Week 19

🤷‍♂️ Life

• My sister would’ve been 45 on Tuesday. A reflective day but on the whole not too bad. Finally making my peace with her death? I hope so.
• Took myself for a wee bike ride on Wednesday before picking Jack up from nursery (on his bike). Nice just to have a wee pootle around the town on two wheels. Need to get my road bike ready and plan some actual rides!
• Speaking of bikes, we took Jack to Decathlon today to get an upgrade! His current bike is getting too small (already). Now on 16” wheels and noticeably looks more comfortable and confident on it.
• Meditated a few times this past week, a practice that I know does my brain good but which I’ve fallen away from completely these past few years, trying to build the habit, which means carving out time in my day. It’s only 10 mins after all.
• Booked a ticket for Pitchblack Playback in the Planetarium, they are going to be playing Radiohead’s Amnesiac to mark the 25th anniversary of its release. Eye mask, complete darkness and “Played loud in uncompressed audio through our powerful wrap-around sound system” I’m expecting it to be an interesting experience.
• Took an hour to clean/tidy my office —our spare room— and managed to make space to get my piano set up. Now to find time to play it occasionally, I’m keen for Jack to see and hear me play it in the hope it piques his interest in learning too.
• Spent some time fixing a broken outlet pipe on our motorhome ahead of our holiday next week!

📚 Read

• Flashlight by Susan Choi – an intriguing exploration of a family, of loss, and of the many day to day aspects of humanity, all handle with deft and a wonderful turn of language. A joy to read. Sad when it ended.
• Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie – always a fun read when Poirot is involved. It always strikes me modern Christie books can seem, whilst simultaneously being very of a time, language included.

📰 Considered

• “The autocorrect battle of wills” – Unsung — Have to agree, the myriad of little bugs that aren’t big enough to warrant delving into at the time, yet continue to annoy… seems to building across Apple OSes?
• Outrage is letting someone else set the frame — “There is nothing neutral about the feed.” a great article (as ever) that highlights the way algorithms drive our emotions in increasingly negative ways.
• Why you’re more likely to buy something for $4.99 than $5.00 — Logically I know what charm pricing is, yet it still affects me. Brains are weird.
• David Attenborough and the Voice That Revealed a Planet – The Ringer — A national treasure who remains as important now as he did when he was the ‘voice of nature’ for us all.
• The Best Music of 2026 So Far | Pitchfork — I find Pitchfork reasonably reliable if a little too skewed to Rap. Worth a look.
• The Science Behind Honey’s Eternal Shelf Life — I LOVE honey.
• I’ve found just the right paper for my Bottom Hole problem – Terence Eden’s Blog — This is why I love the internet. Sleuthing trivial items, from one of my favourite TV comedies.
• Rachel Entrekin becomes first woman to win Cocodona 250 ultramarathon – and pets dogs along the way | Sport | The Guardian — Amazing!!
• “This was a user-friendly computer.” – Unsung — For the love of actual buttons.
• Forrest — Stats — Lovely looking running tracker app, who needs Strava?!
• I Bought Friendster for $30k — Here’s What I’m Doing With It | by Mike Carson | Apr, 2026 | Medium — But can I get my old account back too??
• taken. — Since You Arrived Vol. IV — A small lesson in remembering that YOU are the product and it’s easy to get basic info.
• Feeling anxious? Then try going for a walk in the woods – Positive News — I forget that not everyone does this already. Go outside in nature, it’s the best!
• 15 of the best quotes from Sir David Attenborough – Positive News — No comment needed.

📺 Watched

• Your Friends and Neighbours Season 2– enjoying this a lot. Well paced, nicely crafted, some great performances too. Veers from light to dark quickly at times, but remains very watchable.
• Making Life on Earth– Sir David Attenborough celebrated his 100th birthday, and this documentary takes me back to what was MUST WATCH TV at the time (with only 3 channels to choose from mind you).

🎧 Listened

• Asleep in the back by Elbow – 25 years since they first arrived and I’ve loved them ever since.
• Sigils for Survival by Octo Octa – house influenced dance music?! Yes please!

🫀 Health

Back with the Bend app to work on my mobility. Definitely helps, but need to make a proper part of my routine. Same with meditation, I feel the benefit, why do I end up stopping? “Not enough time” is my excuse which, frankly, isn’t good enough!

• Current Weight: 113.2kg . Tiny down from last week.
• Avg. Sleep: 7h 17mins. About the same as last week.

🧑‍💻 Tech

• More noodling with AI, building my own little ‘post to WordPress’ app which is a fun way to learn as I’m trying to do the code and only use AI to help me fix issues. Vibe coding adjacent?

💻 Site Notes

• More little tweaks, now every post has a section after the post which includes links to three more posts from the same category. I used AI to help me code a simple custom WordPress plugin to make it happen.
• Also sorted the Mobile version as the ‘burger’ navigation wasn’t collapsing properly. All fixed now.

🗓️ Next Week

• On Tuesday evening we head north, stopping for a night near my brother-in-law before we convoy up to Gairloch for a few nights, then stop off at Glencoe for a few more nights before heading home at the end of next week. No WeekNotes next week!