completely adore the Surly. cables are starting to stretch a bit already, but I’ll deal with that in a few weeks. only ridden it twice since the last weeknote - once with C on her way to work again, once today to go to the shops in Peckham - but I love it. can’t wait until it doesn’t feel slightly edgy to go out on a bike.
we pre-ordered a Colomba from General Store to pick up this morning, and decided to go to the butcher at the same time. going to the butcher was effing stupid, because everyone else also wanted to go there. after an hour we fell for the sunk cost fallacy and decided it wasn’t worth going home empty handed. so we stayed and got what we needed after two fucking hours, but the whole thing made me feel like I never want to go to a shop again. something about being outside for so long made me feel like I was more involved in this thing that is happening than I do when I don’t go out. felt both stupid and anxious. as per the other week: I think I prefer staying indoors.
C’s team are no longer on the wards but doing research on coronavirus at the Nightingale. it’s been a bit up in the air, but yesterday when I was at a standup early doors, she got a call and came in the room to say “right, induction’s at 11, I’m off to the Excel, bye”. bit of a whirlwind. given the circumstances, research at the Nightingale is far from the worst outcome.
work slowly ramped up as the week went on. didn’t ship anything as previously expected. did show a prototype that I already think is off to a bunch of people in other government departments. got an email from Jen that set off an awful lot of thinking, then decided off the back of some engagement-type feedback that the thinking was in the wrong direction. but hey, course correction is what we do, right? and course correction of three days of thinking and chats is a lot cheaper than course correction of building something. had a crazy useful hour of chats with Ignacia yesterday morning: I think the thing I love about being on GOV.UK is being back working with other designers every day again. sorry, other people. I like you too.
had my last therapy session yesterday morning. I ran out of things to say somewhere around when working from home started. self actualisation doesn’t feel very important at the moment: I mostly just think about food, work, and which bit of the flat might need cleaning next, and how many days it’s been since I’ve gone out and whether I should do that soon. maybe I’ll go back at some point, but for now, figuring things out about myself feels…unnecessary.
after I tweeted about the Gowlett, group chat midweek turned into “top 5 moments in the Gowlett”. special shout outs for all the quick pints that turned into not going to yoga / spin / the gym, for all the “one for the road” on the way home from elsewhere that turned into three, for all the pints on heads photos from five years ago, for all the quick pints that turned into a full evening complete with pizza, for that first time after it reopened and was only taking cash, for all the birthday parties, for our first date nearly 5 years ago. yeah, I miss the pub.
I was very, very into Barking by Ramz when it came out. have been slowly doing a rewrite, spurred by replacing “AJT” with “OGDs”, which is the shorthand for ‘other government departments’ that seems to get used everywhere. I’ve got this far: “just like OGDs, no wonder they hate on me, cos I’m making Ps [pixels] and you see this code, yeah I ship it for free”. the million dollar question is what to replace the word 'Barking’ with. yeah, I’m good, busy, how about you?
enjoyed the occasional chat this week about what’s “right” with regards to the acquisition of stuff. all kinds of stuff. food. other stuff. this article in the New York Times ends with the line “Sometimes a fleece is only a fleece. And sometimes it can be a creative rescue line, and a bet on the future.” but do I want all those warehouse workers and delivery drivers being out in the world or would I rather they stayed at home? and is it alright that I’m having what a friend called ‘the boujiest pandemic’ by mostly doing Natoora orders and occasionally visiting Jones of Brockley for bread and radicchio? in my head I’m keeping supermarkets free for people who need them, and supporting smaller suppliers. in reality, maybe I just really like expensive rhubarb and Neal’s Yard cheese.
most of the ads I get on Instagram now are for fruit and veg wholesalers who have become retailers. the algorithm knows.
accompanied C on her ride to the hospital this morning then rode back home before starting work. really not sure why we’ve allowed construction workers to still be out there, cos no one’s keeping 2m apart. roads are decently quiet!
work has been less intense this week and there were points that I felt like I was designing something in a vacuum, a little blind of policy intent, user need or GOV.UK’s position in the wider ecosystem. that’s a potential problem with working at this kind of pace and with this much going on. I was happy to end the week with a thumbs up on the work and I think we’ve now got a way forward, so I’m expecting to be shipping a second thing in 4 weeks next week. I am enjoying being close to shipping products and services again: very much my comfort zone, even on a national government website in a crisis.
I took my Surly Straggler frame and wheels to Brixton Cycles a while ago and sat with Lincoln there to order all the other bits. on Saturday last week it was ready to go! so we used our government mandated walk to go there and pick it up. it is a nice bike. I am very, very happy with it.
in a mad good mood today for some reason. probably the hour’s ride first thing. maybe the work. maybe the beer delivery from waterintobeer (thanks Tim, thanks Helen!). maybe just getting used to the indoor life. just a strange feeling of contentment. weird.
another mad work week. worked through the weekend prototyping a new form which went live on GOV.UK today.
Stephen was out for a few days earlier in the week so I covered him and pretended to be the head of design for GOV.UK. nothing broke, though that’s almost all credit to the brilliance of the design team who amongst them picked up on the businesses offering support work, switched focus to some other work at the drop of a hat, and calmly updated the landing page while politics swirled around us. Ignacia, Mia, Kate, Conor, Jeremy, Joe, Tim, Stephen: can’t think of anyone I’d rather design through a crisis with than all of you!
I’ve always thought the Design System was cool, but don’t usually come into contact with it in the course of my work. using it in anger made me appreciate it even more.
Conor suggested at one point this week that we’d shipped more in the past two weeks than some people do in a year. no slight on those other people, but he’s not wrong: we have shipped a lot.
woke up exhausted on Tuesday morning and took the afternoon off. definitely went too hard at it: by Sunday night / Monday morning I’d got into the mindset that “well, there’s nothing else to do I might as well be working”. and by Monday afternoon I was definitely not on my game: switched on my product manager muscles when I should’ve let someone else do their own job. Tuesday afternoon was just enough of a reset to get me through till today. I’m not going to make that mistake again.
due to minor cough last week, we’ve been indoors for our respective 7 days. C went back to hospital work yesterday. it was meant to be her first full time week of health research. instead, she’s being redeployed back onto the wards. felt a bit sick after closing the door after her yesterday morning. I’m trying not to be bitter about it, but last night with the NHS clap I thought, yeah, remember your clapping next time you go outside for an unnecessary reason.
complaining much less about my back since we started a Yoga With Adriene 30 day challenge.
I went for my first walk of a week just now, just to the park. stayed off the paths and on the grass and well clear of everything. feels well apocalyptic out there with this kind of zombie avoidance stuff; I think I might prefer staying indoors.
started Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, but found it really hard to read it without wondering when the pandemic was going to arrive in the plot.
a family member of a friend in Italy died this week. Bergamo is the worst hit city in Italy so I guess that was likely to happen. but still some deep sadness these past couple of days. it is senseless. please just stay indoors. I’m re-orienting my mind from thinking “it’s just the corner shop to get some biscuits” to “are biscuits essential?”. and of course the answer is no, they are not.
have taken this afternoon off too: went for a walk, cleaned the floors, and dusted off my record player. picked out My Favourite Things by John Coltrane to play loudly. little things.