Made time for an unscheduled cake decorating break in the middle of my work day. I spent some time over it, and actually read some cake decorating instructions and learned a few things. For example, I hadn’t realised that you should pipe the icing onto with a wide nozzle, rather than just spreading it on. Pretty pleased with how it came out.

3:30: Bubble tea. The original plan was to have this delivered for the end of the school day. But what with the bubble tea making supplies she got, we were able to make it ourselves,which was fun.

7:00: Dinner. The itinerary called for nachos and sweet potato black bean tacos. I was running a bit behind schedule again. Happily Adam finished work a bit early and was able to pop out to meet Millie and collect a birthday swag bag of beauty samples while I cracked on. Started on the nachos about 7:15. When it was time for cake, we called Beulah so she could join in the singing.

8:00: Film. Lyra chose Thirteen Going on Thirty — an excellent birthday choice…