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Weeknotes 26 June 2023
Trying something new this week. Inspired by Phil Gyford's weeknotes, I'm writing some of my own. I got into a good swing of monthnotes last year, but for some reason I've found it hard to build a rhythm in 2023. It feels like each month is too jam-packed with stuff to write about, and so inevitably I waffle and procrastinate until we're two weeks into the following month and the previous has been all but forgotten.
So I'm breaking it down into weeks. We'll see how I get on.
This week was quiet round our end, plenty of time spent with Ghyll in the evenings. We've had an uncommon run of nice weather—great big puffy clouds scattered across vivid blue skies and the thermometer hovering around twenty degrees—so I've taken Ghyll out for a few walks to a nearby field for a run around. He always comes back foaming at the mouth and panting his heart out. And then he sleeps well.
Ghyll's favourite spot's the beach along the North Sea, better even if he can find a dead crab to gnaw on Not to say that we haven't had a bit of rain, though—and all the attendant allergies rainy weather entails. I'm useless on the first (and sometimes second!) sunny day(s) after a spell of rain, wheezing continually into a soggy handkerchief and squinting at the computer screen through itchy eyes. When I try to explain this to people, I feel like I'm astrologising: "No, it was sunny yesterday, and then the rain fell last night, and we've had a bit of wind, and the moon's waning... atchoo." As much as the dust was annoying during a dry spell earlier in the summer, I think this is annoying me more. Good for the plants, though.
Sam prompted me late last week to start training in earnest for my triathlon at the end of July, so this was my first full week of Serious Training. You might say that's a bit late—and I would too!—but I have been doing sort of triathlon-adjacent running and cycling for the past few months now. I think I'm in decent shape. The training plan that Sam has subscribed me to has taken it out of me, though. Only got a single (blessed) day of rest this week; difficulty sleeping has not made it any easier. Here's hoping that it gets easier over the coming weeks; if not, well, pain is temporary etc etc.
Sam spent most of Friday cooking up some goodies (quiches, breads, rolls) to sell at the church fair that St. Luke’s held on Saturday afternoon. The baked goods sold well (thanks in small part to my own zealous cake-eating); Sam’s disappeared almost instantly. I’ve heard tell of people who come to the St. Luke’s fairs exclusively to pick up one of her famous quiches lorraine. It was nice to catch up with folks I hadn’t seen in a few months, too; though when asked how I’d been and what I’d been up to, I struggled to come up with an answer. I don’t want to be the kind of person whose go-to is “work has been busy,” but what have I been doing for the past few months? Going out for runs? I guess I cycled the C2C back in May—and we went to the States. I’ll lead with that next time.
Afterwards, I took my first open-water dip in the UK in the Hartlepool marina. I'd swum in lakes back in Canada before, but almost exclusively on calm days at the end of summer when the lake'd be nice and warm and the sun would heat the top 10 cm of water to bathtub temps. Nothing quite as choppy as the marina turned out to be in a high wind. About halfway across the channel between two docks, a group on a dinghy came sailing up to me and told me that I wasn't permitted to swim in the marina. Strava's Global Heatmap misleading me again!—oh well, I paddled over to one of the ladders and climbed out. I must have been a bit of a sight to the locals in the marinaside beer gardens: some soggy, bearded Canadian crawling up out of the waves and wandering off down the promenade. Defeated, I stripped out of my wetsuit and ran a contrite 6k down to Seaton Carew and back, making good time in defiance of Hartlepudlians giving me the ol' up-down-up in my skintight triathlon suit. A long shower and a couple beers in the evening put me back to rights.
I promise it was a lot wavier than it looks Woke up Sunday to a high wind, regretting a promise I made to a buddy of mine to head up to Newcastle for a bit of running. I struggled to get out of bed and strongly considered being an absolute flake, but with some effort managed to pull together my running gear. Then I grabbed my backpack, my boots, jacket, and helmet, because I was back out on the motorbike for a ride up to the Toon—that's right, I'm back on the YBR after my catastrophic encounter with a roundabout last November. It was easier than I remembered it being! I think that, in some lizard-brain-type way, I'm mentally readier for the speed and the full-body way that you operate a motorbike, after riding my bicycle so far over the wintertime. Bombing down Bargate Bank into Lanchester going 65 kph in the slipstream of some Vauxhall Insignia with nothing but a juddering steel frame under you really girds the loins, it turns out.
Anyway, my friend in Newcastle talked me into an impromptu half-marathon through Gosforth and Heaton and back across the Town Moor, under a sky threatening at times both sunburn and a solid soaking. We did a good job of keeping a steady pace, and Strava reckons that I broke my PB in the half-marathon. Given that we didn't get rained on in the end, I reckon that's a decent result. I never thought I'd be the sort of person able to wake up early and knock out a half-marathon and then get on with the rest of my day, but here I am. Quietly proud of myself.
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2023
April 2023
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April 2023
30Getting back into it.
March 2023
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March 2023
31A long month of nothing, waiting for my hand to fix itself.
January 2023
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January 2023
31Got a bit of momentum behind us on what feels like the darkest month of the year, astronomy be damned.
2022
November 2022
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November 2022
30A show in Manchester, a couple of walks, a motorbike accident, a new bicycle, and a whole lotta stumbling around in the dark.
October 2022
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October 2022
31That's October done and dusted. A bit of general upheaval but we all made it through in one piece. I went to a conference!
September 2022
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September 2022
30The weather's finally turned, so I've got to choose my days out strategically or spend the next 5 months soaked through.
August 2022
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July 2022
2July was exhausting and overwhelming—from weather to life events to sheer lack of sleep—and I’m glad that it’s over.
July 2022
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June 2022
1A full month: catching COVID, going to Riga, getting back out on my bike, & thinking long & hard about what I want to do next.
June 2022
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May 2022
1Busy month: lots of long weekends, lots of driving, sun's back out, bring on the summer already.
May 2022
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April 2022
1April 2022 was a busy one: plenty done online and plenty done outdoors. Now if they could all be quite this way, I'd be well pleased.
April 2022
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March 2022
5March was a difficult month, and I'm glad to put it behind me.
March 2022
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February 2022
11Monthnotes from February 2022.
2021
April 2021
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March 2021
4What I got up to in March 2021.
March 2021
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February 2021
6What I got up to in February 2021.
January 2021
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Recently: January
31What I want for the blog; thoughts on template builders; Cassie Evans on SVG animations; Supabase.
2020
December 2020
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Recently: early December
8Bandcamp, RSS, and the Cleveland Way
September 2020
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Recently: Early September
16The web isn't about me, Umami.is, application holotypes, and utility programs
August 2020
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Recently: mid-August
27What I got up to mid-August 2020.
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Recently: early August
14What I got up to in early August 2020
2019
August 2019
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Week of 22 July
8Algebraic effects, memoisation, and running a mile because GQ told me to.
July 2019
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Week of 15 July
25A bunch of musing on the screen and the job as defining us as people.
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Week of 8 July
18Canadian brand guidelines, error-resistant React apps, and a model of the Roman world.