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?