dmc

04.06 – 04.12

2026-04-15T10:41:40Z

Life

I continue to find Ηη’s moods completely unplayable. And my behaviour in the aftermath of a combination of his outbursts is never anything that I’m particularly proud of.

Σσ floated the option of me heading back to London with her to get the flat prepped for the renovation, leaving Jim and Ange to deal with the kids for a few days. I feel slightly guilty about it, but not so much that I didn’t grasp the opportunity with both hands.

Σσ drove the two of us back to London with Ηη and Αα only slightly too happy to see the back of us. We can only assume non-stop pancakes, marshmallows, unfettered access to brain-rot telly and refined sugar ensued, but a small price to pay for some long-overdue childcare.

Me and Σσ went out for a meal in the evening sun on Blackstock Road and just about managed to find conversation topics beyond, ‘what do you think the kids are doing now?’.

I spent a blissful few days alone in the flat, moving all of our furniture into the spare room in a game of 3D Tetris, while blasting through the first two seasons of Welcome to Wrexham.

I resisted the not insubstantial temptation to spend an afternoon in one of the many pubs’ gardens that I walked by in the mid-20s London sunshine.

Then I started missing the fam a lot and was delighted to be reunited with them on Saturday.

Reading

Flesh by David Szalay (hard recommend)

Running

I wasn’t quite emotionally prepared for another tempo run on the Tuesday – I kind of assumed I was in full taper mode after last Sunday and it almost broke me. I thought I’d be very happy with the taper, but now it’s here (as I have since come to understand is very common), I’m finding the whole thing stressful. My legs feel heavy, I’m convinced I’m getting ill, and I’m petrified that I’m losing fitness. Classic ‘maranoia’, or (my new favourite), ‘taper tantrums’. Apparently I have to trust the process and everything will fall into place on race day. All that remains is for me to check the long-range forecast for Manchester about once every three minutes.

Tuesday: Tempo – 9.36mi at 6:31/mi
Wednesday: Easy 45' – 5.30mi at 8:52/mi
Thursday: Tempo – 6.10mi at 6:53/mi
Saturday: Steady 45' – 8.20mi at 6:47/mi
Sunday: Heathside LSR – 13.13mi at 8:12/mi

03.30 – 04.05

2026-04-15T10:50:16Z

Life

We drove to Beverley on Monday.’Nobody puked’ is the most positive spin you could put on the journey.

I was working for most of the week. I don’t think I was on particularly good form but don’t think I broke anything either, so call it a draw.

I finished a shade early on Thursday and made a dash for the seaside where we enjoyed chips, ocean spray, and an extremely bracing walk in the early stages of Storm Dave.

The Lees arrived back from their holiday on Friday and the cousins commenced their long-awaited and much-anticipated bollocking-about festival. This situation continued, punctuated by every shade of all available emotions over the course of the Easter weekend. The kids mostly managed to be happy with each other. Ηη leant (even) more into his melodramatic self, which mostly had the effect of winding me up and making me ignore him in order to avoid shouting at him. I don’t think either of us came out particularly well (I probably shouldn’t have described him as a ‘wanker’ to Σσ’s parents). I found myself really wishing he could be a bit more like Αα on more than one occasion. But then he wouldn’t be him.

I’d forgotten that Easter in Beverley means enduring the Classic FM Hall of Fame top 300 – the world’s most pointless music chart (it’s basically always the same so you might as well have an annual competition to choose your favourite Latin word) interspersed with ads for supermarkets. I have a strong dislike for all of it.

It is never anything short of excellent being looked after by Jim and Ange. Even though the kids’ sleeping patterns/arrangements are more messed up than usual, I’m still considerably better rested than when we arrived.

Reading

On the Calculation of Volume II by Solvej Balle

Running

The 10 x 800 was among the worst sessions I think I’ve ever endured. It’s apparently taken me training for a flat marathon to make me appreciate that Beverley isn’t nearly as flat as I’d previously accused it of being. Got the final 20-miler done on Sunday and felt a profound satisfaction and lightness having made it all the way to the taper. It’s mine to lose from here.

Monday: Easy 30' – 3.75mi at 8:16/mi
Tuesday: Tempo – 10.14mi at 6:41/mi
Wednesday: Easy 95' – 10.81mi at 8:55/mi
Thursday: Track? – 9.16mi at 7:16/mi
Saturday: Tempo – 7.44mi at 7:01/mi
Sunday: LSR – 20.03mi at 6:54/mi

03.23 – 03.29

2026-04-03T07:59:30Z

Life

It was a firebreak week at work which meant I got to try out the css anchor positioning module and the popover api in an attempt to rid ourselves of PopperJS. I think it will ultimately prove to be the right decision, and I also think I’m going to regret it because of all the niche hot-off-the-press bugs which, crucially, Claude has no idea how to address. It’s probably good to have had to use my own brain to solve some coding problems instead of telling a robot to do it (and slightly alarming how alien it feels already).

Easter holidays kicked off on Friday afternoon. We’ve had the (now standard) several rounds of stress about whether everyone is healthy enough to visit Aila in Scotland and concluded that we’re not, so we opted to stick around in London for the weekend and crammed in a pub lunch with Si and Lou on the Sunday. We managed to loosely recreate the magic of the craft table by bringing a heap of scrap paper, pens, and scissors. Remarkably we lasted the duration without recourse to the iPad and everyone mostly stayed in a good mood. Even the questionably-sensible third pint didn’t turn out to have been a massive error.

Running

Probably(/hopefully) the hardest week of the lot. It wasn’t pretty but I got it all done. Niggles persist but no new things to worry about at least.

Monday: Easy 40' – 4.76mi at 8:19/mi
Tuesday: Heathside tempo – 7.85mi at 6:15/mi
Wednesday: Steady 80' – 11.46mi at 6:57/mi
Thursday: Tempo – 12.37mi at 6:47/mi
Saturday: Gerschler fartlek – 8.89mi at 7:15/mi
Sunday: Heathside LSR – 22.60mi at 7:17/mi

03.16 – 03.22

2026-03-28T14:45:59Z

Life

Σσ went to Paris for a family ladies weekend jolly leaving me having to fork out for a childminder in order to go for a long run – the most expensive run I’ve ever been on. The kids were pretty good for me in the main though, even given they couldn’t hide the fact they’d have far rather it was me that had fucked off for the weekend.

We went to Heather’s birthday party at an adventure playground. The sun shone and apart from Ηη’s inevitable pant-shitting it was a smash hit.

Arsenal lost to Man City in a cup final on Sunday evening. Ηη witnessed it unfold on telly and we spent the rest of the evening helping him navigate his very strong emotions about it. It was probably good for him to get used to the idea that his team (that he has hitherto believed to be invincible) isn’t always going to win. Quite hard to witness though.

Running

I ran the long run solo in order to get out while the childminder was round. As a result it was faster than it probably should have been, but I think it was fractionally easier going than the previous one. Plantar fascia is just about holding up. I’m at the point where time is measured solely in terms of long runs and tempo sessions till the marathon. I’m even less fun to be around than usual.

Monday: Easy 40' – 4.45mi at 8:58/mi
Tuesday: Heathside track – 5.25mi at 6:47/mi
Wednesday: Easy 90' – 11.69mi at 8:48/mi
Thursday: Tempo – 9.45mi at 6:41/mi
Friday: Steady 60' – 8.78mi at 6:51/mi
Sunday: LSR – 22.00mi at 6:57/mi

03.09 – 03.15

2026-03-23T07:33:34Z

Life

I went to Brighton for Web Day Out which was excellent. There’s lots of new web platform toys to play with.

We went to Rawi’s party at the Britannia leisure centre indoor splashpad which I wasn’t mentally prepared for and at which (upon discovering we were going) I fully expected to have an awful time. As it was it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d feared. And a bit of a reminder that we probably should try a bit harder to force Ηη to do a few more swimming lessons because even though he claims not to enjoy it, he has the best time once he’s there (and it would be nice not to spend the whole time worrying that he’s going to drown on holiday).

Reading

On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle

Running

The niggling pain in my plantar fascia has been a consistent worry, but I’m taking comfort from the fact that all my previous niggles have given up alerting me to the fact that I might be injured after a few weeks. I’m hoping that will happen here too. Finishing the long run with marathon-pace miles was pretty rough but I got it done. There’s only one slightly less pleasant run to endure in the training block and I’m starting to believe that I can get it all done now.

Monday: Easy 40' – 5.64mi at 8:01/mi
Tuesday: Heathside track – 5.63mi at 5:34/mi
Wednesday: Easy/steady 95' – 12.46mi at 7:49/mi
Thursday: MP 60' – 11.10mi at 6:37/mi
Saturday: Steady 60' – 8.89mi at 6:49/mi
Sunday: Heathside LSR – 22.01mi at 7:13/mi

03.02 – 03.08

2026-03-14T08:33:43Z

Life

Had a party for Ηη in Finsbo at his request. Only a handful of his pals were able/could be bothered to come, but in truth that was probably for the best. We’ve long known he doesn’t deal particularly well with any form of organised fun (got me to thank for that) so a low key run around in the playground with a handful of his good friends was probably best for everyone. I think he seemed happy and well celebrated, especially since Jim and Ange had come to visit especially.

I’m not sure his birthday will ever stop being at least mildly re-traumatising. I kept finding myself staring into the middle distance and shuddering over the course of the weekend.

Having Jim and Ange around really helped take the load off a bit. We got a couple of long-overdue lie-ins and plenty of guilt-free exercise. They also add not inconsiderable amounts of friction in various other areas, but on balance it’s been lovely and the kids are going to be gutted when they leave.

Our solicitors (who may or may not exist) have failed to move anything forward for six weeks and when I wrote to the freeholder they told me the person in charge of our case from their side has been on holiday (presumably for ages so that they can spend their almost infinite funds accrued through mugs like me). So we’re not going to be able to start our work on time and have cancelled the rental.

But then my bro told us on Sunday that his tenant is moving out of his flat so it sounds like we might be able to stay there for the duration of the work instead. This will save us thousands of pounds as well as being a massive pain in the arse because it will probs take us the best part of an hour door to door to get the kids to/from school and nursery (in different directions). We definitely can’t afford to look the other way though. It. Will. Be. A. Fun. Adventure.

Running

I made the mistake of thinking I finished the week without anything being injured and almost immediately felt a twinge of plantar fasciitis. Oh the hubris. I clocked up 24 miles on Sunday which is the longest run at the end of the highest volume week. I foresee endless rolling my foot on a bottle of ice water in my future.

Monday: Easy 40' – 4.75mi at 8:15/mi
Tuesday: Heathside Tempo – 6.88mi at 6:15/mi
Wednesday: Easy 85' – 10.35mi at 8:26/mi
Thursday: Tempo – 10.24mi at 7:01/mi
Saturday: Steady 60' – 10.07mi at 6:50/mi
Sunday: Heathside LSR – 24.13mi at 7:40/mi

02.23 – 03.01

2026-03-04T16:40:37Z

Life

Ηη got what sounds like it’s probably croup on Friday. He was pretty scared. And to be fair it’s not like we weren’t not scared either – it sounded pretty horrific. Apparently getting stressed about it makes it worse, but there was no hope of us conveying that to him at 2am. Αα (not wanting to be upstaged) also started wailing and the only acceptable outcome to calm everyone down was for Σσ (also still quite unwell) to sleep on their floor. Things haven’t really improved since then and every night is a game of musical beds with various humans coughing in each other’s faces. Somehow I’ve managed to avoid getting fully dragged down, but it feels fairly inevitable.

I took Ηη to Rowan’s bowling alley for a party on Saturday (amazingly/fortunately my only visit in the decade we’ve lived in Finsbo). Early signs were that he was going to torpedo the joy out of it (as per), but ultimately he managed to have a largely nice time. I successfully evacuated him before he lost his mind in the hyper-stimulation of the flashing lights and farts of the arcade.

Sarah and her family came to visit on Sunday. They’re so good. I was worried that we hadn’t organised anything for the kids to do, but they all just got on bollocking about and having fun.

I got a pre-race buzz-cut at the barbers (after checking with Σσ that it would be ok). It’s a bit confrontational, and surprising quite how much colder everything feels, but I think I’m into it. Probably going to have to buy some clippers to keep it in check.

Solicitors continue to be a black box so we’re no closer to being allowed to start our building work. But the daffodils are out and the pigeons are getting it on. The weather is even threatening to be a bit nice from time to time. There is hope.

Reading

The New Rules of Marathon and Half-Marathon Nutrition by Matt Fitzgerald

Running

The assortment of family ailments and sleep deprivation couldn’t be characterised as particularly good preparation for a half marathon, so I set off for the Olympic Park on Sunday morning feeling a bit worse for wear and trying to keep my expectations low. I also had to remind myself that there’s every chance that it will be just as bad if not worse before the whole marathon, so I guess it’s all good training. My legs felt pretty rough from the off, but I realised that I wasn’t going into the red and I was maintaining the pace I was aiming for. It was windier and more undulating than I’d have liked, and the course was uninspiring so I was pretty chuffed with my new PB of 1:20:04.

This week’s running injury is a dodgy big toe on my left foot.

Monday: Easy 40' – 4.80mi at 8:49/mi
Tuesday: Heathside track – 5.41mi at 5:34/mi
Wednesday: Easy 60' – 7.72mi at 8:18/mi
Thursday: Easy/steady 40' – 6.06mi at 7:18/mi
Saturday: Easy 20’ – 2.52mi at 8:10/mi
Sunday: Olympic Park half – 13.36mi at 5:59/mi

02.16 – 02.22

2026-02-25T20:14:44Z

Life

Ηη went willingly once more to ‘Simon’s sports camp’ and came home each evening impressively exhausted.

Αα (and subsequently Σσ) got a cold and quality sleep is currently not an option for anyone. My sympathy well has almost run completely dry because I’m idiotically selfish – I just need everyone to stop coughing on me because of the ridiculous amount of running that needs to happen. I am at least trying to affect an air of being concerned and caring but I’m cursing any and all germ vectors internally.

We took Ηη and Αα to the aquarium with Naomi and her kids on Friday which was broadly great except for the wholly unnecessary and really quite depressing inclusion of penguins trapped in a basement with a weird giant picture of a snowy landscape behind them, like some sort of antarctic Truman Show. Obviously the kids started behaving like dicks towards the end, but taking the fact that they were in there for the best part of two hours into consideration, they did pretty well by their own standards.

Stress about the looming flat renovation continues to bubble away almost entirely unchecked. At least it gives me plenty to dwell on during the aforementioned sleepless nights.

I opened a PR against Zed in an effort to help colour-sight weaklings like myself.

We bumped into our next-door neighbour who’s just had a baby girl. Turns out she’s also called ‘Αα’ and has the same birthday as Αα. An elaborate long-con identity theft scheme perhaps.

Reading

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

Running

Running is awful, not running is awful, the only acceptable state is just having run

John Robbins (repurposing someone else’s quote about writing)

Three tempo sessions in the week and 23 miles on Sunday. I haven’t felt this broken for a while and even though it was all on the plan, I can’t help but feel like it was fractionally too much. My legs don’t feel like they’re going to be in any fit shape for a half marathon next Sunday (so I’ll try not to be too disheartened if the wheels fall off). Everyone insists that I have to trust the process, so trust the process I will.

Monday: Easy 35' – 4.31mi at 8:14/mi
Tuesday: Tempo – 9.76mi at 6:29/mi
Wednesday: Easy 75' – 9.78mi at 7:46/mi
Thursday: Mona Fartlek – 7.82mi at 7:46/mi
Saturday: Tempo – 10.47mi at 7:11/mi
Sunday: Heathside LSR – 23.00mi at 7:44/mi

02.09 – 02.15

2026-02-16T21:31:04Z

Life

We caught up with Si and Lou at the Great Northern Railway Tavern in Hornsey, a pub selected on the basis that it provides a free and staffed arts-and-crafts table for kids. It was a huge success – we managed to enjoy a leisurely meal and have a normal grown-up conversation while the kids bollocked about with pipe-cleaners and glue for 2+ hours.

We watched a reasonable amount of the olympics in the week. I’ve concluded that the admin required for almost all winter sports is too restrictive – I don’t think there’s anything you can do without access to facilities and/or kit. I find the idea of going to a swimming pool bad enough. I think I’d probably be quite up for cross-country skiing if I lived somewhere snowy. And I’m looking forward to finding out about the ski-mountaineering. I’m definitely more interested in the individual events where there’s an objective winner, and the possibility of getting olympic/world records. I like watching ice dancing, but I remain unconvinced that it needs to be judged – you don’t get that at the ballet. I also think that not enough of the population have tried any of the luge/bob/skeleton things for us to know that the winners really are the best – they’re just the best ones who’ve had access to an insane ice pipe. With running, at least you know that most people have had a go at it at one time or another.

Αα skipped her nap both days at the weekend and she largely ended up behaving like a happy drunk. It deffo made the evening a bit of a challenge but she was largely good natured when she wasn’t punching me in the face.

I spent my working week investigating how we might Shopify the shop, which mostly involved me asking Claude how we might Shopify the shop. My recommendation was to do it headless with the storefront API, but this was possibly quite heavily weighted by what I felt was going to be the most fun thing to develop. Sensible colleagues pointed out that as and when someone piles an unreasonable amount of tickets into our backlog and we no longer have capacity to maintain the shop, it would be a ball-ache to back out of, so the slightly less shiny but almost certainly more sensible Liquid template out-of-the-box-ish solution might be the way to go. I got to make a couple of prototypes though, which was fun.

Zed finally got side-by-side diff viewing. I can now wholeheartedly recommend it as an alternative to VS Code without being too embarrassed about its paucity of features.

Σσ’s work situation remains chronic.

We’ve got one month to find somewhere to rent because work is really actually going to start on our flat. Looking at the cost of renting a place close enough to Ηη’s school makes me feel slightly sick – another cost we hadn’t remotely factored in. Hopefully we’ll hear back from our (possibly AI) solicitor about whether or not we’ve been given a License to Alter the property before the builders start knocking walls down.

Running

Feeling pretty strong. On Saturday my heart was beating faster than it has in years. I think conventional logic says that if your heart is beating faster you should be feeling more knackered, but I often feel like I want it to beat faster when I’m working hard, but it doesn’t, and so I end up feeling knackered. I felt great on Saturday, presumably because my body was getting more oxygenated blood than it’s used to.

The relentless freezing rain on Sunday took the piss and I learned an important lesson about what happens when you forget to vaseline your nether-regions. Αα was also quite scared about my shouting in pain as my hands defrosted.

Monday: Easy 40' – 4.69mi at 8:36/mi
Tuesday: Heathside track – 5.57mi at 5:35/mi
Wednesday: Steady 60' – 9.01mi at 7:02/mi
Thursday: Tempo – 9.90mi at 7:15/mi
Saturday: MP 70' – 10.84mi at 6:28/mi
Sunday: LSR – 20.14mi at 7:31/mi

02.02 – 02.08

2026-02-15T20:43:14Z

Life

The highlight of the week was taking the kids to The Emirates to see Arsenal Women play Man City Women (Woman City?). Ηη announced that the pitch was “slightly smaller than the one I play on at school” and “there are about the same number of people here who watch me playing football at school” (c. 40,000) setting a new high bar for bullshit. Αα was really into it and fully engaged for the duration. Ηη enjoyed being with Heather and remarkably didn’t get too bored. I’d chained the buggy up to a gate outside the stadium before the game – it wasn’t there when we got back. Turns out they take security fairly seriously, and a helpful security guard pointed me in the direction of where it had been impounded. I suppose I should be grateful it wasn’t destroyed in a controlled explosion.

Running

Got another 20 miler done. Fairly sure my sore foot is extensor tendinitis which I’m (rightly or wrongly) less worried about than if it were a stress fracture.

Monday: Easy 40' – 4.77mi at 8:26/mi
Tuesday: Heathside tempo – 8.80mi at 7:24/mi
Wednesday: Easy 70' – 8.47mi at 8:23/mi
Thursday: Rollercoaster 40' – 8.28mi at 7:28/mi
Saturday: 10 x 1' hard, 1' easy – 8.94mi at 7:59/mi
Sunday: LSR – 20.09mi at 7:17/mi

01.26 – 02.01

2026-02-01T14:58:07Z

Life

I can’t believe my baby girl is three years old. And I can’t believe this is how old Ηη was when she was born. It’s all blowing my tiny mind.

Gabriella and her mamas came over from Spain for a short visit. I was working so they took Ηη out to the playground after school. I took his bag back home with me, but only then it occurred to me that I’d deprived them of his sadly-still-all-too-necessary spare pants. Of course he shat himself on their watch. It must have felt like they’d never been away. It doesn’t sound like they’re having a particularly brilliant time in Spain and it was all I could do not to beg them to come back. I think they recognise that it is still early days and things will hopefully get easier. I hope they do, but it made me realise that I miss them a lot. Ηη and Gabi seemed to pick straight back up where they’d left off which was really nice to see.

We went to Bev for Αα’s birthday weekend. It was an orgy of unicorns, baby dollies, pizza, and cake, all expertly orchestrated by Aunty Em. The party bag bar has been reset to an all-time high.

Ηη continues to find novel and diverse methods of bleeding the joy out of any situation, but when he wasn’t doing that the cousins had a blast.

The K & K situation continues to be an elephant in the room. And now Jim and Ange are spending less time in Scotland and increasing amounts of time in said room, I can’t help but feel like it’s only a matter of time before something blows up. I don’t want to be around when it does, but it definitely feels like a shake-up is necessary to move the plot forward.

Em and Tom seem fairly close to breaking point. Hopefully Jim and Ange being about a bit more will take some of the weight off.

We’d accidentally booked trains back to London for the wrong day and by the time we figured it out the only ones available on the right day were at fairly antisocial times for children that are usually in bed by 8. I’m publishing this before the journey, but I can only assume it’s going to be a nightmare.

Glad to have seen off January at last. A total arsehole of a month.

Running

Got it all done, including a very muddy 20-miler on Sunday – the first time I’ve gone that long in a couple of years I think, and I was reasonably ok by the end. My right foot continues to worry me a bit, but on the plus side I don’t think it has got any worse since last week.

Tuesday: Heathside tempo – 9.65mi at 7:44/mi
Wednesday: Easy 70' – 8.10mi at 8:37/mi
Thursday: Hills – 6.67mi at 8:10/mi
Saturday: Easy 60' – 6.20mi at 9:28/mi
Sunday: LSR – 20.25mi at 7:22/mi

01.19 – 01.25

2026-01-31T11:48:08Z

Life

We palmed the kids off on Jim and Ange for the weekend and hot-footed it up to Edinburgh for our first break without them since before Αα was born (nigh on three years ago).

It was so good. A hipster boutique-ish hotel, a meal out in town, a reasonable amount of boozing, a long run somewhere new, and Catriona’s 40th in the caves on the Saturday night in the company of all of our best pals. Perhaps the best bit was nobody whined at me about snacks or needed me to wipe their arse for a full 48 hours.

Obviously we missed the kids. But not so much that we didn’t opt to push back our return train once we’d got into the swing of being away.

Reading

Brotherless Night by V. V. Ganeshananathan

Running

I finished the week having run for eight days straight in order to accommodate both the trip and the training. I thought my legs would feel worse than they do tbh. The bursitis seems to have subsided but this week’s niggle is something back on the top of my right foot and/or ankle. More hours of obsessive icing and ibuprofen ahead.

Monday: Easy 45' – 5.56mi at 8:45/mi
Tuesday: Heathside tempo – 6.38mi at 6:33/mi
Wednesday: Easy 55' – 6.74mi at 8:25/mi
Thursday: Steady 50' – 9.15mi at 7:19/mi
Friday: Tempo – 7.23mi at 6:46/mi
Saturday: LSR – 18.67mi at 7:42/mi

01.12 – 01.18

2026-01-23T14:47:57Z

Life

Ηη’s continued inability to understand when he needs the toilet is now apparently interfering with his school life. It would make it easier if he didn’t immediately shut down any time we tried to talk to him about it.

Σσ shut down some faintly racist chat in the school parents WhatsApp. She never fails to impress me by how she can stay true to her principles while avoiding getting into shit-slinging matches.

Fairly uneventful otherwise.

Reading

The Rainfall Market by You Yeong-Gwang

Running

My Manchester Marathon training plan started. For the first few weeks it seems like it isn’t going to be too different from what I’ve been doing recently. I am (slightly worryingly) already a bit sick of running though.

Monday: Easy 40' – 5.03mi at 9:20/mi
Tuesday: Heathside track – 4.78mi at 5:23/mi
Wednesday: Easy 50' – 6.65mi at 7:54/mi
Thursday: Hills 50' – 10.00mi at 7:43/mi
Saturday: Tempo – 8.79mi at 7:02/mi
Sunday: Heathside LSR – 17.01mi at 7:26/mi

01.05 – 01.11

2026-01-13T16:19:16Z

Life

We dragged the Christmas tree out and seemingly wound up with more pine needles on the floor than were ever on its branches. Two hoover bags full sealed the decision to plump for a fake tree next year.

I survived the day-long quarterly planning meeting at work and got back into the swing of telling Claude what to do then getting increasingly frustrated with Claude for fucking it up while being infuriatingly chipper.

We welcomed Boots the largely black cat into our home on Thursday. She’s staying with us until we get our flat renovated or the Robinsons move out of their temporary accommodation – whichever comes first. Ηη was hugely against the idea of having a cat in the house in theory, but seems to be quite happy with the situation in practice. Αα thinks she’s got a new sister and spends her time terrorising it. Fortunately she’s quite old, very low maintenance, and largely keeps to herself. I get the strong impression the kids will start agitating for a cat when she has to leave (and I guess I might too). It’s comforting having another soul padding about the place. And I haven’t seen a mouse for days.

I went to the doc because of a back pain that previously transpired to have been the result of a chest infection. She confirmed that my old pal crackle-on-the-left-lung is in town so I’m back on the antibiotics. There’s every chance it’s also common or garden back muscle pain too so I’ve ponied up for a massage gun. I’m envisaging (and am slightly excited about) hours of post-run masochism ahead.

This site

Wrote a markdown-it plugin to strip out iA Writer authorship annotations

function stripIAWriterAnnotations(md) {
  const defaultRender = md.render.bind(md);

  md.render = function(src, env) {
    // Remove iA Writer annotation blocks
    // Pattern matches from "---\nAnnotations:" until "..." on its own line
    const stripped = src.replace(/^---\s*\nAnnotations:[\s\S]*?^\.\.\.$/m, '');
    return defaultRender(stripped, env);
  };
}

Reading

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

Running

Next thing to worry about: bursitis.

Monday: Easy 30' – 3.20mi at 9:19/mi
Monday: Easy 30' – 3.10mi at 9:31/mi
Tuesday: Wot no track – 8.78mi at 6:23/mi
Wednesday: Easy 40' – 4.53mi at 9:05/mi
Thursday: Steady 50' – 8.81mi at 7:02/mi
Saturday: Finsbo parkrun – 6.83mi at 7:25/mi
Sunday: Heathside LSR – 17.94mi at 7:41/mi

12.29 – 01.04

2026-01-06T10:09:07Z

Life

Ηη continued to turn triumph into disaster at every available opportunity. We really shouldn’t have bothered with the second ice skating trip (although everyone enjoyed a trip on the W3 bus to Ally Pally at least).

We went trampolining on New Year’s Eve and Ηη managed to do his ankle in within minutes of arriving. Because he will never shy away from any available drama we felt compelled to take him to A&E where we waited for five hours for an x-ray. I then felt very guilty when the doc said she’d got a second opinion and that he’d maybe fractured a metatarsal and they’d have to put him in a cast – maybe I should have shown a bit more compassion.

I got him home in time to see Si and Lou who’d come round to ply us with food and booze for Hogmanay. It was a nice evening but I don’t think I brought much more than stress and trauma-induced speed-drinking to the party.

Two days later the fracture clinic called to say that it wasn’t broken and we could take the cast off which was both a relief and vindication for having felt like Ηη was overdoing it. On the plus side, we don’t have to have him cooped up for six weeks. On the minus side we have to continue to take him to parkrun and swimming.

The whole ordeal has seemed to turn him into an entirely different person – he’s gone from being a massive pain in the bum to complete sweetness and light. If and when he starts acting up again I’ll know to inflict another minor foot injury.

Endured Tam’s 4th birthday party at soft play on Sunday and started to dread the return to work.

Reading

Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet

Running

I felt pretty awful on New Year’s Day but surprised myself with a tempo pyramid around Emirates stadium. Happy with my new shoes. Felt a bit light-headed for a second on my Sunday long run – I think I was maybe overdoing it/under-fuelled. I’ve ordered some gels to try in training so hopefully that’ll be less likely to happen in future.

Monday: Easy 40' – 4.79mi at 8:20/mi
Tuesday: Hills – 6.17mi at 7:51/mi
Wednesday: Easy 35' – 4.84mi at 7:36/mi
Thursday: Tempo pyramid – 9.05mi at 6:21/mi
Saturday: Finsbo parkrun – 6.86mi at 7:37/mi
Sunday: Junior parkrun – 1.27mi at 12:12/mi
Sunday: LSR – 17.17mi at 7:21/mi

12.22 – 12.28

2025-12-30T07:49:32Z

Life

We took the kids to Skate at Somerset House at 9am on Tuesday. Thank god for the plastic zimmer frames they give you to try and keep kids upright. A casual observer would have had a hard time discerning if anyone in our party was having fun at any point, but after the fact both Ηη and Αα have declared that they had fun and are keen to do more of the same. So we may need to remortgage (although it looks like there’s a more sensibly priced option at Ally Pally so maybe we’ll try that if there’s a next time).

We also managed a jaunt along the Southbank and a spin on the carousel which was mostly fun in spite of the fact that Ηη seems to be doing all he can to ruin pretty much everything we try to do to make him happy.

We had a very enjoyable lunch at Pappagone’s on Stroud Green Road with Si and Lou on Christmas Eve.

There are very few levers you have as a parent, but Santa is undeniably an effective one, and we weaponised him to the last, assuring the kids that we were both willing and able to call him at any moment if they didn’t stop behaving like pricks/go to bed/tidy their room/etc.

He did come in the end, and the kids seemed to be reasonably happy with their not inconsiderable spoils. But Ηη was (hilariously) an order of magnitude happier with the box for a pair of running shoes I’d bought for myself than anything else he’d acquired.

Nobody had a proper meltdown, I think we ate and drank only very marginally (I’d argue just the right amount) to excess, the kids were broadly happy, went to bed on time, and stayed asleep for far longer than we could have hoped for. Christmas was a resounding success.

Σσ knocked it out of the park with a butternut squash and mushroom wellington that was somehow even better on day two.

I think the remainder of the week was spent building Lego, playing top trumps and eating chocolates.

This site

I finally figured out how to get the week’s running activities from the Strava API rather than entering them manually. Claude helped me with the OAuth, caching, and tidy-up of the existing entries. I think it should also be working in RSS, but this post will be the acid test.

Reading

His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet – heard the author on World Book Club which seems like a rich vein of worthwhile reading material. This was excellent.

Running

There were almost as many timekeepers as runners at the Tuesday Heathside session and I spent most of the time at the front of group two. This almost entirely negated any of the benefit I get from attending track – the main draw is the subconscious urge to try and keep up with the legs in front and if there aren’t any legs to chase it’s just hard and monotonous. If I started to feel faintly optimistic about the fact I was at the front, I’d get overtaken by the runners in group one.

Monday: Easy 40' – 4.52mi at 9:01/mi
Tuesday: Heathside track – 4.23mi at 5:39/mi
Thursday: Preemptive binge offset – 10.14mi at 7:05/mi
Saturday: Finsbo parkrun + parkland – 8.13mi at 7:47/mi
Sunday: Heathside LSR – 18.44mi at 7:58/mi

12.15 – 12.21

2025-12-24T12:50:56Z

Life

We went to see Ηη absolutely smash his role as Charles Dickens in an abridged (but not nearly abridged enough) version of A Christmas Carol. We even managed to sneak in Jim and Ange which was lovely for all involved. Two hours of primary school Christmas show is a serious endurance event though.

We rode out the next couple of days slightly depressed with the fact Jim and Ange had gone.

Thursday I had to bust the kids out of nursery and school in a downpour in order to take them to Downing Street for an event for Σσ’s work. Ηη managed to have three bush wees on the way (including one in a bin on the tube) but against the odds we arrived in unsoiled (if completely sodden) clothes.

I felt like quite an imposter in Number 10 but I was largely there in a kid-wrangling capacity and was spared the majority of the hob-nobbing. Obviously the kids couldn’t appreciate how unusual a trip to hang out with the PM was, but I think they recognised that it was a bit different. It’ll be something to look back on as something that was slightly mad.

We went on an elf hunt with the Popes on Saturday then took the train to see Rich, Leanne and Dave in Kettering. We had a little party for Leanne’s 60th. I can’t believe my big sis is 60.

Running

I did a 10 x 800 session averaging 2:45 per rep which if you believe Yasso means I should be on for a 2:45 marathon. I don’t think that’s close to being true but I was happy with the session nonetheless.

I’ve entered the Olympic Park half marathon in March which looks pretty dull, but at least I don’t have to venture too far from my front door.

Monday: Easy 40' – 4.78mi at 8:27/mi
Tuesday: Heathside track – 5.43mi at 5:24/mi
Wednesday: Easy 40' – 4.51mi at 8:31/mi
Thursday: Hills – 8.16mi at 8:08/mi
Saturday: Ally Pally sunny risey – 8.48mi at 7:39/mi
Sunday: LSR – 10.82mi at 7:28/mi

12.08 – 12.14

2025-12-15T21:01:27Z

Life

The ever-tenacious Andy P brought the ex-Friday team together for our annual night out in Farringdon (not a particularly convenient location for anyone, it turns out). Four years on from its inauguration we were back in The Slaughtered Lamb discussing the same old AI nonsense. I got the impression I felt the most threatened by our future metal overlords and everyone else thinks the promise of AI is overstated. I should try to be comforted by that since I rate the other Fridayers’ tech skills well above my own so hopefully they know best. It was great to see everyone. Sad that Fionnbharra couldn’t make it.

Me and Σσ had Tuesday off and remarkably neither child managed to ruin it by being sick. We went for a leisurely breakfast, paid lip-service to the idea of doing something cultural in town, then promptly went back to bed till pick-up time. Most relaxed and refreshed I’ve felt in a very long time.

We got a Christmas tree that’s already showing signs of quite dramatic needle shedding. There’s a good chance it’ll be bald by the 25th. Maybe next year we’ll stop contributing to the inescapably problematic deforestation situation.

Baba and Gangan came to visit on Thursday and the kids have been over the moon. B & G obviously can’t stop thinking (or talking) about Aila. I don’t think it’s going to be easy for them to extricate themselves from the situation when the time comes for Johnny and Dani to go it alone.

We all went out to King’s Cross to look at the lights and eat churros. Ηη threatened to be a total prick but ultimately sorted his act out. Churros with Nutella was a hit.

Ηη got a new pb at Junior parkrun. He was brimming with pride as G & B cheered him on.

I survived a soft play birthday party with Ηη on Sunday afternoon. I have vociferously nominated Σσ to take the hit on the next party.

We closed out the week with a full family nit wash which is always a sure-fire way to ensure there isn’t a shred of goodwill to be found anywhere in the flat. I think Jim and Ange were impressed with the various levels of melting down on display.

The current phase of design system noodling at work is almost complete. I couldn’t have done it without Chromatic and Claude (even though he wasn’t as good at doing it right first time as I’d have liked). And yet here I am bemoaning the ubiquitous onslaught of AI, eh?

Reading

Nutrition for Marathon Running by Jane Griffin – hope you like carbs.

Running

Nearly puked after track on Tuesday. Not sure if that should be taken as evidence of a ‘good’ session or not. I was definitely glad it was over. Then I equalled my Finsbo parkrun pb on Saturday, and Strava even has me going sub 18 minutes for 5k which I think I’ll claim. Ended the week entirely pain free which feels like a small miracle, and my hopes for sub-3 are alive once more.

Monday: Easy 35' – 4.28mi at 8:31/mi
Tuesday: Heathside track – 4.75mi at 6:16/mi
Wednesday: Easy 40' – 4.77mi at 8:34/mi
Thursday: Hills – 6.66mi at 7:49/mi
Saturday: Finsbo parkrun – 6.75mi at 7:43/mi
Sunday: Junior parkrun – 1.24mi at 10:35/mi
Sunday: LSR – 12.88mi at 6:59/mi

12.01 – 12.07

2025-12-15T21:01:27Z

Life

I felt a bit rough. Probably got a bit of whatever Αα has. We took her to the doc again and the conclusion is that she just has a cough and a sore throat. Hopefully that is true (although she wasn’t happy that she wouldn’t be getting any medicine).

I bought the kids what I thought were chocolate advent calendars but turned out to be craft ones that are filled with stuff like stickers and pencils. Regardless of the fact they have ultimately been demonstrably far more interested in them than anything else, the initial disappointment meant I had to buy more actual chocolate calendars and then we received two in the post from friends so it’s an orgy of advent around ours.

Ηη had a year 1 assembly which was very cute. He said a few lines and paraded his extroverted side (his only side?) with aplomb. Me and Αα thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We also learned that Ηη is going to be playing the part of Charles Dickens in the Christmas show (“you know, the guy with the blue face”). Fairly sure that will be hilarious.

We went to Nando’s for the second time in my life after we’d been to soft play with the Robinsons and Popes. I don’t know why I thought it might be anything other than shit but I was still impressed at just how shit it was. Perhaps it’s a different story if you like chicken. But I doubt it.

Reading

Dream count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichoe – unremittingly bleak for the most part

Running

I genuinely thought the marathon was getting away from me because of the pain in my foot and ankle, and was moping about the house being a fairly miserable sod about it. But after a long run on Sunday the pain has all but evaporated and I’m feeling fairly daft about the fact it was maybe just a bad cramp. Haven’t even started the marathon block training and I’m already far too paranoid about everything apparently.

Monday: Easy 40' – 4.44mi at 8:51/mi
Saturday: Dodgy foot/ankle test – 8.86mi at 7:49/mi
Sunday: Heathside LSR – 18.16mi at 7:40/mi

11.24 – 11.30

2025-12-15T21:01:27Z

Life

The autumn budget was announced with the confirmation that they’re going to fully scrap the two child limit on universal credit. Σσ has been fighting tooth and nail for this for years and it’s finally done with what is objectively the only sane result. I think it’s going to take her quite a long time to recover from specifically the last few weeks, and probably the preceding years too.

Αα got more upper-respiratory problems :heavy-sigh:.

Ηη puked all over himself in his sleep (which made me feel slightly bad since I thought he was hamming up his tummy ache ever since I’d picked him up from school).

We caught up with Si and Lou for a pint in a slightly-too-noisy pub on Saturday. I think we might need to rig up some sort of dual headphone situation for the kids to make the iPad do a job in more challenging acoustic scenarios.

We had a massive failure at junior parkrun – Ηη spotted Αα and Σσ at the first corner, cut sharp right across the other runners, and promptly got flattened by a big kid. Cue infinite wailing. Aborted.

I took Ηη to a total sausagefest of a sixth birthday party on Sunday. The mum said ‘[birthday boy] said he wanted only boys, and how could I tell him no?’. Surely you just say, ‘no’? I bit my tongue, but there aren’t going to be any single-gender birthday parties round our way no matter what the kids think they want. The entertainment at the party was for the kids to be introduced to a series of small animals, none of which seemed in the least bit scary and all of which Ηη wanted fuck all to do with. I was slightly surprised when he told me he would be ok if I went away, but because it was billed as a ‘drop-off’ party I duly obliged. I’d been home less than a minute when the birthday boy’s dad called me back because Ηη was scared. He sure does plough his own furrow, and for that I should maybe be more grateful, but I’d love it if he could toughen up just a shade.

TIL

The French word for paperclip is ‘trombone’

Running

My ankle still isn’t great. I managed a ‘long tempo’ session which called for 3 x 20 minutes at marathon pace with 3 minutes easy between the sets. I finished it, fairly exhausted, and was feeling happy to have completed it, but then realised that I’ll need to do that three times back-to-back, and without any of the 3 minute easy bits. That realisation crushed my spirit.

Tuesday: Heathside track – 4.82mi at 5:42/mi
Thursday: Long tempo – 12.41mi at 7:10/mi
Saturday: Finsbo parkrun – 6.85mi at 7:49/mi
Sunday: LSR – 15.29mi at 7:43/mi

11.17 – 11.23

2025-12-15T21:01:27Z

Life

The week started badly with me basically getting having to wrestle Αα back into her cot in the middle of the night while she screamed for ages. I didn’t feel particularly good about it and couldn’t sleep for hours afterwards. She’s been much better at not being a total dick at night since then so I suppose I’m glad I persevered with it on balance. Really hoping I don’t have to do it again though.

Can’t remember much else that happened other than that it was squeaky bum time in the battle of Σσ vs the autumn budget.

TIL

The same guy was responsible for CFCs and leaded petrol

Running

Fairly consistent worry about the state of my right tibia and ankle. Possibly (hopefully?) shoe-related. Spending far too long reading reviews of other running shoes with a view to throwing some more money at the problem.

Saturday: Finsbo parkrun – 3.16mi at 6:08/mi
Sunday: Junior parkrun – 1.29mi at 11:29/mi
Sunday: LSR – 12.26mi at 7:24/mi

11.10 – 11.16

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Met the builders. The next day they sent someone round to cut some holes in our wall which definitely feels like progress. Apparently it looks (even-more-but-nobody-is-ready-to-say-for-sure) like it isn’t structural so that’s one less thing to worry about (having to haemorrhage money on).

Took Αα to the doc and she’s been given more antibiotics and an inhaler. Whatever it is, it hasn’t dampened her spirits (cf. she’s still fucking mental). And she still sure does hate sleeping at night time.

I think I’ve got a slow-burn sprain on my ankle possibly from last Saturday’s cross country. Probably the universe inflicting some karmic balance because I dared to indulge the hubristic notion that my hip maybe wasn’t as bad as it has been. I got about 50 metres up the road on Saturday morning and concluded running through the pain wasn’t in my best interests. I’m more than slightly concerned that it’s the early signs of a stress fracture and I’m really hoping that it is just a precursor to that instead. Going to have at least a week off running before I do anything else. I definitely feel a bit depressed about it because I’m worried about what it means for my training. I hate how much I drag down Σσ with my first world blues too.

2025-11-family-portrait.jpeg

Left to right: Αα, Ηη, Σσ, me. Unmistakably.

This site

I got Claude to help me add a bookshelf. In my head it was going to be all fancy library APIs but in the end it’s a JSON file (which is obviously much better).

I also remembered that iA writer recently introduced a new style for indicating where content has been authored by an AI which meant I got to write some new css.

Work

I’ve started to integrate the new design system space/typography/breakpoint values into our site. I’m not really sure how it’s going yet – I’m only certain that it’s going to get a lot messier before it can start to get better.

Running

Monday: Easy 40' – 4.62mi at 8:47/mi
Tuesday: Tempo – 9.17mi at 7:21/mi
Wednesday: Easy 45' – 5.45mi at 8:16/mi
Thursday: Ally Pally – 8.39mi at 6:51/mi
Saturday: Ankle says no – 0.30mi at 8:46/mi

11.03 – 11.09

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Σσ is still fighting tooth and nail to get a result from government ahead of the budget. I really hope she’s winning.

Αα’s health (and, inevitably, everyone’s sleep) has further deteriorated.

We watched quite a lot of fireworks displays out of the loft windows. Spent some time wondering what life would be like if Guy Fawkes had pulled it off.

Reading

The Voyage Home by Pat Barker – right back in my wheelhouse

Running

2025-11-xc.jpg

Lenny has engineered it in such a way that the kids think I won. I’m certainly not going to be the one to tell them otherwise.

Monday: Easy 40' – 4.62mi at 8:44/mi
Tuesday: Heathside track – 4.88mi at 5:31/mi
Wednesday: Easy 45' – 5.41mi at 8:37/mi
Thursday: Ally Pally – 7.99mi at 7:54/mi
Saturday: London XC champs – 6.61mi at 6:27/mi
Sunday: Junior parkrun – 1.25mi at 10:42/mi
Sunday: LSR – 15.04mi at 7:21/mi

10.27 – 11.02

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Σσ has got far too much on but I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do about it. She was supposed to have the majority of half term off with the kids but couldn’t avoid getting dragged into countless work crises. I’m hoping it’ll calm down before Christmas before something snaps.

I felt very busy and productive at my work for a day or two of NodeJS upgrades, right up until the point we realised that it had all been in vain (the numbers I was changing weren’t relevant for the code that was in production because something-something-lambdas-something). Am I part of Macro Data Refinement.

Αα dropped her lunchtime nap for the first time on the train up to Beverley on Friday. Then she doubled down and did it again on Saturday. On neither occasion did it translate to a better night’s sleep so it was entirely the worst of both worlds.

Maybe there’s a good version of Halloween available somewhere (probably USA), but there’s nothing about the UK version of it that appeals to me. Dressing up, shit (E-number and gelatine filled) sweets, mountains of plastic waste, and (even more) hyperactive children. The little cousins enjoyed hanging out with each other though, sugar-related breakdowns notwithstanding. I just think they'd have enjoyed hanging out together just as much (maybe more) without the rigmarole. But I'm a miserable shit so perhaps I've got it all wrong.

Σσ’s sisters appear to be in the midst of a chronic communications breakdown so there was a faint air of awkwardness for the duration of our stay. We successfully stayed out of it.

Back in London, Ηη figured out how to do the monkey bars on Sunday evening, and was justifiably proud of himself. I was too. I tried (again) to get him to see that he got there through practice, but I got the impression that it fell on entirely deaf ears.

Running

Monday: Easy 35' – 4.06mi at 8:36/mi
Tuesday: Heathside track – 4.73mi at 6:23/mi
Wednesday: Easy 40' – 4.93mi at 8:37/mi
Thursday: Hills – 5.35mi at 7:55/mi
Saturday: Beverley parkrun – 6.21mi at 8:44/mi
Sunday: LSR – 11.40mi at 7:08/mi

10.20 – 10.26

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

What was billed as a three day vibe-coding hackathon arrived unbidden in my calendar, immediately filling we with existential dread. Fortunately it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d been bracing myself for. It was certainly fairly exhausting but fortunately I like my colleagues and it was very well organised. Bits of it were almost good. It didn’t do much to put me at ease regarding what the future of software development looks like though.

Ηη made it to half term. It seems like he’s really growing up quite a lot and is usually a lot of fun to hang out with. Even when he’s shitting himself.

Αα has gone full bore on terrible twos like she’s making up for lost time. Night time is especially rubbish. It’s increasingly hard to tell where her illness ends and her fundamental nature begins but I’m inclined to think that it’s almost entirely the latter by now. I really hope this phase doesn’t last too long. I’m glad I haven’t seen our neighbours in the close for a while – I would definitely harbour a fairly extreme dislike of me if I was on the receiving end.

I read up about labral tears which is what I was told I maybe had when I went to the GP about my dodgy hip. They don’t heal without surgery so now I’m firmly in denial and desperately trying to find something else that it might be.

Ηη put in his weakest performance to date at junior parkrun. He’s not remotely interested in listening to my suggestion that he might want to try to run a bit slower. Which is fair enough – why should he? He’s happy enough even if he’s coming last (which is a considerable improvement on being inconsolable as soon as it became clear he wasn’t going to win).

Reading

The Kellerby Code by Jonny Sweet – Silly

Running

Tuesday: Heathside track – 4.79mi at 5:32/mi
Thursday: Mona Fartlek – 5.17mi at 7:33/mi
Saturday: Finsbo parkrun #700 – 6.97mi at 7:44/mi
Sunday: Junior parkrun – 1.20mi at 11:07/mi
Sunday: LSR – 13.59mi at 7:24/mi

10.13 – 10.19

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

A builder who seemed like he knew what he was talking about came to take a look at our flat. I reckon his quote’s going to be astronomical but hopefully that’ll help us choose the first guy we were probably going to pick anyhow.

Me and Σσ booked Thursday off work so that we could hang out without the kids for once. Then Αα got tonsillitis and shat all over that plan. We’ve had a very long total-parenting session with very little sleep and very little sign of it abating any time soon.

Ηη came off his bike quite dramatically on a downhill stretch in Finsbury Park on Saturday and now has a pair of fat lips as a result. He was so excited at the top of the hill and he was immediately off, deaf to my cries of ‘use your brakes’, and ‘put your feet on the pedals’. Then as soon as I’d seen the first speed wobble the inevitability of what was about to happen was crystal clear and I saw it unfold in slow motion. He was lucky to get away without any breaks or missing teeth. I don’t think he felt particularly lucky.

It has been open season on the application of medicinal ice-cream and lollies for the alleviation of pain arising from tonsillitis and wounded faces.

I got Claude to rewrite my dad’s charity website as a fully-templated 11ty app instead of the mongrel mess it’s been the last few years. Certainly wouldn’t have been an enjoyable manual task.

I finally heard back from Heathside coach regarding my sub-3 marathon campaign and he doesn’t think it’s totally out of reach. Staying (and first getting) uninjured seems like it will be the biggest challenge. But I also got an appointment with a first contact therapist through the NHS and had one of those rare interactions with a health professional where they (at least on the face of it) fully understood what I was saying and told me exactly what I needed to hear. I’ve now got a referral to Sports Medicine at Homerton hospital and a glimmer of hope that somebody can help me sort my hip without torturing me and rinsing me for £80 a pop.

Work

We had a three-hour live accessibility audit. I think we can give ourselves a fairly big pat on the back.

We released the new Collections section. The thing that pleased me most about it was that we found a compromise that let the designer keep the typewriter effect which also kept the relevant WCAG success criterion happy. As a side note, I had to turn off ‘reduce motion’ in the accessibility settings on my phone to test the page (we use the prefers-reduced-motion media query to turn off the typewriter) and I don’t know how anyone can live with the default amount of motion on an iPhone – so much whizz-bang! Perhaps it got even worse with iOS 26, which, it has to be said, is objectively hot garbage.

Reading

The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks – I am very glad that that was the last one in the series
Daniels’ Running Formula by Jack Daniels – uses an extremely uncalled for amount of abbreviations, but I think I’ve worked out my training paces

Running

Tuesday: Heathside track – 4.80mi at 5:40/mi
Thursday: Long tempo – 12.56mi at 6:55/mi
Sunday: Heathside LSR – 13.97mi at 7:44/mi

10.06 – 10.12

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Σσ went to a conference in Manchester and aunt Kika came to visit. The kids loved having Kika around and subsequently didn’t resent Σσ too much for going away.

Αα continues to be a general screamfest but she spared Kika the worst of it at least. Ηη has managed to remain remarkably calm throughout the majority of Αα’s meltdowns.

Ηη wanted to make it three from three at junior parkrun. He needs to work on his pacing strategy – it’s very much all-or-nothing at the moment. Not sure running in the cold is doing much for his relentless cough but I can’t convince him not to go. I only very slightly regret promising him I’d take him whenever he wanted to go (mostly because the long club run is always scheduled for the same time). I imagine(/hope) he’ll display a bit less enthusiasm when it gets colder and wetter.

We hung out with Rawi on Saturday. It was a perfect autumn afternoon and we managed to avoid going to the playground which always counts as a huge parenting win as far as I’m concerned.

Ηη, upset about being asked to eat his tea on Sunday, said what was almost certainly the most horrible thing to have come out of his mouth: “Dad, if your dad was ever back on earth, I would kill him again”. I think he immediately knew that he’d overstepped the mark and I know that he couldn’t really appreciate how malicious a thing it would be to say, but it definitely touched a nerve. I’m glad he stayed out of my way for 10 minutes after saying it before apologising because I’m not convinced I’d have forgiven him quite so easily if he hadn’t. He’s been overly nice to me ever since – I’ll ride that train while I can!

Watching

Pantosaurus

Running

2025-10-marathon.jpg

Strava thinks sub-3 is on. Presumably this means I don’t have to actually run it.

Tuesday: Hills – 6.62mi at 8:22/mi
Thursday: Big Tempo Pyramid – 12.88mi at 7:14/mi
Saturday: Finsbo parkrun – 6.85mi at 8:27/mi
Sunday: Junior parkrun – 1.44mi at 9:44/mi
Sunday: LSR – 16.18mi at 7:46/mi

09.29 – 10.05

2025-10-08T13:28:04Z

Life

Αα has taken to reminding us what really bad sleep looks like. She’s decided that she belongs in our bed from about 2am and we’ve now had to take fairly drastic measures to disabuse her of that notion. She has not been happy about it and she has been extremely vocal on the matter (I feel deeply sorry for our downstairs neighbours because we’ve lived through having screaming kids above us at night time and it’s definitely no fun). Hopefully a few nights of tough love will get her to give up trying to negotiate a way out of her cot, but she is tenacious as all heck.

We got another recommendation for a builder who came round and didn’t seem too much like a cowboy. But I can’t find any evidence of him being a part of the company he claims to be with and somehow just a bit too keen. I guess we’ll see how mad his quote is.

Ηη put in another strong parkrun performance on Sunday, then took part in a modelling shoot for our ex-nursery-parent friends’ clothing line launch (or something, I have no idea I paid very little attention). He was on good form, only showing an altogether deserved level of disgruntlement when his nursery pal started spitting at everyone. I can’t begin to comprehend why the spitting kid wasn’t being roundly admonished by his mum, and it was left to the other parents to let him know that it wasn’t ok. Perhaps related: the spitting kid seemed much more spoiled than the last time we spent any time with him. You can really go off a five year old (which is kind of sad since it is presumably 90% the parents’ fault). Obviously you can also go off a five year old’s parents. Which I duly have.

The shoot was in Ridley Road market, where the stall owners seemed understandably disgruntled with the levels of brash entitlement on display from our lot. I felt a keen sense of embarrassment throughout, and spent a lot of the time apologising to people who we were either getting in the way of or quite clearly pissing off the locals (often both). Nobody else in our party seemed to give half a shit.

Ηη got to keep the hipster threads he’d been dressed up in and he was chuffed to bits. To be fair he looked totally ace in them, but we’ve learned from bitter experience that that is seldom a guarantee that he’s going to like anything. I’m glad the stars aligned on this occasion. I don’t think we’ll be volunteering him for future modelling work though.

We ended the week with the news that Aila was going to have to go back in for surgery because there was a leak and they didn’t know what it was. Then it transpired the surgeon who did the surgery only did one of the two things they were supposed to do, essentially putting Aila through another completely avoidable general anaesthetic and surgery. Johnny and Dani are understandably irate. I would be (I am) fucking furious. I can’t believe how much like a bad dream this all seems at every turn.

Running

Monday easy 40'
Tuesday Heathside track
Wednesday easy 40'
Thursday Marshes tempo
Saturday parkrun
Sunday junior parkrun + LSR

Tuesday: Heathside track – 5.29mi at 5:38/mi
Thursday: Marshes – 8.83mi at 7:09/mi
Saturday: Finsbo parkrun – 6.81mi at 7:18/mi
Sunday: Junior parkrun + LSR – 15.27mi at 7:42/mi

09.22 – 09.28

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

I saw a picture of Aila walking outside the hospital without wires coming out of her and I started weeping. I hadn’t realised how much I had bottled up. I kept on thinking that I had got myself back together but it kept on turning out that I really hadn’t. Fortunately it was firebreak week at work so I didn’t have to embarrass everyone by breaking down in the office.

I’ve continued on my poacher-turned-gamekeeper-for-AI journey, and ponied up for Claude Code. I’m truly astonished by how awful it is at anything date-related, but broadly speaking I can see the power and utility of the agent-driven coding approach. I’m increasingly worried about what the shape of my own career path might be now – I’m trying not to be all doomsayer about it, but frankly I don’t think it’s looking good for me! On the plus side, I guess I’m in relatively close to the ground floor for whatever comes next, but the bigger question is do I really want to do whatever that is? Increasingly I find myself telling a robot to do some work then reviewing its mess and telling it to do better – I’m not sure that was ever why I got into it.

Still, I’ve vibe-coded my weather app in to a state that I think is now genuinely quite useful, albeit at the mercy of the less-than-perfect (but refreshingly free) pirate weather API.

Σσ had to go to the Labour Party conference at the weekend which the kids were less than impressed about, but we managed ok. Ηη was delightfully keen to be going back to Junior Parkrun – the excitement was only slightly tarnished by me getting the start time wrong and taking him half an hour too late. He didn’t let it get him down though and still insisted on doing it with me pushing Αα around in the buggy (she now cheers “YOU CAN DO IT BIG BRO” any time he runs anywhere, which is painfully cute). I was very proud of him, both for running it so well, and for getting over the fact that I’d messed up the timings. I think he might be hooked on it now and I’ve promised that I’ll take him whenever he wants to go.

Started to not-quite-but-almost panic about the Manchester Marathon (hence the reading material below). It really is a long way, and c. 6:50 per mile really does seem quite fast when I stop and consider the reality of it.

Reading

Advanced Marathoning by Scott Douglas and Pete Pfitzinger – lots of miles
Hansons Marathon Method: Run Your Fastest Marathon the Hansons Way by Luke Humphrey – fewer miles, maybe more pain

Running

Tuesday: Heathside track – 4.87mi at 5:26/mi
Saturday: LSR – 15.83mi at 7:27/mi
Sunday: Junior parkrun – 1.25mi at 9:19/mi

09.15 – 09.21

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

The ops were a success. It was a rocky few days for everyone post-op – Johnny in agony without nearly enough pain relief and Aila having to go back in for some extra surgery to fix a leak. But everyone’s now stable and the doctors are very happy with the outcome. Aila now goes back to the renal ward for six weeks. She’s not out of the woods by any means, but I really hope this is where her (and everyone else’s) life can turn a corner.

Me and the kids survived the week on our own. We avoided too much shouting and ate remarkably healthily all things considered.

Running

Saturday: Finsbo parkrun – 5.00mi at 8:21/mi
Sunday: Heathside LSR – 18.16mi at 7:34/mi

09.08 – 09.14

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

I pushed through a charity shop clear out of a heap of almost-never-played-with toys and felt pretty good about it. Although of course because the kids insisted on coming to the charity shop this inevitably meant we couldn’t avoid coming home with some new tat.

We went to the Wellcome Collection cafe to catch up with Sharif and Tibs who were over from Paris for a 40th. Ηη was disappointed that his French bestie Gabriel wasn’t in attendance, but he got over it when he acquired both an ice lolly and a slice of cake. It was lovely to see our friends, it was not lovely to see factions of the far-right.

We shipped in the baby-sitter again on Saturday evening and had an absolutely excellent night out in London Bridge at Oma ostensibly to celebrate Σσ’s birthday. I would say the (apparently) rave-reviews of their spanakopita were slightly overblown (especially since we tried fairly hard not to get it but were strong-armed into it by our waiter). But everything else was excellent.

We both had a drink after a period of abstinence. I was starting to become aware that if I left it much longer it would become a thing that would weigh on my mind. I spoke to Σσ in earnest about resolving to become an occasional drinker, keen to avoid the excesses that crept up and up over of the summer.

Then the next day Si and Lou came over for lunch. Of course, that turned into quite a big occasion and I drank quite a lot. But I was by no means messy and I didn’t end up feeling guilty about it. I think I’ve had a genuine mental shift about my relationship with alcohol but I guess time will tell. We all had a thoroughly nice time in any event.

Aila’s (and Johnny’s) operation date has been pencilled in for some time now, but nobody has been at all confident that it will go ahead because of the myriad things that could prevent it from doing so. But as the date gets closer and closer (next week) it’s really starting to seem like it might actually happen. Σσ is going to go up and help out for the week. Me and the kids will muddle through on a diet of beans on toast and ice cream. I only wish Αα hadn’t chosen this time to start getting hyper-shit at sleeping again. I envisage a lot of being told, ‘I wish mummy was here’.

Running

Tuesday: Heathside track – 4.00mi at 6:03/mi
Saturday: Finsbo parkrun – 4.54mi at 7:45/mi
Sunday: LSR – 12.17mi at 7:22/mi

09.01 – 09.07

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Ηη went back to school on Wednesday. No drama.

Αα started in a new nursery room and the brought about a couple of days of tears at drop off, but by day three she was waltzing in professing to be ‘a big girl’. I think it took Ηη about two years to get to that point. She is different gravy. To be fair they are both different gravy, but on orthogonal dimensions.

We had pizza in Clissold with the usual suspects on Saturday for Σσ’s birthday where we also met Silkie’s six-month-old girl. I have never met a more chill baby – I’m not convinced anyone could have made it stop smiling even if they tried.

I’ve not had any booze since I got ill because I really didn’t fancy it at the time, and then I thought I might as well ride the wave of abstinence once I was feeling better. I’m not sure how long it’ll last but it feels good to have broken the cycle of moderate excess over the summer.

I started running again. Disappointingly, three weeks off doesn’t appear to have done anything for my hip. As expected, all my blood tests were normal. Perhaps I’m too healthy? It’s hard to enjoy running feeling unfit – hopefully it’ll come back without too much of a fight.

Ηη got onto a winning not-shitting-his-pants streak for a couple of weeks, but he finally dropped the ball again this week. He showed us that he can do it though and hopefully he’ll remember that.

Reading

Embassytown by China Mieville – a gift from Si. At the time I think I joked that it would take me a year to get round to reading it. In fact it took two. It took me a while to get into it but I really enjoyed the concept and was really hooked by the middle. I ran out of interest for the third act though – not sure if that was the book’s failing or my own

Running

Saturday: Finsbo parkrun – 4.71mi at 6:44/mi
Sunday: LSR – 11.06mi at 7:58/mi

08.25 – 08.31

2025-09-08T08:51:01Z

Life

The GP signed me up for a battery of blood tests to see if anything’s up. I’m fairly sure they’re going to tell me that I’m totally fine. Of course that would be the best outcome, and still I find myself hoping that they’ll discover my stores of a particular vitamin or mineral are mysteriously depleted and there’s a simple fix to make me feel infinitely better. Rather than it being because I’m in my forties.

Σσ and Ηη got to Scotland. Me and a still-slightly-too-snotty Αα stayed in London. Αα initially took this quite well, but it slowly dawned on her that 1. mummy was going away and 2. Ηη was going to get to spend time with Aila, Danny, and Johnny, and she wasn’t. She got understandably quite upset after that.

As luck(?) would have it, Jim and Ange were coming down to Beverley for the weekend, so I managed to soften the blow by taking a now almost-snot-free Αα up to see them the next day. She got unfettered access to Cameron and Rory for a day too. The next day Σσ and Ηη came down from Scotland and we all congregated in Beverley. I think everyone got what they needed.

Reading

Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks – just one more to go and I can stop reading Iain M. Banks books at the end of this self-inflicted Culture series marathon. This was was among the (sometimes, very much depending on the chapter) more readable ones for my money

08.18 – 08.24

2025-08-25T11:32:58Z

Life

I went to see the GP with a persistent headache and nausea on Monday. She as good as told me to pull myself together.

I felt vindicated by Tuesday afternoon when I’d sweat several buckets and had a fever of 40°.

Since then I’ve felt much better mentally, but feel a lot like my blood supply has been swapped out for battery acid.

Another trip to the out of hours GP on Sunday bore no fruit. I really hope this one isn’t going to run and run. On the plus side all my musculoskeletal complaints are getting a solid rest – I can barely walk 50 yards without feeling like I’m going to pass out; running is not on the cards.

Αα got a serious cold which scuppered any possibility of us going to Scotland. In the end it transpired that Aila and Johnny both got sick and I’m at least glad we didn’t have to worry that we were responsible. Our germs certainly wouldn’t have been welcome. Σσ is obviously upset that she’s not been able to see them before the transplant. I guess there’s maybe still a chance she could make it up next week.

Reading

Matter by Iain M. Banks – I enjoyed the characters and the worlds, but felt like the plot was a bit of a damp squib in the end (I was particularly frustrated by the fact the prologue seemed to promise a different book – but maybe/probably I missed something).

08.11 – 08.17

2025-08-19T19:09:46Z

Life

We continued to feel exhausted and didn’t fancy taking our sickness up to Scotland so found an assortment of ‘fun’ activities to do in London and its environs:

Assaulted the knot in Ηη’s hair (which took the best part of a day)
Went to the pirate ship playground in Hyde Park in the oppressive heat then had a picnic. Nobody had much fun at either
Had a picnic in Finsbo with Si and Lou. 5 stars
London Fields Lido, London Fields playground and E5 bakehouse triple-header. There were 5 minutes where it was fun but the kids mostly took turns to ruin all of it
Trip to see uncle Rich and aunt Leanne in the Ketto. Smash hit.

At the end of our two weeks’ holiday I am feeling considerably worse than I was at the start (which was already pretty rubbish as previously discussed).

I have at least tidied and rearranged our bedroom.

Running

Monday hills

08.04 – 08.10

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

On Monday we took a bus into the old town. It was most probably our own fault for playing the ice cream trump card far too soon, but Ηη went rapidly from ‘this is the best day ever’ to being an insufferable pain in the bum and the rest of the morning was a bit of a write-off. We resolved not to do much else in the way of trips for fear of a repeat performance.

I was fairly confident I was getting the regulation holiday cold by Monday lunchtime. And so it transpired. I was strangely pleased to have a tangible illness on which to blame my lethargy and general malaise and had a vain hope that when it shifted I’d be completely fixed (haha no). Σσ followed suit, and Αα got a bit pukey (although that was possibly because she refused to listen to the instruction, ‘don’t drink the pool, or the sea’). Then just when we thought we were on the mend we all got another cold. Maybe this will be the one that fixes me once and for all…

We spent most days alternating between building sandcastles, eating ice cream, and sitting in the shallow end of the pool closely guarding kids who were adamant they can swim but demonstrably very much couldn’t. Meals were almost exclusively pizza for the kids, and bread, feta and tomatoes for me and Σσ. I gave my full backing to how unadventurous it all was.

Last week Ηη had insisted Σσ buy him the same dress with love hearts on that she was buying for Αα. He seems to enjoy wearing it a lot, but there are definitely some situations where he gets worried about it – I think it’s mostly if he thinks me and Σσ aren’t going to be around. I’m glad our presence makes him feel like he can wear what he wants but it’s interesting (and more than a little bit sad) that he maybe understands or at least intuits on some level that society in the main doesn’t particularly accept boys in dresses.

I felt rough on the flight home, like my head was going to explode with a migraine – something I’ve not experienced for a decade or more. So Σσ (who was also not feeling particularly great) had to do the lion’s share of the parenting (including catching Ηη’s puke and cleaning up his now traditional Chania airport pants-shitting). I got the distinct impression she perhaps understandably couldn’t have given even half a shit about my condition. We made it home without major incident but maybe resolved to go somewhere less far away next time.

We went to Eli’s party on Saturday morning. I resented having to go to a random square in Kings Cross where they’d decided to hold it (since they live between the same two perfectly serviceable parks that we do) but I had to concede it was pleasant.

Being on holiday (with almost zero phone/internet time save for writing this) has redoubled our determination to be less stressed at home but we’re not sure how we get there. It’s probably not remotely possible until we know Aila and Johnny are ok. I could certainly do more childcare, because the only stress at my work is largely self-inflicted (cf. being a bit thick). And going to try really hard to stay off this pointless stupid phone.

Reading

Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico – short

Running

Thursday: More Crete – 9.51mi at 7:58/mi

07.28 – 08.03

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

After what feels like several weeks (perhaps months) of feeling almost dead, I now finally feel unequivocally fully dead. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more ready for a holiday (although I am very forgetful).

We went to the pub with Gabs on Tuesday evening for a final goodbye. It was much better than the weekend play date that preceded it. I don’t think Gabs or Ηη appreciate what’s about to happen though.

Αα has been ramping up the madness to 11 and there doesn’t seem to be much we can do about it. She’s still hilarious and loving when she’s not screaming in our faces.

Ηη has been haemorrhaging his belongings at holiday club but otherwise still seems fairly happy to be there.

Σσ nearly murdered both kids on Wednesday for being ungrateful little shits. I arrived home to a toxic atmosphere of the highest order immediately wishing I’d stayed at work.

After work on Thursday we swung round for one final (final) goodbye with Gabs then got the train from Finsbo to Gatwick for a pre-holiday stay in the Premier Inn. I strongly contest the notion that ‘everything’s premier but the price’ but it did a job, and we pretty much had to shake the kids awake at 5am. That felt particularly counterintuitive (and stupid) since we spend such a generous proportion of our lives trying to get them to go the fuck to sleep.

We sat delayed on runway for about an hour but we had an otherwise relatively painless flight with the iPad doing the lion’s share of the childcare.

We arrived in Chania (airport still minority triggering as the scene of the 30h delay of two years ago) shocked and appalled that it had been raining in the morning, but the forecast for the week was 30° and clear skies.

By Sunday we had hit our stride of overeating, drinking, and acquiescing to increasingly ridiculous demands for inflatable tat from every shop. Perfect.

Work

Concepts probably.

Running

Tuesday: Hills – 6.16mi at 7:27/mi
Thursday: Marshes – 7.45mi at 7:16/mi
Sunday: Crete – 9.94mi at 7:57/mi

07.21 – 07.27

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

The summer holidays started in earnest. I can’t quite believe Ηη has finished his first year at school. He’s definitely grown up quite a bit. We got him into a holiday club with Glastonbury levels of ticketing desperation. So far he seems to have been fairly happy with the situation which is nice.

Αα has decided to go absolutely fucking ballistic about pretty much everything at least 50 times a day which is fairly tiring. Ηη is managing to be slightly calmer and more considerate. Still shitting himself aplenty mind you. We’ve resolved to talk to another doctor since nothing we’ve said or done for the past three years seems to have made the blindest bit of difference.

We hung out with Heather and Liv at the splash pad on Friday afternoon. Probably our most successful trip there to date. Αα is already keen to stand directly beneath big bucket, which is something Ηη has been petrified about until this summer.

We looked after Gabi on Sunday while her mamas finished packing for their imminent trip to Spain. Neither me nor Σσ had very much time for her frankly crap mood, so nobody had a much fun. It really hammered home the power of parental love – if it was Ηη or Αα behaving like that (which, let’s face it, it often is) we’d have given them much more slack and love, but other people’s kids are pains in arses. At least we successfully avoided a trip to the fair.

The Tour de France was maybe not a vintage edition, but we got to watch a lot of it, and plenty of it was entertaining. The final stage especially was a cracker. Then we watched the England ladies scrap(e) through to win the Euros final. Kids chanting ‘ARSENAL! ARSENAL!’ throughout.

The absolutely huge news is that Aila’s going to be getting Johnny’s kidney provisionally in mid-September as long as everyone stays stable. The day after we got that news she was back in hospital because the dialysis isn’t working well. She’s ok though, but I doubt anyone imagines that it’s going to be plain sailing at any point.

Work

Various two-syllable words starting with ‘con’.

content/contexts/ConceptContext/concept.config

Confusing.

TIL

Running

Tuesday: Not track – 11.51mi at 7:48/mi
Sunday: Hills – 6.39mi at 7:41/mi

07.14 – 07.20

2025-07-24T19:38:29Z

Life

I took my birthday day off and went out for breakfast with Σσ and Αα. Got a good crop of new socks and an overshirt/shacket that makes me look a bit like a lab technician or a groundsman.

Then we went for a thoroughly chaotic ‘teddy bears picnic’ at Ηη’s school followed by a much more interesting (pizza, prosecco, and cake) picnic in Clissold with Gabs, the Robinsons and the Popes.

On Saturday, Σσ made the distinctly unpleasant discovery that Αα has bumworms so we’re all on the bumworm tablets just in case. On the plus side it makes nits seem like much less of a deal.

We dropped in on Emlyn’s birthday party down the street before bussing up to Gabi’s leaving party at Carol’s pub. Both were great. Emlyn’s was remarkably calm (Σσ suggested perhaps it was due to the absence of the reception class usual suspects, almost certainly true) and Gabi’s was bittersweet. I mostly spent it crafting a glitter unicorn mask in block pastel shades and studiously avoiding thinking about the reason the party was happening.

Σσ is pretty much totally broken and long-overdue a holiday. I have much less right to be in a similar state, but I think I might be pretty close.

Tour de France has been good value so far.

Work

Moar sticky nav.

Sunday: 5 x Swain’s – 10.29mi at 7:40/mi

07.07 – 07.13

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

We went to Ηη’s sports day. He had early dramatic success in the sack race (other parents wondered if he was part-marsupial) but never quite reached those dizzy heights again so his mood gradually declined throughout. Was (largely) fun to witness no less.

Gabi had her birthday party after school on Friday. It was pirate-themed, and Ηη had as good a time as he ever has at a birthday party (not without hot tears, but no major drama). I drank too much Aperol and passed out while trying to get the kids to go to sleep. Then I awoke the next day to the news that I WAS ONLY SHITTING GOING TO SHITTING SEE STEVIE SHITTING WONDER IN HYDE SHITTING PARK THAT EVENING. An exceptionally well executed surprise birthday present. And since childcare from up north had apparently fallen through, Gabi’s mamas had agreed to babysit the kids and even pushed through a sleepover for both of them. We spent most of the day worrying about what a disaster it was going to be, but by all accounts it was a success. Stevie was (unsurprisingly) absolutely incredible. Si, Louise, and Robbo being in attendance was another excellent part of the surprise. I was a blubbing mess from the off. He didn’t play a single note from Innervisions (the best album no I’m not taking questions) but I didn’t care.

I resolved to take a couple of weeks off running because of the dodgy hip situation. I also concluded (based on zero evidence) that the physio I saw was wrong and it doesn’t have anything to do with my glutes. I’m leaning into the deconditioning, consuming my bodyweight in lager and cake. Already feeling pretty horrible about it.

Work

Nav QA (slightly concerned we’ve created a bit of a monster that will be no fun to maintain)

Running

Tuesday: Heathside track – 4.37mi at 5:37/mi

06.30 – 07.06

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

One of Ηη’s pals had a party at the splashpad on Sunday morning. It threatened to be stormy but we just got away with it. All the kids seemed to have a nice time. I regretted the glass of sparkling wine I had. More so because I went for a run at lunchtime and had to pull the ripcord very early – everything felt weird and off. Perhaps this is why pre-run boozing has never been widely espoused as a wise fuelling strategy.

I’ve been feeling fairly blue in general and hadn’t managed to put my finger on the root cause. But then I realised that everything in the world is pretty fucked right now so it’s little wonder.

Work

More turning the one column website into a two column website which I’m theoretically opposed to but quite enjoy the challenge of.

Reading

Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks – got better towards the end, granted, but I won’t be reading it again

Running

Tuesday: Heathside track – 4.32mi at 5:54/mi
Thursday: Hills – 6.64mi at 7:25/mi
Saturday: Highbury Fields parkrun – 3.13mi at 6:31/mi

06.23 – 06.29

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Caught up with Andy P (Andy P! Andy P!) for a very pleasant run in the evening sunshine on Tuesday. It had been far too long – he’s a scholar, a gent, and exceptionally good company even when panting and borderline dehydrated. Niamh was coincidentally also back in town on some high-powered book business – the last time I saw her was also the last time I saw Andy (also too long ago).

The weather was generally hot af. By and large I was here for it. The loft did turn into a bit of a sauna at night, but we invested in an air-conditioning fan and didn’t fare too badly (the white noise it generated probably also helped to drown out the traffic). Couldn’t convince Ηη to forego his duvet even as I demonstrated to him the extent of his sweatiness – he’s even more a creature of habit than me.

Σσ had to work Wednesday so I took it off and took Αα to the transport museum (fun) and Ηη to his swimming lesson (not remotely fun).

Three boys in Ηη’s class had a joint party in the park after school on Friday. I thought there was a chance Ηη would get stuck in with everyone else since it was outside (definitely his preferred environs). But he reverted to type, bollocking about doing his own thing and getting increasingly arsey about anything and everything even though aunty Kika (his favourite) was attending.

Then Σσ collected Liv from her nursery and took her back to her house for the night because George and Mark had gone to Glasto. Liv apparently just took herself to bed at 7:30 and slept solidly till 7:30 the next morning. Then she came round to ours in the morning and amused herself for pretty much an hour without need for intervention. It was a window into how life could be in a parallel universe (if our kids had fundamentally different personalities).

Jim, Ange and Emily came on the Saturday for Σσ’s belated 40th at Mildred’s in Soho. It was such an exceptionally good party – everyone was on form, and everything clicked. All of Σσ’s friends are excellent (obviously I would say that having a considerable amount of skin in the game, but still, they really are). It was also the first time we entrusted a non-family babysitter to the task of getting the kids to sleep and it (apparently, according to both parties, but who really knows?) was fine. Nice to know it’s an option – being out late in town was definitely fun and I’d like to do it again sometime.

Varying degrees of splashpad success on Sunday.

Work

Firebreak week meant I did odds and sods then got roped into fixing some Hotjar bullshit just when I was about to consider doing something interesting.

Running

Tuesday: Andy P! Andy P! Andy P! Ally P! – 8.80mi at 10:28/mi
Saturday: Highbury Fields parkrun – 3.09mi at 5:52/mi
Sunday: Heathside LSR – 14.17mi at 7:34/mi

06.16 – 06.22

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

I went for an injury diagnosis and rehab session at London Met Uni on Monday. I didn’t really know what to expect, but the therapist put my hip under various stresses and concluded that my left glute had locked up. I was pleased to hear that 1. apparently I wasn’t injured in a manner that should stop me from running and 2. he said he could give me some massage treatment to help. I thought I was up for a proper targeted sports massage but oh my god it was fucking agony. The hip felt slightly better after, but I’m wondering if that’s just because the rest of my body was so tense in response to the torture. I’ve got some squat exercises to do as well – I’ve even been trying to do them which makes a change from my pattern of behaviour after previous visits to physios. He told me to come back in a week, which immediately filled me with dread. I think if it’s that bad again I might just tell him it’s fixed so I don’t have to go back (maybe that’s what everyone does, and why he thinks he’s getting results).

On Thursday I received the now familiar email notifying me I didn’t have a place in the London marathon (best wishes to all who celebrate) and immediately shelled out for a place in Manchester, so that’s real now. It’s obviously still ages away so I’m very much concentrating on the deconditioning and drinking phase of the training plan.

Friday after school I volunteered to look after Gabs and it was all back to ours for back-to-back Barbie films (Ηη’s choice).

It was Αα’s turn to look after the nursery ‘Travel Ted’ for the weekend. We didn’t really modify our behaviour to accommodate him (or attempt to appear like we have a more cultured existence) and we spent the weekend doing what we do best – parks, playgrounds, bakeries, with pizza and ice cream. We went to the Clissold splashpad on Saturday which threatened to be a disaster – it was raining (verging on a thunderstorm) then the water went off as soon as we got in. Thankfully the water came back on after about half an hour and then the weather blew over. Αα had a blast. Ηη not so much, but he stopped uncharacteristically short of ruining anyone else’s fun.

Then we hung out with the Liberty gang plus Ellis for a solstice picnic and some relatively tame water fights (props to Mark for taking most of the hits for the grown-ups).

Work

Figuring out how to make an image carousel break out of the 12-column grid while accommodating a sticky side navigation that changes colour based on its background. And has a wobbly edge underneath. All far too jazzy for my liking and I’m sure it’s going to be a bug-riddled mess into which we’re going to sink an untold amount of time. But I guess that’ll keep me in a job for a bit so mustn’t grumble.

Running

Tuesday: Heathside track – 4.18mi at 5:40/mi
Thursday: Marshes – 7.94mi at 7:25/mi
Saturday: Finsbo parkrun – 3.80mi at 6:23/mi
Sunday: LSR – 16.76mi at 7:30/mi

06.09 – 06.15

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

I booked an injury diagnosis and rehab session at London Met Uni which felt like a minor overreaction but then my hips kept hurting so I think it’s probs the right thing to have done.

I resisted the temptation to preorder an X-E5 even though it looks lovely.

We busted Ηη out of school early on Friday to go scotland and accordingly got a mild telling off, but between that and arriving in West Kilbride with two insane kids at midnight it was deffo the lesser of two evils.

We were there to celebrate Σσ’s uncle’s 40th year as a priest (I think? Nobody was quite sure) and spent two nights in the Seamill Hydro Hotel. The smell of the sea air was excellent. It was reassuringly wet on the west coast of Scotland even though it was apparently glorious weather down south. I think everyone had a nice time (apart from when they apparently got in a bit of a fight with the waiting staff and management – something we were mercifully spared on account of having to put the kids to bed).

Σσ swam in the sea and I was almost envious, but I’m fairly sure I’d have ended up hypothermic if I’d got in.

Then on Sunday afternoon we went across to Glasgow to see Ailita before getting the train back down south. She seemed to be doing really well and the kids were all delighted to see each other.

The kids were as good as we could have hoped for on the two six-hour train journeys bookending the weekend.

Work

I got container queries in prod, and combined cqw units and inline css properties. Felt pretty great.

Reading

Extremely long term drum machine

Running

Tuesday: Heathside track – 2.83mi at 5:11/mi
Saturday: West Kilbride LSR – 10.24mi at 7:51/mi

06.02 – 06.08

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Ηη didn’t love having to go back to school but he got into the swing of it fairly quick.

I didn’t love having to go back to work tbf.

I sent Ben a message to congratulate him on his slapping mixmag mixtape that was top of my SoundCloud feed on Thursday. I hadn’t seen him for over a decade but as luck would have it he was over from his Ibizan home for a couple of days to play a show in Hackney and we managed to catch up for pints on Friday. It was really good to see him and lots of old memories flooded in. I didn’t really need the last pint (possibly not the preceding two either) and I suffered worse than I have in a while on Saturday. Σσ nursed me back to health and dealt with the kids while I whimpered pathetically. I was reminded that coming out the other end of a powerful hangover can be quite life affirming.

Saturday afternoon Gabi came over and after a protracted false start where she and Ηη were argumentative and mean they ended up playing nicely. Then Gabi’s mama came over for a curry that sorted me right out.

Running

Hip still a-nigglin’

Tuesday: Swain’s x 3 – 8.43mi at 7:22/mi
Sunday: LSR – 17.51mi at 7:40/mi

05.26 – 06.01

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Potty training Αα and she appears to have got the hang of it by day three. Ηη on the other hand is about three years in and still useless. I was hoping he might up his game when he saw his baby sister figuring it out. But apparently not.

I took Tuesday off work and took Ηη to see Lilo & Stitch. It was tolerable. Ηη seemed to enjoy himself.

Otherwise we all largely rode out the week on multiple tours of north London’s parks, playgrounds, and soft plays.

Then on Sunday we went on a day trip to Brighton to see Trell, Dan, Rosa, and Dillon. The borderline-aggressive sea breeze slightly hampered everyone’s fun, but once we’d found a playground the kids had a good old bollock about. Ηη did his whingeing-to-high-fuck routine when it was time to leave which took a bit of the sheen off, but it was still a nice day out.

Work

Tying up loose GA/GTM ends

Running

My hip still feels a bit jiggered. I’m hoping it’ll clear up without me having to stop running, but it’s slightly unnerving.

Tuesday: Heathside track – 4.34mi at 5:36/mi
Saturday: Finsbo parkrun – 6.84mi at 7:30/mi
Sunday: LSR – 13.37mi at 7:50/mi

05.19 – 05.25

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Σσ is seriously overworked with little sign of it abating any time soon. I’m a bit worried she’s going to break. A general malaise feels like it’s descended over me. I think it’s possible/likely that these two things are related.

I took the kids for tea with Mark for his birthday. Managed to lock myself out of the flat (although this did at least force Σσ to come home from work).

This site got an entry in the inaugural edition of the Internet Phone Book. I mean, I submitted it, but it still feels good.

Half term for Ηη and a second attempt at potty training Αα begins.

Work

GA/GTM
A/B testing using edge lambdas (out of my depth)

Running

Tuesday: Heathside track – 4.85mi at 5:42/mi

05.12 – 05.18

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Aila is recently an outpatient but had to go back into hospital in apparently fairly dramatic fashion. She is now stable and doing ok again though.

We went to Cambridge at the weekend to catch up with my fam. My cousin Sarah’s kids are so kind and solicitous with ours. I can’t help but feel like ours wouldn’t/won’t be quite as good when they’re the same age. The sun was out and it was very pleasant. The kids even got some very late Christmas presents from Leanne and Dave which were very well received. But the day was definitely slightly coloured by my uncle telling me that his GP had said he’s exhibiting early signs of dementia. And then I brought it up with Sarah because I assumed she knew, but it turned out I was giving her the news.

Sunday we drove round to Si and Lou’s for a picnic in their garden in what were not quite clement enough conditions but we were British and committed. Αα was bants, Ηη was a bit of a prick.

I’m really suffering after being back at track on Tuesday. I could probably aid my recovery by sleeping more/earlier and drinking less/less often, but somehow I never manage. I think I’m running the risk of assuming that since I’ve decided that I’m going to try and run a fast marathon that the fitness will magically arrive unbidden.

Work

GTM/GA and audio player QA

Running

Tuesday: Heathside track – 4.69mi at 5:56/mi

05.05 – 05.11

2025-07-21T09:27:34Z

Life

Drove home from the lakes on Monday and miraculously the kids both slept before they had a chance to puke. We all felt fairly green though to the extent that I had to take another day off to stay close to the god phone.

Then Ηη got sent home from school having thrown up on Thursday. Maybe we all had a virus rather than food poisoning. Or maybe Ηη did some overly vigorous spinning in gymnastics. We’ll never know.

Daddy Friday was fairly low-key in the Finsbury park sunshine then we got a train up to Bev in the evening.

Jim and Ange came down from Scotland on the Saturday and it felt almost normal for the first time in ages.

Ηη and Αα played mostly nicely with Rory and Cam. Rory lost it a few times but it was more comic than anything else. It’s hard to remember that he’s only three because he’s genuinely about the size of an average seven year old.

Then me Σσ and Em ran the Bev 10k on Sunday. Everyone came to support and I helped pace Σσ round (a delicate balance of trying to get her a time she’d be proud of without making her hate me or puke). We came in in about 52 minutes and I think she was happy (and didn’t puke and doesn’t seem to hate me so I’m chalking it up as a success). I was slightly disappointed not to be giving it a dig myself, but on the way round I resolved to enter more races and definitely enter a marathon next year – if/when I don’t get a London place I think I’ll enter Manchester. I’ll call it Breaking 3. Maybe Nike will make a film about it.

Work

GTM/GA4

Running

Thursday hills
Saturday Beverley park run
Sunday Beverley 10k

04.28 – 05.04

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Got Bluey back from her MOT. I basically got told off by the mechanic for not driving enough. We ended up less out of pocket than we’d feared.

Went to track for the first time in a long time on Tuesday evening. Didn’t fare too badly. The running track proper is being repaired so the session was on the Finsbo carriageway – not sure I’d have gone if I’d known that was the case, but ultimately glad I did.

Looked after Αα on Wednesday morning while Σσ had important Number 10 business to deal with. Me and Αα went to the playground in the sun and I’m confident we had the considerably better time.

We drove up to The Lakes after school on Friday. Took a GIANT pain au chocolat we’d spotted in an Islington bakery. Αα puked twice and there was no end of wailing but it was several hours shorter than last year.

The Scottish contingent all seemed well. The weather was glorious. Me and Don got embroiled in a fell race around the Old Man – it was nice to be running in the hills but I was feeling pretty peaky from the off. Σσ was rough too – food poisoning, hangover, swimming in the lake, or a virus were all possible candidates. I reckon virus because my legs have basically stopped working in the aftermath.

Work

Google Tag Manager SPA scroll depth nonsense

Running

Tuesday: Back on my BS – 5.71mi at 6:49/mi
Saturday: Too far – 10.84mi at 13:01/mi

04.21 – 04.27

2025-07-21T09:27:34Z

Life

We got the train home on Tuesday as it was an inset day allowing us to escape the perils of bank holiday travel.

Ηη, having successfully avoided shitting himself for the entirety of the holidays reverted to type at the end of the week and broke his winning streak in the playground after I picked him up from school. Still, we had a good run.

Σσ went back to Scotland for Niamh’s book launch (Ηη thinks she’s sending it into space and I’m not going to be the one to disabuse him of this notion). Apparently it was excellent, only slightly marred by Niamh’s dad fainting in the pub afterwards (he was fine). Then Σσ went back the hospital for a couple of nights to help Dani while the rest of Σσ’s fam were awol. The kids (aforementioned unfortunate lavatorial relapse aside) were pretty good for me.

We hit the funfair in Clissold on Saturday which was remarkably ok. Our kids largely avoided any meltdowns (poor little Rawi didn’t fare quite so well but to be honest that probably helped with my impression of it not having been awful – there’s nothing like someone else having a worse parenting experience to vastly improve my mood).

Saturday evening we went to see The Flaming Lips at Brixton Academy. We missed almost all of the first half which was unfortunate (especially since it was Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots in its entirety – ostensibly what we were there for), but we still got a solid two hours of excellent show and I don’t think I had any more standing left in my legs so probably for the best. Huge tip of the hat to Rach for agreeing to babysit last minute – even though I’d had the tickets for c. 5 months (a Christmas present for Σσ) I only remembered about them when I’d read about the London marathon in the news which triggered a vague sense that we were supposed to be doing something the night before.

Σσ went to see her cousin Luc run the marathon on Sunday but I hung back with the kids. I’m sorry to have missed it but history teaches us it’s not really a fun day out for them. We watched infinite cartoons instead.

Running

Monday Kilmarnock shake out
Thursday hills
Sunday Camden Hampstead loop

04.14 – 04.20

2025-07-21T09:27:34Z

Life

We came to see Aila. It was good for everyone’s heart and soul. Nothing else matters. She’s amazing.

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday marshes
Saturday Kilmarnock Parkrun
Sunday Kilmarnock Parkrun course with Σσ

04.07 – 04.13

2025-07-21T09:27:34Z

Life

We had our first proper taste of the chaos of surviving school holidays while being at work. We put Ηη in dance and gymnastics club for three days and it definitely went better than it could have. He didn’t hate it and he was disappointed to have been missing the last day (although I think that was largely due to the fact that he’d heard there would be chocolate). I’m glad he was largely indifferent about it because I was mildly concerned he would really hate it.

I’ve started sketching a lot more since I’m been off games and feel like I’m hitting my stride with it a bit. I bought a job lot of 2B, 4B, and 6B pencils and feel like I’ve had a bit of a breakthrough being comfortable doing rubbish sketches in the moleskine.

We caught up with Elora on Saturday for a very pleasant slightly boozy afternoon in her garden. The kids were on form and ate their body weight in chocolate.

Went to the fair in Finsbo on Sunday. There’s something infinitely depressing about it, but the kids had a laugh and we managed to get in and out without too much drama.

I got an email from the GP to tell me I don’t have TB. I’m glad I wasn’t aware I was being tested for it tbh. I’m also glad I don’t have it. I finished a second round of antibiotics and feel like I’m finally shaking off the last vestiges of seemingly infinite phlegm. Taste and smell is coming back too which is nice. It has given me an insight into how my dad (with his severely compromised pipe-smoker’s taste buds) was happy to drink the roughest of coffee and whisky.

The weather’s been glorious which makes hanging about in playgrounds much more palatable.

Work

Audio player updates
Trying to come up to speed on AI agent based editing so as not to get left (even further) behind. I’ve been trying to figure out what the effective difference in all the models is but it’s largely bros on Reddit telling each other they’re wrong as far as I can be bothered to work out. I’ve settled on using Claude for now largely because it has the best name

Reading

Inversions by Iain M. Banks – best yet (perhaps because it’s only remotely science fiction)

Running

Saturday Finsbo Parkrun
Sunday Horrid hill loop

03.31 – 04.06

2025-07-21T09:27:34Z

Life

Why are you two so old and so small?

Ηη, addressing me and Σσ

The GP gave Αα a clean bill of health. I didn’t fare so well and got another course of antibiotics and a chest x-ray. I think(/hope) I’m getting better but there’s still a seemingly bottomless pit of yellow-green phlegm emanating from my lungs. I mostly hate feeling unfit. And the one run I have managed in the last 3 weeks has left me feeling totally beaten up. On the plus side it turns out I have normal-to-low blood pressure as measured by a day-long ambulatory test, as compared with the always-alarmingly-high readings I get whenever I’m at the GP.

Running

Sunday 3 x Swain’s

03.24 – 03.30

2025-07-21T09:27:34Z

Life

Ηη got two cardigans to wear to school. I don’t think he’s been as pleased with anything ever before. He likes them so much he takes them to bed with him. It’s very cute. It’s more than a little bit strange. He reminds me of my old man more than ever.

He made a Mother’s Day card which he himself mistook for a picture of ‘baby Jesus on the cross’.

Αα got a chest infection. I got a chest infection. Amoxicillin crew. It seems to be clearing her cough right up and she’s spent a couple of nights in her own cot for the first time in weeks. She managed to stay upbeat about life in spite of the fact she had an alarmingly low blood oxygen saturation whereas Ηη managed to be grumpy and upset about almost everything even though he’s the picture of health.

I had a couple of days off work and slept more and better than I have in years. It’s a weird sensation feeling far more alert than I have since before the pandemic but also feeling particularly unwell. I also can’t smell or taste anything, and not just in the got-a-bit-of-a-cold way. So maybe I had COVID at some point. Mostly I wish I could stop coughing because it’s really making my ribs hurt.

Hung out with Hugo, Gabi, Rawi, and Heather mostly happily for swathes of the weekend in the ever improving weather.

Work

I largely missed firebreak week with illness although I managed to finish off the css grid thing I’d started. I also missed a digital team away day which I was not that upset about.

Reading

Excession by Iain M. Banks – long

03.17 – 03.23

2025-07-21T09:27:34Z

Life

I helped out with Forest school on Tuesday and got to see Ηη larking about, barely paying a shred of attention to his teachers, and generally being exactly himself, but in a wooded area and ignoring a different set of authority figures than me and Σσ. It’s nice to know he’s consistent at least. It was all fun and games until it was time to go back to school and he decided that he ‘had a virus‘ and spent the walk back having a fairly serious strop. I wasn’t really in the mood to give him an inch and I’m definitely less inclined to want to do it again when it ends like that.

Αα on the other hand continued to be properly ill with a hacking cough that doesn’t seem to be making much progress. I’m also worried that my cough has gone deep and my ribs are (once again) feeling like they’re being pulled apart. Probably going to give it another week to try and shift it before going to the GP.

Niamh came to town for book-launch related activities. She brought a proof copy along with her and I was immediately hooked. She got the news that it was going to be on Radio 4’s Book Club while she was here too, which felt pretty significant. I’m very excited for her.

Ηη just about managed to be ok at Heather’s birthday party (once they were allowed outside his mood, as ever, immediately improved).

We had to dinghy Si and Lou on Sunday because Αα wasn’t up to it. To be fair the rest of us probably weren’t either.

Aila is still not gaining weight and Johnny and Dani seem unimpressed with the gastro team at the hospital. She normally seems in good spirits when we see her on the phone though and it’s wonderful to see videos of her spending time outside.

Q: Has Ηη stopped shitting himself daily? A: No.

Work

I wrote some objectives and accidentally started pulling at thread of what it would take to swap out our flex grid for a grid grid.

Reading

Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin – buy, borrow, or steal a copy now! But probably buy it yeah? Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks – florid.

Running

Tuesday hills – hugely ill-advised and has probably contributed to me feeling much worse than I would have. Has been a very easy decision to stop running since.

03.10 – 03.16

2025-07-21T09:27:34Z

Life

Ηη wanted to be on his new bike every second of every day and I was there for it. I’m starting to imagine a world where we can all go on bike rides together. The reality is that that’s probably still a long way off. And it will probably be awful. Still, it’ll be new.

I strong-armed Σσ into doing Finsbo Parkrun on Saturday morning and me and the kids went along to shout. I thought she might enjoy it. She did NAT.

We endured another party on Sunday that Ηη demonstrably didn’t want to be at, but he insisted on staying because of the potent allure of the party bag. That juice really isn’t worth the squeeze. Αα had a nice time at least.

I’ve got another cold and my cough is lingering like a total prick. The sympathy well has long since run dry.

Work

Mostly wrapping up the initial phase of the Design Sprint. Looks like we’ve got some meaningful outputs and feedback to iterate on.

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday hills
Sunday Heath and Swain’s

03.03 – 03.09

2025-07-21T09:27:34Z

Life

Our baby boy turned five.

What. The. Actual. Fuck?

Still a massive pain in the prick though.

He wanted a blue pedal bike. We got him a blue pedal bike. He told us he knew how to ride it and we told him he probably didn’t but turns out we were bang wrong. The promise of the balance bike delivered and within minutes he was pelting it around the park faster than I could keep up.

We’d gambled on having his party in the park in early March (since history has shown us he’s not the biggest fan of being indoors). The weather was ridiculously good and it was a smash. I think Σσ earned a bit of kudos in the school WhatsApp for having reset the bar in terms of what’s expected from a birthday party because it was starting to feel like a bit of an arms race.

We got a massive pirate helium balloon for the party. We discovered Αα was not a fan of massive pirate helium balloons.

Fairly sure Ηη felt suitably well celebrated. We got him home after he’d (self-confessedly) eaten too much cake, let him open all his presents, then tried to stifle the inevitable meltdown as best we could. He did remarkably well, but the latent adrenaline coursing through his veins forced him back up at 3:30am and he wasn’t going back to sleep under any circumstances.

That next day we had three kids parties in the diary which was going to have been a slog at the best of times. I think I ended the weekend having had pizza five meals on the bounce.

I got a cough that has made my voice sound like I’ve been on the piss for a fortnight. The cough is of course at its worst shortly after I’ve fallen asleep, so Σσ has to shake me out of my stupor and convince me to do something about it.

Aila was allowed out of hospital to the airport to greet her dad back from a work trip. She’s still struggling with intestinal trouble and losing weight though so she’s not stable enough for a transplant yet.

Work

We had what was I think the best design sprint I’ve ever been involved with for most of the week. I’m confident something meaningful will grow out of it.

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday hills

02.24 – 03.02

2025-07-21T09:27:34Z

Life

We went to a family learning session where Ηη’s teacher modelled some typical class stuff. It was enlightening. I couldn’t be a primary (or any other) teacher. I think Ηη enjoyed having us there.

We forgot to pick him up after football club on Wednesday. First time we’ve messed up quite that badly. Won’t be the last.

I was off work a couple of days with what I’m attributing to exhaustion. I felt like a bit of a fraud, but in retrospect I’m pretty sure I needed it.

Em and Rory came to visit at the weekend. We managed to keep it a surprise from the kids (mostly to avoid disappointment if it fell through – something that’s burnt us a couple of times recently). They were suitably surprised and delighted.

Took Rory (a nailed-on dino boy) to the Natural History Museum. It was all a little bit much for him poor wee lamb. It’s easy to forget he’s only three because he’s such a big lad. And he’s not used to the tube or large groups of people. Overwhelm aside, everyone had a lovely time.

The sun and the flowers came out and that definitely improved my mood if not my energy levels.

We heard that Aila might be allowed out of hospital if/when her mum and dad are comfortable that they can deal with her dialysis on their own. Obviously she’ll have to stay close to the hospital, but it feels like it will be a significant step.

Work

Set up Zed with a view to using it as a daily-driver. I’m not sure why, but I get itchy IDE feet every now and then and Zed looked nice (and wasn’t just VS Code with a different skin on, which seems to be the case for the rest of the options). I was less productive than usual as a result (and I’ve already set a reasonably low bar).

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday hills
Saturday Finsbo Parkrun
Sunday 5 x Swain’s

02.17 – 02.23

2025-07-21T09:27:34Z

Life

Half term. Ηη has been challenging and Αα is rapidly turning into nothing short of an abominable tyrant with fairly violent tendencies. But still remarkably fun somehow.

We were planning on making it up to Scotland, but there wasn’t a day when at least two of us weren’t unwell so we binned that idea. Σσ and Ηη were most depressed about this, but Αα had definitely understood that it was going to have been a possibility and she was a bit sad not to be getting to see Aila, Gangan, and Baba, too. To be fair to him, Ηη took it much better than he might have. He woke us up with two bags of assorted toys that he’d packed to take with him on the train journey – it was slightly heartbreaking to see the look on his face when we told him we couldn’t go.

Overall we managed to have a fairly nice time. A few play dates, a trip to the Southbank and a trip to the cinema (Dog Man – my first cinema visit since 2019, a relentless assault on the senses, although Ηη seemed to enjoy himself). And a lot of time in Finsbury and Clissold Parks.

Ηη is slightly besotted with his little pal Louis and we (well, mostly Σσ) looked after the pair of them for an afternoon. It’s fair to say Louis has some weirdly 1970s opinions about girls, and it’s sad to see them rubbing off on Ηη a bit. Needless to say neither me nor Σσ were willing to abide said opinions in our house so we gave them a mild dressing down for it.

On the other hand, Ηη’s friend Gabi is the very best kind of friend he could hope for. Σσ wants to limit how much they hang out because she’s worried Gabi will go off him. Still, they managed a couple of long spells seemingly having the best time together. I’ll be so sad when they have their first bust up.

Aila’s ok.

Work

Not much.

Reading

On Photography by Susan Sontag – interesting and thought provoking, for sure, but a bit higher-brow than I’m craving currently

Running

Tuesday lunchtime run up (horrid hill) to Hampstead
Thursday marshes
Saturday Finsbo Parkrun
Sunday Olympic Park loop

02.10 – 02.16

2025-07-21T09:27:34Z

Life

Can’t remember.

Oh yeah, Ηη got his first ever rose from Gabi on Valentine’s Day. He’s not quite smart enough to realise that he has a girlfriend though.

Work

Can’t remember.

Reading

Probably nothing.

TIL

Definitely nothing.

Running

Probably three of the usual suspects.

02.03 – 02.09

2025-07-21T09:27:34Z

Life

The kids began to get better. Me and Σσ got worse.

One night everyone stayed in their own beds till morning which hasn’t happened for months.

We had a rescheduled party in the flat for Αα and Liv on Saturday. Everyone mostly had a nice time (except, I’m sure, for our neighbours). Bae made another belter of a cake.

I was responsible for two solo-parent bedtimes and nobody behaved particularly well (me included). We all survived and I think we’re friends again.

Αα doesn’t seem to be having the best time in a new room at nursery but hopefully she’s just taking a bit of time to get settled in. I don’t think either me or Σσ are particularly worried, possibly because Ηη basically never settled in for the entirety of his time in any nursery room. She’s already doing considerably better than him on that front.

Σσ entered us into the Beverley 10k in May. I haven’t been entered in a race for years and it was a weird sensation how I immediately knew I was going to do something different to accommodate it. I think 10k is the worst distance on offer in terms of suffering so I’m not particularly looking forward to that, but I’ll probably/hopefully get fitter and faster as a result of having been entered. I might even contemplate a(nother) return to track.

Saw my first daffodil of the year.

Work

More Content API and ‘all’ search stuff.

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday marshes
Sunday canal, horrid hill, Ally Pally

01.27 – 02.02

2025-07-21T09:27:34Z

Life

Ηη made it as far as Forest School on Tuesday (accompanied by Σσ volunteering) before we concluded he still wasn’t well enough to be at school. He also wasn’t quite poorly enough for me and Σσ to be able to get any work done.

We took the Thursday off work to celebrate Αα’s birthday and we spent it sitting on the sofa with her sweating, coughing, wheezing, and crying. I’d made the mistake of thinking she was going to be able to dodge whatever it was.

It was about this time last year that Αα had to go into hospital with a non-specific respiratory problem and at various points over the weekend it felt like things might be headed in that direction again. Thankfully they didn’t, and I really hope they don’t.

Uncle Rich came to visit on Saturday when we’d planned to have a party for Αα and a few of her pals. We cancelled the party because she was at her lowest ebb, but at least Rich and Ηη got some quality time to hang out (even if Ηη was on the edge of a meltdown about anything and everything for the duration).

We briefly went to a friend’s Pongal on Sunday afternoon, but Ηη’s (continued) bad energy meant we had to pull the rip-cord quite early, which was a shame. Possibly our fault for not insisting he had some lunch beforehand. Then Em came to see us for a couple of hours because he’d been at a 40th the night before. He has been, as he described it, ‘California sober’, for six months, and he seems very good on it. Aspects of his personal life still seem like a bit of a toxic mess, but he seems to be dealing with it as well as I imagine anyone could. He certainly seems to be doing much better than I feared – I think I’d been a bit anxious about him coming over because of how the last time we saw him (at his own 40th) we’d left feeling sad and angry about his situation, and guilty that we weren’t helping.

Aila keeps on having to have operations to put her tubes back in because they’re getting dislodged every couple of days. It doesn’t seem particularly sustainable, but at least when she’s not groggy from all the general anaesthetic she seems ok.

Work

Got some ‘All search’ results styled and showing behind a toggle.

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday hills
Sunday 5 x Swain’s

01.20 – 01.26

2025-07-21T09:27:34Z

Life

2025-01-hipster.jpg

Look at this insufferable hipster

A fairly low-key week that culminated in me getting mildly unwell and Ηη (along with seemingly everyone else in his class) picking up some unspecified winter bug that wiped him clean out for the weekend.

Being unaccustomed to the effects of being poorly he still believed that he could do everything he normally would. The logical upshot of this is that I had to carry him home on my shoulders several times after he’d insisted he would have enough energy for assorted outdoor activities. It was quite painful to see the look of confusion and exhaustion painted on his face as his body disobeyed him.

He’s not prone to understatement so we occasionally suspected him to have been milking it a bit, but when he consistently didn’t want to eat bananas and toast it was clear he wasn’t right – he’s not capable of faking not wanting food. After a Saturday night sweat-fest he seems to be on the mend.

Now, inevitably, Αα is starting to look a bit peaky. Odds of Jim and Ange risking coming to visit for her birthday getting ever shorter.

Aila had an op early in the week. Nobody thought to tell us when it was over that she was ok so we spent half a day feeling sick with fear. She was ok. She’s been up and down when we’ve chatted to her on the phone but we can get a smile out of her more often than not. Not heard any updates about kidney transplants.

Work

Started some UI work on ‘All’ search.

Running

Tuesday hills
Sunday 18-miler (marshes/camden/swain’s/parkland walk)

01.13 – 01.19

2025-07-21T09:27:34Z

Life

Went for pizza with Caroline, Alex, and Luc on Tuesday evening. The kids were great, but buggered beyond recognition by the time we got home. Nice to see Caroline.

Ηη started football club after school on Wednesday. He told us that he’d scored a goal, and when asked ‘who is the best at football in your class’ announced ‘I think I am’ without missing a beat. Certainly the right attitude for a successful sportsperson even if he is unmistakably dogshit at the sport in question. I’m just glad he didn’t immediately hate it.

Σσ got him an appointment with the doc after footy to see if they had any more suggestions about stopping him soiling himself. On the one hand, he couldn’t feel anything obvious in Ηη’s stomach or intestines which is a relief, but sounds like he was decidedly unhelpful after that, spitballing theories which, under the slightest shred of scrutiny, are clearly bullshit (‘he’s doing it for attention because he has a little sister’). Anyway, we’ve got loads more laxatives and we’re precisely no further forward.

Αα was sick in her cot on Thursday morning. This may well have been avoided if we hadn’t refused to go and pick her up while she’d been whining for the previous hour (an attempt to get her to observe what we consider the minimum-reasonable-getting-up-time). Obviously we immediately felt pretty bad about that and we both stayed home to look after her (ultimately she was fine and we all had a nice time hanging out for the most part).

We scooped up Ηη from school on Friday and hot-footed it straight to King’s Cross for a train to Bev. Spent a (mostly) pleasant weekend with the cousins, aunties, and uncles. Endured c. 100 emotions/second from Ηη but that’s not too far outside his normal operating rate. Em and Tom are clearly having a rough ride with their kids while Jim and Ange are away. And who knows what’s going on with Kat. She seems stuck and I can only hope she manages to find a way through whatever she’s feeling.

I’ve got a Canon P coming in the post. I’m slightly embarrassed and ashamed of my new obsession, but it’s a relatively safe and victimless mid-life crisis (if that’s what it is).

Work

I made an accordion using the details disclosure element and some hot-off-the-press css that lets you animate from height: 0 to height: auto. Had some fun times getting to the bottom of some screen reader weirdness too.

While sitting with a couple of colleagues trying to work out why the screen reader wasn’t announcing what we expected it to I got an email from Ηη’s school telling me that he’d shat himself. Obviously the screen reader read it out. It was tragi-comic.

I wrote some objectives. They are largely a rehash of what I said they would be last time. I think one of them might even predate the pandemic.

Reading

Analogue Photography – Christmas present from Σσ

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday hills
Sunday Hudson Way, Cherry/Bishop Burton, Coldharbour Lane loop

01.06 – 01.12

2025-07-21T09:27:34Z

Life

Ηη went back to school, Αα went back to nursery, I went back to work, and I have immediately forgotten almost everything else that happened in the week.

I know I developed two rolls of black and white film using a changing bag and a Patterson tank. I have yet to scan them which I’m led to believe will another fairly time-consuming process. I’m enjoying my venture back into analogue photography though – there’s something slightly magical about getting a bunch of tiny (invariably slightly crap) pictures off a roll of film after a prolonged period of thinking I’m going to fuck it up at every stage. I’m also starting to long for a nicer film rangefinder.

Ηη’s toilet issues have, as we feared, have not improved. I think we’ve maybe managed to convince him that we’re on his side trying to fix it though after we got him to watch a video on the eric site. Going to see a doc again.

Aila’s ok.

Work

Kicked off with a five-hour meeting on Monday which left me fairly beat, but it was nice to put my brain to use for something other than making cartoons appear on my laptop and eating mince pies.

TIL

There are at least five possible ‘oo’ sounds in English words, as in ‘blood’, ‘floor’, ’food’, ‘foot’, and’ brooch’. English is really stupid.

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday over the heath to work
Sunday Olympic Park loop

12.30 – 01.05

2025-07-21T09:27:34Z

Life

Cheerio 2024, don’t haste ye back ya total prick.

Σσ went to Glasgow on New Year’s Eve because Dani is basically broken and everyone up there needed a break. My solo-parenting strategy comprised letting the kids have at the Christmas chocolate with impunity and wall-to-wall Disney films. It worked out pretty great but I think there’s going to be quite a lot of bad habits to undo when school restarts.

It sounds like Aila was in a pretty bad way for the time that Σσ was up there. Obviously this isn’t what anyone wanted, but I think everyone was glad that at least she was there at a time that her help was needed the most. Thankfully Aila has been doing a bit better since Σσ came home.

We bumped into Ηη’s pals Joey and Louis in the park and he scored a play date over lunch. He shouted, “I promise I won’t have a poo accident” at me as we parted ways. I’m not sure anyone was convinced by this, but I (and I’m sure Joey’s mum) was delighted that he remained true to his word. Sounds like he had a nice time.

Both kids really seem like they’ve grown up just over the course of the holiday – they’re (mostly) so sweet with each other and it melts my heart daily.

I have decided to start developing my own black and white film at home. The chemicals are in the post. It is only a matter of time before Σσ leaves me.

Ηη has finished his course of laxatives. I don’t think it’s going to prove to have made much of a difference.

Watching

Peter Pan (c. 10x) – contains some pretty dodgy depictions of Native Americans which I think we’re going to have to have words with Ηη about sooner rather than later
Brave (which everyone tells us reminds them of Ηη)
Malcolm X – my embarrassingly limited knowledge of the man prior to watching this film was truly tainted by white history

Running

Hogmanay 3 x Swain’s
Sunday Camden, Horrid Hill, Ally Pally

12.23 – 12.29

2024-12-31T07:17:16Z

Life

We stayed in London because we’re all sick. This was obviously quite a painful decision for Σσ to land on but while it wasn’t the Christmas anyone would have planned it was honestly among the best I’ve ever had. For starters it was the least bad getting-the-kids-to-bed-on-Christmas-Eve ever. We didn’t eat to excess. We only drank a bit too much. We didn’t do any performative arguing. The kids were just the right side of overexcited.

Ηη and Αα seemed mostly delighted with their presents (maybe Αα would have been happier with more of Ηη’s presents, but I think that’s always going to be true by dint of the fact that they’re his and she wants everything that he has – not sure how to solve that one).

We went to watch Σσ take a dip in the reservoir on Christmas morning. Turns out there were lots of similarly unhinged folk with the same idea (I think I’d probably expected her to be there on her own).

It sounds like Ange knocked it out of the park feeding everyone plus extra surprise guests in the hospital in Glasgow. I get the impression it wasn’t too depressing for everyone and Aila has been doing well for the most part.

Ηη announced he wanted to go back to school on Boxing Day. I can’t work out if this is good (he loves school) or a damning indictment of our parenting.

Αα stayed in her cot the whole night for the first time in c. two months. We then forced her to do this again the next night. It resulted in a blood-curdling amount of screaming (which we wouldn’t have persisted with had we not known the neighbours were away) and very little sleep for me and Σσ (Ηη somehow, thank fuck, managed to sleep through the whole protracted ordeal), but the night after that was a miracle where everyone stayed in bed until 7:30. I really really really hope this will happen again. Even just once would be nice.

Ηη shitting himself news

We’ve put him back on the laxatives because he’s been worse than ever. This has resulted in a lot of extra ‘presents’. Outside school time feels like the best time to try and sort it though, and since he’s going to be shitting himself anyway we might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.

Running

Christmas Eve hills
Boxing Day hills
Saturday Finsbo Parkrun
Sunday 5 (3 big, 2 small) x Swain’s

12.16 – 12.22

2024-12-26T09:03:29Z

Life

Caught up with old We Are Friday pals on Tuesday (something Siri struggled with). We discussed:

Bobby Fingers
Sløtface (not to be confused with Skatebård) and The Flaming Lips
The London Marathon
Passing up perfectly good opportunities to moon the king and Tim Apple
RxJS/observables
React, Preact, NextJS
Elixir and Phoenix
LiveView flappy bird
Eleventy
Quarterback and my burgeoning and largely unexplained interest in NFL
Severance (is season two destined to be a disappointment?)
Ted Lasso
Detectorists
Chris Garrett
paintpad.app, rcpz.me, mela.recipes
Quantum computing and web security
Assorted AI bullshit plus using copilot to volunteer an api key

Went to Ηη’s first Christmas show. His class did a very cute rendition of Jingle Bell Rock (among my least favourite of the Christmas tunes but I’ve had to make my peace with it to preserve my sanity now I’ve listened to it c. 2000 times). I cried laughing at some truly abysmal recorder playing. We sat through an hour and a half of the whole school year-by-year telling the story of the nativity. Getting primary school children to act it out really shines a light on what a batshit crazy story it is (if more light were needed). Fun though. Even Αα made it through the whole thing (although at one point she got bored and went to cuddle someone else’s dad).

Ηη finished his first term on Friday. I’m so proud of him. He’s next level exhausted – he asked to go to bed one night, and stayed in bed past 7am two consecutive mornings. Neither of these things have ever happened before.

Unfortunately Αα’s health is still fairly crap which continues to manifest itself in her being in bed with us every night and generally causing havoc/preventing sleep.

I think we’re all sick with whatever she’s got now, so maybe that will level the playing field?

We took the kids to see the Christmas lights at King’s Cross and went for Pizza with the Pope’s afterwards. Mark kept up an impressive sulk for the duration and Heather did her best to convince Ηη that Santa wasn’t real but it was otherwise pretty lovely.

Phillipe the mouse (almost certainly many Phillipes the mice) has(/have) taken up residence in the flat.

Work

Firebreak week which I’d earmarked for figuring out if we could replace Popper (now Floating UI) with a couple of web platform apis. I think the short answer is not yet if you want to support anything apart from Chrome. Hopefully one day soon though – it’s wild how much is possible without JS these days. It took me about half a day to draw that conclusion so I spent the rest of the week learning about service workers. So far I’ve learned they’re fiddly af.

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday hills
Saturday Finsbo Parkrun
Sunday Camden Horrid Hill loop

12.09 – 12.15

2024-12-18T20:08:56Z

Life

I babysat for Mark and George on Monday evening. On the way home I developed a limp, and by the time I got home my left ankle was in agony. I couldn’t get to sleep, I couldn’t put any weight on it whatsoever, I thought I was going to be sick with the pain and started shivering uncontrollably. Σσ was understandably quite concerned and managed to get an ice-pack wrapped around it. I genuinely thought I might have broken something.

The next day I limped a bit and had some ibuprofen. The day after it was completely fine. I felt a bit daft for how much of a deal I’d made of it, but there’s no escaping the fact it really felt like quite a worryingly big deal. Can abject exhaustion manifest itself in extreme acute ankle pain? Or maybe it’s just another fun thing to look forward to about getting older.

I think Σσ is also on the verge of breaking. It has been an unrelenting few months of personal life insanity coupled with a high-stress job in which she is never going to even remotely consider half-arsing it (which some might *cough*). She needs a break. I’m not sure the Christmas holidays is going to be the one she needs, but hopefully it’ll be better than nothing.

I bought a small painting from Mimei Thompson (our landlady when we lived in London Fields). I’m delighted that I’ve finally got around to doing this because we’ve wanted a piece for the longest time. I think Santa is probably going to leave it under our tree and we’ll have to hope that Ηη and Αα don’t manage to break it before it’s unwrapped.

Αα pulled the tree down on Sunday morning. I’m impressed it took her that long tbh.

Seems I’m doing the Drink Every Day December Challenge. Needless to say it isn’t making me feel any better but somehow almost always seems unavoidable.

Aila’s ok.

Work

Content API. I sort of got the hang of it I think. I appear to have made it work in any event, and people seem happy enough.

Running

Monday 2 x Finsbo
Thursday hills
Sunday Marshes, Tower Bridge, Blackfriars loop

12.02 – 12.08

2024-12-09T22:08:40Z

Life

Went for a run with Σσ for the first time in more than five years. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I don’t think she disliked it either, when historically I always had the sense (rightly or wrongly) that some aspect of us running together was irritating her. Perhaps she did dislike it and I’ve just lost my sense of when I’m being irritating. We’ll see if another run happens again sometime. I hope it does.

We had a parent-teacher meeting on Tuesday that was a mixed bag. I think their main point was they’d like Ηη to stop shitting himself (wouldn’t we all pal), although I wasn’t in the room at that point in the discussion because (you guessed it) Ηη was shitting himself. Σσ felt like there was too much focus on getting him to fit into their regime when by their own admission he’s a free spirit and likes to be doing his own thing. I don’t suppose there’s a realistic way for them to change how they teach on a per-child basis. We could send him to a Steiner school. I mean we couldn’t, but I’m confident that would be an unmitigated disaster anyhow. One of his teachers chose to use the phrase, “I don’t think he’ll be hard to break”, which while we understood what they meant in the context still felt like a strange thing to say to a parent even if it’s how you approach it as a teacher. I think he’ll be grand in any case. I think Σσ might have another word with them though.

Ηη now tells us he likes dinosaurs (never has before) and dislikes mermaids and pink things (always did before). When pushed on this he said it’s because he doesn’t like girls things and mermaids and pink are for girls. The insidiousness of all this needlessly gendered nonsense is heartbreaking, but I don’t think there’s anything we can realistically do at this point to convince him otherwise. I don’t think I’ll be able to bear it if he wants to get his hair cut short. Conversely Αα gets pretty fucked off if we try to put her in a dress or dungarees instead of joggers and t-shirt.

Αα got quite ill early in the week. She seemed to be getting better towards the end but got quite puffy on Friday and we had a late visit to the GP who consulted with someone at Homerton Hospital to check they didn’t think it was Kawasaki disease. They didn’t, but they could hear she’s got a crackly chest. We’re hoping that’ll clear up because at this point I’m starting to feel like we’ll never sleep again.

Another 5th birthday party on Saturday afternoon, followed by Ηη’s first ever trip to the cinema to see Moana 2. He held it together remarkably well at the party (I think there was slightly less sugar on offer than usual, which likely helped). And it sounds like he was pretty good at the cinema too (even while his pal was being not especially good). I drew the sitting-at-home-with-Αα straw, which ordinarily I’d have been very happy with, but her illness and subsequent foul mood meant she chose to spend the time beating me up (which continued until she passed out). She seems to be getting increasingly physical with us when she’s fucked off about something. I’m hoping we won’t start getting lectures from nursery about her having beaten up the other kids.

I ordered loads of bathroom tile samples.

Aila’s still on the up.

Work

Content API. I mentioned that maybe we needed to ‘create a new pipeline’ because a colleague had suggested it. After careful consideration I don’t think I actually know what it means.

Might have to revisit Rx.js because it’s in use for the Content API. I dabbled with it a few years ago and from memory I found it to be a bit of a headfuck. No real reason to believe I’ll find it any different this time around.

Listening

RHLSTP 539 – James Acaster

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday hills
Sunday 5 x Swain’s – Highgate looked pretty beaten up in the wake of Storm Darragh

11.25 – 12.01

2024-12-02T10:55:47Z

Life

A week in which Σσ and I have come close to the end of our respective tethers with Ηη. Sure, he’s only four, but could he consider not being such a bellend so much of the time? I love him so much, but I’m having quite a hard time liking him.

This has not been helped by the fact that every night this week (and possibly last) Αα has been in with us, mostly on top of Σσ’s head, and periodically kicking me in the face.

The roofer we got out (after last week’s cliffhanger) sucked through his teeth and told us we needed a whole new roof. Which isn’t what we wanted to hear. But just before he left he asked if we’d checked the plumbing because maybe a pipe’s leaking and now I’m clinging onto that possibility for dear life.

Spoke to the architect again on Friday. It’s slow going, but I think we’re getting somewhere (this may still be wishful).

We endured another 5th birthday where (as per) Αα was excellent and Ηη was mostly a bit of a shit.

Nobody I know shat themselves this week (there have been some very near misses), although Αα rounded out the week puking and clearly feeling pretty rubbish. She always manages to put a brave face on it though.

Aila’s been smiling a fair bit and the general mood in Glasgow still seems positive. We’ve got no idea what we’re going to be doing at Christmas but I can’t say I care too much.

This site

I added a digital date on top of the photos for a bit of nostalgia (based on this digital number web component I’ve been messing about with).

Work

Content API transformers

Watching

Quarterback – I don’t know why but I was overcome with a desire to learn more about NFL

TIL

Snails hibernate for up to three years

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday hills
Sunday round the Heath and Ally Pally

11.18 – 11.24

2024-11-25T20:58:25Z

Life

Ηη crossed the threshold required to enjoy a balance bike and has gone from never wanting to even look at it to wanting to go on it everywhere all the time. This is great. I’m starting to imagine a world where he’s on a pedal bike and we can pick off miles at time. I’m having to apologise to strangers with acute lower-leg injuries more often.

He got a ‘super sunshine award’ in his class at school and I’ve come to realise early years educators, whether they realise it or not, have complete mastery of coercive control (but we are also obviously incredibly proud of him for whatever it is he’s done to get said award). He expressed an interest in joining breakfast club so we’ve started him there two days a week which might help make mornings marginally less chaotic.

We started the thankless task of figuring out what array of plastic garbage he would like Santa to deliver. It’s a moving target which I feel we’re destined to miss. But then isn’t learning how to handle disappointment the true spirit of Christmas?

Αα continues to delight when she’s not completely losing her shit (and somehow even that isn’t so bad). Two nights in a row she started crying when it was stormy. We thought she was having bad dreams. Turns out she was getting rained on from a leak in the ceiling. Watch this space for more fun-with-roofers material.

Aila’s back out of ICU and it feels like people are maybe starting to look more than 24 hours into her future for the first time since August. The world is a little bit lighter.

Work

Mostly Content API and TypeScript confusion.

Watching

Amputating Alice

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday hills and Heath to work
Sunday Vicky park loop

11.11 – 11.17

2024-11-18T19:54:25Z

Life

Σσ and I took Monday off (to stop us from completely breaking). It was a beautiful autumn day and we went on a long stroll around the heath, followed by a voucher-subsidised lunch at the Bull & Last (thanks Si & Lou).

Αα sounds like a wounded seal her cough is so bad. Croup fits the description. This has definitely had me in a mild panic given that that was the first news we had about Aila’s symptoms. Αα doesn’t seem too upset about it most of the time, it’s just a total fucker when it comes to her (and of course by extension, our) sleep. I feel like it’s maybe getting better the last night or two (although that could well just be wishful thinking).

We had our architect and a potential builder over to the flat on Friday and the builder seemed much less pessimistic about his ability to get everything we’d want done than the architect has been to date. That said, we haven’t told him our budget (and he didn’t want any sugar in his tea, so I’m not convinced he’s a real builder). Feels one step closer to actually happening though, which is almost exciting.

I took the kids to a newly opened next-level soft play. I think it was a bit much for Αα, but Ηη (and his other pals) loved it. I hated pretty much every second, but it’s looking like I’ll have to make my peace with it.

This site

Added an RSS feed for the /photos section of the site

Work

Used our Content API (instead of Prismic) to render the story cards on the home and stories pages
Made a satisfying one-letter change PR that fixed a bunch of UI regressions no one had noticed

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday horrid hill/heath from work
Sunday 5 x Swain’s

11.04 – 11.10

2024-11-12T14:08:59Z

Life

I think it was to our credit that we kept the half-term activities suitably tedious and Ηη wasn’t even remotely upset about going back to school.

Em visited on Monday evening. She seemed to be in pretty good nick and the kids were really good for her. We let her read them the same book far more times than she wanted to, but she’d made her own bed by doing it so well.

Mad shit in the US again – I found that while it’s obviously awful I couldn’t really bring myself to any kind of emotional response. Our balance is so far in the red that it hardly registered.

Took Αα out on her new scooter on Friday. She’s bang into the theory of it, but gets hilariously/painfully frustrated when she can’t immediately do it. I know how she feels.

We saw Si and Lou for a pub lunch on Saturday. It’s always good to see them, but it feels like hard work to be good company at present (people don’t want to hear about the horrors of children in icu that much, and especially not while they get drunk). Fortunately they made it easy for us (and some would argue that I was never really that good company in the first place).

Ηη expressed an interest in doing Junior Parkrun so we took him to Highbury Fields on Sunday. It rapidly descended to abject disaster when about ten metres in he realised he “wasn’t going to win” (me telling him it isn’t a race wasn’t going to wash with him at all). He made it round one of the three prescribed laps (with me carrying him for about half of it) before he tapped out and demanded to be taken to the playground. I promptly extricated myself from the situation leaving Σσ to deal with him in an absolute shit of a mood while I went for a (remarkably pleasant) run. Ever the revisionist, he has since announced that he enjoyed it and would like to try it again – not sure how many times we’re going to be willing to put ourselves through it. I also don’t want to spend too long treading the wafer-thin line between bullying and encouragement.

Aila has been steady for the week, which is a relief. It sounds like the doctors think the measures they’ve got in place to help her kidneys aren’t working as well as they’d like and she’ll need a transplant.

This site

Babe new photos section just dropped. I’ve tried not to over-engineer it (yet). Not sure whether I’ll want to handle the case where images are too tall for the viewport and/or implement some zoom thing at some point, but for now I think I’ll keep it simple. I used Sanity CMS to model and host the photos. I like it. And I was surprised to see that it even has some IIIF functionality baked in (which we use/champion at work), so maybe that will facilitate future zoom-noodling. Needs RSS-ing, obviously, and a better social share card image thing, maybe.

Work

We had a summit. It was a bit dystopian. I didn’t want to be there. I left fairly quickly.

I started to work with our Content API and am in the process of swapping out where we get the article cards from for the home and stories pages. Predictable relentless battles with TypeScript will doubtless ensue.

Reading

The stretch keyword: a better alternative to width: 100% in CSS? – this is news to me, I thought stretch was just for some flex stuff

TIL

Warrant canary

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday marshes
Sunday Camden/horrid hill

10.28 – 11.03

2024-11-03T16:06:36Z

Life

Half term. I had taken the week off on the understanding that Σσ was going to do the same. This, it turns out, had been miscommunicated.

Monday we hung out with Gabby in the rain (which was remarkably pleasant).

Tuesday we outstayed our welcome at Louis’ house (Ηη was like a pig in poo in Louis’ expansive toy room). It was nice to see the two of them playing together – it brings us great comfort to know he’s got some genuine pals at school

Wednesday I survived soft play with the pair of them.

Thursday I took Ηη to Hyde Park so he could play in the pirate ship playground. He had a blast for more than two hours. I caught an older kid teasing him and managed to intervene. I resisted the urge to thump him and shout something along the lines of, ‘piss off you spineless little prick’, and settled for the frankly impressive restraint of, ‘buzz off’. Fortunately Ηη didn’t realise that he was being teased and carried on bollocking about as if nothing had happened, but it broke my heart a little bit to have witnessed it.

Then took him out trick or treating with some of his school pals in the evening. I decided quite early that any attempt to limit his sugar (or gelatine) ingestion was going to be futile and let him go nuts. We both just about got away with it.

I got my first 35mm film back from the lab and was much happier with the results than I’d expected to be. I might try and do a bit more street photography if I can find the time.

We went up to Glasgow on Friday and me and Σσ got to see Aila who’d come out of the ICU on Wednesday and was on a renal ward. We reasoned that the kids could see her when she was less drowsy the next day. But early Saturday morning her numbers tanked and she had to go back into the ICU. Σσ had gone back to the hospital in the middle of the night on Dani’s request, and Jim and Ange followed early in the morning, leaving me and the kids in a rainy and hugely depressing Kilmarnock. Pretty shit all round. At least Ηη, who had threatened to behave like an absolute bellend, upped his game and was mostly good. I did feel sorry for him to have gone all that way and not to have got to see Aila or much of Jim and Ange – he can’t be expected to understand any of it.

Train home on Sunday – Αα decided that today was going to be the day she dropped her mid-day nap. It was a long journey. I have now been on holiday for 10 days and I’m not sure I’ve felt this tired since Αα was tiny. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly looking forward to having a day off from the kids (back at work) tomorrow.

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday Swain’s x 3

10.21 – 10.27

2024-10-29T20:12:28Z

Life

Kika came to visit because of an inset day at Αα’s nursery. She seemed a bit better than she has been but I find her very hard to read (and she’s a past master at putting up defences) so who would know. The kids loved having her about.

Roofer sorted the gutters but irritatingly left the sodden book and empty bottles of Stella for us to look out at.

Promised Σσ that I wouldn’t buy any more vintage rangefinders this year. I now also own a Konika C35 FD. At least I feel strangely comforted to know that I don’t have to be drunk to impulse buy stuff off eBay.

Got some fibre internet delivered after the Three 5G home hub became untenable. So far it’s been pretty great not having to worry that my phone’s going to overheat from tethering. It hasn’t made me any better at getting my work done.

I carved my first ever pumpkin (went for a pixel-art style) for Ηη’s Halloween disco. Halloween disco was a relatively fresh hell but we all survived. Ηη was mostly up to his old trick of impersonating my old man – totally avoiding the obvious fun that everyone else was having and trying/failing to get his pals to play some sort of bullshit game that only existed in his head. Then getting mad that nobody was playing with him.

Ηη has head-lice. Loath to mention it in the school WhatsApp because he’d be pegged as patient zero.

Everything is far too depressing at present. There’s a lot of death in our near circle. There’s the senseless shit that’s happening to little Aila. Then there’s the frankly terrifying US elections and the various wars raging. I admit I’m not dealing particularly well with any of it.

Work

Prismic fixed a bug in their migration API that meant we could remigrate all the images that had lost their crops in the original migration. Mildly stressful because it isn’t versioned but it’s done and I feel like I’ve got one of many monkeys off my back.

Listening

Four Tet London 10th August 2024 – 5 hour set

Reading

Find Your Frame by Craig Whitehead – lots of excellent photos and solid advice

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday hills
Sunday lacklustre loop of the heath feeling totally spent from the word go

10.14 – 10.20

2024-10-20T20:37:46Z

Life

Ηη has discovered Shakira so we’ve been listening to a lot of Shakira.

I’ve gone full hipster with my 35mm film rangefinder. Already burned through a roll of Kodak Gold 200 and ready to be bitterly disappointed by the results when they come back from the lab. Wasn’t remotely prepared for how pricey film and the development thereof has become since the 90s! The anticipation is addictive though, and I’m already eyeing up more vintage rangefinders on eBay.

We got reports of more stupid mistakes in Glasgow – sounds like the two nurses who were supposed to be monitoring Aila one night went on a break at the same time and she pulled a line out while they were gone. The upshot is she’ll need another operation to reinsert it which could apparently so easily have been avoided. That aside, I don’t think the situation has changed much.

Σσ and I are so tired with the mental overhead of it, I don’t know how Johnny and Dani are doing it.

I enjoyed the smell of the fallen leaves in the rain.

Work

The Storybook/yarn saga continues, but hopefully approaches some sort of completion.

Running

Tuesday marshes
Thursday hills
Sunday 5 x Swain’s

10.07 – 10.13

2024-10-20T20:37:46Z

Life

We sacked off soft play on Friday in favour of Tate Modern. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Αα loved it, but she was fairly engaged and it was refreshing to test the boundaries of the ground available on Daddy Fridays.

I spent a day not totally bed-ridden but feeling pretty rubbish. Then continued to feel pretty rubbish without quite being able to justify not working to myself.

Ηη continues to astonish me and I delight in any information we can glean from him about the school day (which is almost always √FA). Not convinced he eats much apart from baked potato and jelly – weekends have become a new challenge to get some nutrients into him.

Bae went to Manchester for work and Glasgow for Aila and I invoked unprecedented levels of pizza and chocolate to curry favour with the kids (which was largely successful).

We spent a remarkably pleasant rainy afternoon hanging out with Rawi in Finsbury Park. Ηη gets easily pissed off by many things, but I’m thankful that rain doesn’t appear to be one of them. Being stuck indoors with him for a day would be unthinkable.

I’ve ordered a Yashica Electro 35mm GSN film rangefinder from the 70s. Potentially entering midlife crisis territory I guess.

Work

Upgrading Storybook to v8 and stuck in an attritional battle with yarn.

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday hills (stupid because I was clearly unwell)
Sunday attempted London loop but pulled the ripcord at Blackfriars (again, stupid because I am still clearly unwell)

09.30 – 10.06

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

I took Αα to the transport museum on Friday. She’s such good value and she brings pure joy to every situation. It made a change to be there with a toddler that was being predictable and having consistent fun rather than one that was being bonkers and exhibiting every emotion under the sun in quick succession. She also didn’t care that we weren’t getting anything from the gift shop.

Ηη and a new school pal went to soft play on Sunday and largely entertained themselves for the duration. This was a novel and pleasant experience.

The depressing regression in the pant-pooing department continues apace, nonetheless.

Almost immediately regretted the Stoptopber decision. Perhaps the amount of regret is proportional to the degree that it is a necessary intervention. Started feeling pretty fluey towards the end of the week – coincidence?

Also started trying to move the flat-renovations plot forward. Didn’t get very far.

Aila had an op to fit a peritoneal bag to help drain her kidneys. She did great and seems to be improving little by little. Why does she have to go through all of this? I will never be able to get my head around it.

Work

I’m not sure. Treading a bit of water pre quarterly planning I guess.

Wrote some objectives. Not sure how much I believe in them tbh. Also not sure I care too much.

Listening

Million Dollar Lover – on recommendation from Adam Buxton. It’s very good. I don’t understand how she gets all the audio in such high quality at all the right times, though – it feels like a trick

Running

Tuesday: Heathside track – 4.73mi at 5:55/mi

09.23 – 09.29

2024-10-03T06:03:42Z

Life

Ηη was sent home from school not to return for 48 hours because of a loosey. If he’s going to be excluded for 48h every time he shits himself he’s not going to get much of an education.

Αα is back to being miserable at nursery drop-off.

Σσ suggested Stoptober. Αα chanting “Hello beer! Hello beer!” at me in Sainsbury’s confirms this as a good/necessary idea.

We went to one of Ηη’s new little pal’s birthday parties on Saturday. Αα got stuck in and enjoyed it like the fun-loving chill baby she is. Ηη spent most of the time playing hide-and-seek outside on his own. Sugar intake was astronomical and post-party tempers were predictably suboptimal. I don’t get the impression we were alone in that plight though. Nice to have met some of the other parents.

We saw Aila on a couple of calls. She looked suitably fucked off with wires coming out of her. But she’s doing ok by the accounts we’re given. It’s just a long road.

Work

It was Firebreak week and I scratched an itch to see if we could get the View transitions API working with NextJS.

Reading

Why does my CSS View Transition ignore z-index? – feels so good when someone’s explained a simple solution to the precise problem you have. And what a cool site

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday Swain’s x 3
Saturday Finsbo parkrun (18:57 – I wasn’t going all out and surprised myself with best time post Αα)
Sunday Heath and hills

09.16 – 09.22

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Ηη started at school and seems to be settling in ok – definitely much better than we feared (with just cause given his absolutely dog-shit record at nursery drop-off pretty much throughout). We shed a little tear once he was out of sight on day one – he’s so grown up/he’s so little.

I was worried about leaving him too late in an after school club but he basically sent me away because he was having too much fun. Which is ideal I suppose.

Can’t get much about the school day out of him – I understand this is pretty much par for the course.

He’s fundamentally done in at the end of each day and cumulatively through the week to the extent that his brain overloads and he starts talking pure gibberish before bed.

Aila had to be re-intubated and sedated which is obviously shit. It’s hard to ascertain the extent of how bad it is, but we’re fairly sure her situation is improving again. Not back to square one, but definitely a bit of a crash back down to earth and a realisation it’s not going to be a meteoric overnight recovery. Σσ went back to Glasgow at the weekend to be with them all.

Work

I got to speak about the exhibition guides UI work in a Show & Tell meeting. I found I was reassuringly proud of what we’d done and I didn’t find myself feeling too unnerved by speaking about it, which was a relatively novel sensation.

Chrome broke our website.

Running

Tuesday: Heathside track – 4.29mi at 5:41/mi

09.09 – 09.15

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

We spent Monday on a train for Σσ’s 40th. Not the day she’d envisaged, but it wasn’t too bad.

Aila’s made some remarkable progress this week – sounds like even some of the medical staff were genuinely shocked by how much she’s improved. She’s still a very poorly baby, but she’s been extubated and conscious, making the first sounds anyone’s heard from her in a month, playing peek-a-boo and generally being her wee self with Johnny, Dani, Jim and Ange. The world feels a shade lighter.

Took Ηη to the Science and Natural History museums on Tuesday. He didn’t seem to care much for the objectively impressive rockets and assorted space paraphernalia, but went fucking nuts for a thing where you tried to roll a tiny ball into a hole to trigger some beehive sound effects ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also I was delighted to discover that he genuinely doesn’t appear to give a shit about dinosaurs. In fact I think he actively dislikes them which is even better. He was pretty fascinated by all the mammals though – I don’t think I’d have predicted this and it made me quite happy.

We hit up the Transport museum on Thursday which took my museums total to five in six days – a record I hope I’m not forced to contest for quite some time.

Last ever ‘daddy Friday’ for Ηη. We spent it trying not to get into massive fights with each other. He’s looooong overdue starting at school, for everyone’s sanity.

But still, he’s starting school tomorrow!? I’m really struggling with it for so many reasons, not least of all my laughably useless grasp of the passage of time – like sand through my fingers. I hope he takes to it better than he ever did to nursery. History tells me I shouldn’t get my hopes up.

Αα continues to be an absolute hoot.

Work

We had a team away day at the Docklands museum (no. four of the five). Looking around the museum was especially pleasant since I was allowed to spend the time looking at what I wanted to without having to chase a feral child around. The meat and potatoes business of the day was pretty good too. I feel pretty lucky to work with the people I do, doing the work we do.

Reading

How to Monetize a Blog – a work of art

Running

Saturday: Finsbo parkrun – 3.05mi at 6:50/mi
Sunday: Heathside LSR – 18.87mi at 8:13/mi

09.02 – 09.08

2025-10-18T11:39:12Z

Life

Αα got a wheezy cough early in the week and we took both kids to the doc because we’re on a hair trigger. He put us at ease, but I didn’t feel remotely daft for having taken them and I’ll go again (or to A&E) in an instant if things deteriorate in the slightest.

Andy P came to shoot the shit after work on Wednesday. Lots of shit got shot, and very pleasant it was too. We (I) half-arsed it on the hosting stakes, but fairly sure he gave us a pass.

Niamh came to stay in order to finalise some exciting book business with her publisher. She also kept the kids entertained for hours on end.

We took the train up to Glasgow on Saturday then took a bus to the hospital to see Johnny, Jim, and Ange. I get the impression Johnny and Dani are living in a kind of suspended animation. It’s hard to get a read on Aila’s condition. Ange has a (borderline-toxic) positivity which renders her evaluation null and void. Johnny doesn’t give much away (in part because I think talking about it would make it more real than he’s got the strength to admit). So we piece things together from dribs and drabs and sway from hope to despair at least twice a day.

Our Scottish crew (well, Catriona) had laid on a last-minute birthday bash for Σσ in the afternoon. It was exhausting to talk to a lot of people in quick succession about the unavoidable topic of how shit everything is, but it was good to see everyone and I think it managed to divert Σσ for a moment at least. The weather even came good and we went on to Kelvingrove park playground to let some steam out of the amassed children.

Went back to the hospital the next day and saw Dani. I don’t know how she and Johnny are holding it together but they are and it’s truly remarkable. It was all I could do not to cry all the time. Σσ’s aunt Janet came out to see us there too. It was nice to see her but she takes ‘highly-strung’ to performative lengths and I couldn’t shake the feeling she didn’t like being out-stressed by people experiencing demonstrably horrendous life events. She gave a couple of examples of what a hard time she was currently having and they were almost laughable in the circumstances.

Took the kids to the Riverside Museum which was pretty good – not quite enough walls so I very nearly lost both of them on several occasions. Lots of steam/fire engines, Graeme Obree’s bicycles, and a gift shop full of pirate merch.

Jim and Ange took Ηη onto the tall ship while we sank a pint at the neighbouring bar accompanied by some arresting live music from the Malin Lewis trio. Hard to know if it was objectively as good as I found it, or just whether it was so at odds with what we’ve been dealing with. I guess it’s irrelevant – it was excellent in the moment and that’s all that matters.

I’m starting to recognise the damage being done to my body from not taking good enough care of it. I’m going to take steps to improve that, because feeling bad about my physical condition does nothing for my mental wellbeing either.

Work

I began the process of becoming profoundly confused by IIIF Auth 2.0.

Running

Tuesday hills
Wednesday Regent’s
Thursday Ally Pally
Friday marshes

08.26 – 09.01

2024-09-09T14:09:56Z

Life

Survived another week flying solo with the kids.

Σσ described Ηη as having main character syndrome which was a new one on me, but sounds pretty much spot on. Hard to see why he wouldn’t imagine himself as the main character though since we’ve done nothing to disabuse him of that notion for the last 4.5 years.

Spent bank holiday Monday buying him school uniform. Fortunately he seems to like it.

Took them over to Parliament Hill paddling pool on Wednesday. It was a bit of a mission and Ηη threatened to ruin it (because he was annoyed about getting wet) but then he seemed to clock that Αα was loving it and the threat of missing out apparently made him up his game. I tried not to focus on just how manky the water looked (remarkably similar to Parliament Hill cross country conditions).

Thursday was Ηη’s last day of nursery ever. I can’t quite believe it. No you cried when you went to pick him up. Unfortunately there’s still two weeks until he starts at school and Jim and Ange (who we’d imagined were going to look after him) are holed up in Scotland with Aila. I’m grateful I have such accommodating colleagues at work (do-whatever-you-need-family-comes-first-just-don’t-tell-HR).

Bae came back at the weekend. We celebrated by washing Ηη’s hair (hands down the most stressful event of any week).

Aila’s progress is marginal and I think we’re all starting to realise that it’s going to be a very long road.

Work

Who knows?

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday marshes
Sunday hills and the Heath (think I saw a Gallagher brother sauntering down Swain’s)

08.19 – 08.25

2024-08-27T19:54:05Z

Life

Σσ was with Ailita in Glasgow for the week. They discovered it was MRSA that had got into her lungs. I felt sick worrying that she’d caught it from me somehow (Catriona assured me it definitely wasn’t my fault).

The week is mostly a blur of trying to comprehend all the ridiculous news about Aila. Her heart had stopped for 15 minutes while they did CPR. They were worried that she might have had a stroke as a result, but a scan showed (oh thank fuck) that her brain was ok. They thought they were going to have to operate on her leg because it was so badly swollen with fluid. There was a strong chance she was going to need a liver transplant. Her kidneys are fucked. All her numbers are off the charts. She’s 18 months old. It doesn’t make any sense. I want to scream all the time. Don’t get me started on this ‘God’ character everyone seems to hold in such high esteem.

Catriona, as well as talking me down from my guilt, also acted as our medical interpreter telling us what all the numbers we were being told might mean. And she sent me a massive frozen food care package to assist with dadding. She’s a rock – at the very top of The Best People list.

Σσ semi-insisted I got Si and Lou (also The Best People headliners) to keep me company one night after the kids had gone to bed. They brought chilli and booze and helped me feel slightly normal.

On Friday morning Ηη and Αα had an epic session at the new(ish) Clissold soft play with one of Ηη’s pals. That afternoon they had a disaster of a play date with the same pal that ended with Ηη basically telling everyone to fuck off.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Σσ came home for the weekend – I think everyone got some much-needed semi-normality. And a picnic up at Si and Lou’s on Sunday was a very pleasant few hours of diversion.

Work

Not much.

Running

Monday hills
Tuesday marshes
Thursday hills
Sunday Heath and Ally Pally

08.12 – 08.18

2024-08-18T19:05:59Z

Life

Went to a funeral on Tuesday. Presided over by a waste of space vicar who had previously muscled his way into being involved in Dad’s funeral. He wound me up (again) when I should have been sad.

I can’t believe I’m writing this but our niece who we were with in Beverley on the weekend is now on life support in a Glasgow hospital as a result of an unknown respiratory infection. She’s the same age as Αα and I can’t bear to even think about it. It’s an incredibly surreal bad dream. Or more like a really stupid shit joke. Σσ has gone up to be with them. Somehow the kids seem to know that something’s up and they’ve been remarkably good for me. Hopefully that’ll last. Si and Lou (and a fully charged iPad) helped me wrangle the kids for an afternoon in the pub on Saturday. I don’t know where I’d be without them. I honestly feel like taking up smoking again.

Work

I think I pretty much finished the MVP journey for some new exhibition guides designs.

Running

Thursday hills

08.05 – 08.11

2024-08-16T18:40:51Z

Life

We got a message from nursery asking us to pick up the kids early because the far-right were rumoured to be planning something in the area. That left me feeling pretty cold. Mercifully nothing materialised and those pricks (fascists, not nursery staff) seem to have crawled back under their rocks for now.

Ηη was quite poorly in the week but miraculously managed to get all of his (quite dramatic) number twos on target. Think he might be turning a corner (admittedly not the first time I’ve had that thought in the last twelve months).

Decided to drive up to Beverley on Thursday evening, reasoning that the kids would be so tired they’d sleep all the way. This didn’t happen and it was an absolute shit-show of a journey.

Still, we made it, and had a lovely weekend with all the uncles, aunties, nephews and nieces in attendance.

What am I going to do now the olympics has ended? I’ll figure something out. A lot of anti-American sentiment from the Yorkshire crew: “Lyles isn’t humble enough” – he’s the fastest person on the shitting planet! I don’t think they’d have minded if there was a Team GB[&NI] athlete who’d won and didn’t hit their arbitrary humbleness metrics. I called them out (but I don’t think I won anyone round to my way of thinking).

Work

Made some UI for the first time in a while. Started to think about maybe using container queries in real life.

Running

Tuesday hills
Wednesday Regent’s/Primrose hill
Thursday Marshes
Saturday Bev big loop
Sunday Bev little loop

07.29 – 08.04

2024-08-08T05:46:47Z

Life

Αα started in a new room at nursery and seems largely to have taken it in her stride. Apart from at drop-off when she behaves like she’s about to be murdered.

I’ve been hoovering up the Olympics when I can, but have been frustrated by the partisan BBC coverage (I’d rather watch an objectively good sport than Team GB[&NI] athletes). Track and field is this best. Related: things that have to be judged are less good (can’t deny I enjoy watching skateboarding, but I think I prefer watching it when it isn’t a competition). Horse dancing is shit (can’t get this out of my head).

England apparently became an even uglier and nastier place overnight with fascist thugs openly inciting violence daily. Any pleasant afterglow I might have felt in the wake of the general election result has thoroughly worn off.

Work

Had to re-learn the basics of event bubbling in JavaScript in order to ensure some Tag Manager triggers could fire.

Reading

The Street Photographer’s Manual by David Gibson

Running

Tuesday Swains’ x 3
Thursday Ally Pally
Sunday Olympic Park loop

Think I’m struggling with the long tail of whatever bug we all picked up (that and the slightly excessive lager consumption).

07.22 – 07.28

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

As predicted, whatever virus it was that chose to attack me on day one of the holiday was no match for the Cretan heat and I was feeling remarkably well again by day two. Several of the locals were complaining about how hot it was. I can see it would be pretty much unbearable without constant access to a pool, the sea, and air conditioning (but as we had all of those I couldn’t have been happier).

The kids loved it – little man (hitherto ‘Ηη’) seemingly much more confident in the pool, to the slightly worrying extent that he believed he could swim, which required a fairly rapid response, because he definitely can’t. Baby girl (now ‘Αα’) ate her body weight in sand. And me and bae (now ‘Σσ’) got plenty of time off because Kika and Karl are obviously infinitely more fun than mum and dad.

Learned that my lifelong pal’s dad passed away. He was a kind and generous man. He was also a trustee of my old man’s charity and I selfishly couldn’t help but let it drag up some latent sadness for my own loss.

It felt like we’d only just arrived and we had to head back to Chania airport – the scene of the 30-hour-delay trauma slightly under a year ago. We were deffo triggered. Mercifully everything was totally fine this time around. Even the fact that we forgot the buggy and it had to be brought to the airport in a separate taxi didn’t manage to derail things much.

Ηη has been getting up to his old trick of telling us he needs the toilet after the fact. I struggled (failed) to stay cool about it. Σσ reminds me that he is only four and me seething about it won’t help. She is, of course, right. I really wish he could get past it though – I think it was something about being back in Crete almost a year later and it feeling a bit like Groundhog Day. I’m going to try to do better with it.

Sunday hung out with Elora who we haven’t seen for too long. The kids were on good form (assisted by pizza). She was on good form too.

Reading

Photographers on Photography by Henry Carroll

Running

Wednesday: Crete #1 – 9.45mi at 8:08/mi
Friday: Crete #2 – 9.39mi at 8:11/mi
Saturday: Crete #3 – 6.38mi at 8:20/mi

07.15 – 07.21

2024-07-22T12:27:17Z

Life

Went shopping for a kitchen, flooring, and tiling on my birthday. What a treat. I think we made a decision about floors (inevitably the most expensive decision we could have made) and ruled out a lot of kitchens. Quickly learned that shopping for tiles is a decision fatigue nightmare. All told it was a fairly fun and unusual experience. And we rounded it off with a lunchtime pint in Farringdon, which was lovely.

I survived the week while bae rode a wave of sickness. Then we’d planned to stay in a hotel at Heathrow on Saturday night for a flight to Chania early Sunday, but just as I got the little man home from the park so that we could set off, he threw up and promptly passed out. So instead we let him try to sleep it off and opted to drive to the airport at 4am. Little man, having continued to be sick through the night, remarkably managed to refrain from puking in the car even though he maintained a particularly peaky shade of green throughout the journey. The flight wasn’t fun, but it could have been worse.

We hadn’t told the little man that his auntie Kika and uncle Karl were coming on holiday too and the look on his face when he saw them by the pool was priceless. It’s hot even for Crete. I’m here for it but slightly concerned about how we’re going to stop the kids from frying. Probably ice cream.

As soon as we’d finished tea and got back to the room I realised that I was feeling pretty rough – time for me to join in the family illness fun (and textbook first-day-of-the-holiday vibes). I proceeded to feel very cold and sweat more than I ever have, for about 10 hours. I’m quietly confident whatever I’ve got isn’t going to survive long in this heat though (I’ve no idea if that’s how it works but I’m sticking to it).

I’ve once again resolved to stay off my phone for the duration of the holiday.

Work

I finished the first part of the SJC. I did some infantilising security training (for the third time). I’m sure I did some actual work, but no idea what it was rn.

TIL

https://css-tip.com/screen-dimension/

Running

Tuesday random Camden loop
Thursday hills
Saturday even more random KX loop to collect baby sandals

07.08 – 07.14

2024-07-17T16:11:27Z

Life

I traded in a 27mm lens (a bit too middle-of-the-road focal-length) for a manual 23mm – I’m fairly sure I’m now going to get off the camera gear merry-go-round for a good spell (with the ~~possible~~ exception of one of these straps).

We visited the little man’s school and met his teachers. It all seemed lovely, and he didn’t want to leave, to the extent that he wailed outside wanting to be let back in (primarily because he’d been given sole use of the playground and toys for the duration, but still). I think he’s going to be good there even though all of his pals are going elsewhere.

Baby girl stayed in bed until 7am one morning which we were initially delighted about. Should have known that it was a precursor to illness and I ended up having to stay home with her for the day. She was a remarkably good patient and I didn’t mind at all that I didn’t get to go to work.

Bae went to see Kylie play Hyde Park on Saturday (yes I’m jealous af).

I enjoyed all the football.

America continues to get madder.

Work

Updated most of our NodeJS stuff from 16 to the LTS (20) and in a rare break with tradition almost nothing broke, which felt a bit weird.

Running

Tuesday hills
Friday hills
Sunday Hackney loop

07.01 – 07.07

2024-07-10T20:06:06Z

I think Pickford is my spirit animal

Bae

Life

A week of vo(mi)ting.

Me and the little man took turns to shout down the god phone early in the week. Not sure what it was but it wasn’t fun.

Then we exercised our democratic muscle and exorcised some demons. When the exit poll came in I felt like I’d woken up from a 14 year cheese dream.

Bae went to France on the weekend for another 40th and I was joined by Baba and Gangan for a weekend of mayhem with the kids. Everyone did ok even though it rained like an absolute bastard. I was delighted and relieved when bae arrived home on Sunday evening.

Watched a fair bit of the Euros.

Work

Trod water for a bit.

Running

Tuesday hills
Friday hills
Sunday 3 x Swain’s

06.24 – 06.30

2024-07-02T19:46:47Z

Life

Camping in a field somewhere near Swindon for a pal’s 40th on Saturday. I had a lot of fun. Had I stopped before the gin and Rio and I might have avoided the worst hangover of the post-pandemic (post-children) era. There was something strangely life-affirming about it though.

We were informed the night before that said pal’s wife is now polyamorous and her girlfriend would be in attendance. Pal appears to be putting on a brave face but I don’t think anyone was really buying his insistence that he’s happy with the situation. Not really sure where to start with trying to help.

Kids spent the weekend with their gangan and baba and had a grand old time from the reports. It was real nice to get back to them on Sunday hangover notwithstanding.

Work

Firebreak week: I messed about with SvelteKit and Sanity CMS, both of which seem like they’d be fun to use in anger. I made a(nother) toy recipes app and tried out the Screen Wake Lock API.

Reading

Adding page transition in SvelteKit
Svelte Transitions for Routes and Overlapping Elements – neat hack involving grid

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday Swain’s x 3
Friday north London loop

06.17 – 06.23

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Started the week with a very short fuse. Possibly the result of suddenly being abstemious after a week of relative excess. Mood improved with the weather.

Highlight of the week was an impromptu visit to see uncle Rich in Kettering while bae went to do some Hackney-on-tour canvassing just down the road in Wellingborough. The kids had a mixed bag of fun and mild trauma in the paddling pool with a couple of feral farm kids while I endured the chat of a hugely unreconstructed farmer from over the road. I didn’t need reminding why I like living in London, but he gave me plenty of material to bank in the event I forget.

Ran too far in the heat on Sunday and very nearly broke myself.

Little man seemingly not improving in the pants-shitting department (one year after being out of nappies). We’re pretty much out of ideas. I’m trying not to get cross with him but can’t deny that it’s a struggle.

Work

Not quite stealing a living but can’t say I feel like I’ve been earning my keep.

Managed to cobble something together for the proof-of-concept design system work while continually cursing the state of JavaScript module types.

Running

Sunday: Sun – 17.81mi at 8:07/mi

06.10 – 06.16

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Looking forward to some clean living after a boozy week combined with not nearly enough sleep.

Monday

Ran up the neighbouring hill – I didn’t wait to find out what happens when you encounter a wild boar on a run (I heard one in the bushes and immediately changed my route to be exclusively on roads)
Went to the playground – little man was undeterred by the pouring rain
Went to Ristorante Barilotto in Santa Fiora for lunch, where little man discovered honey on cheese

Tuesday

Swam in a volcanic lake (Lago di Bolsena)
Saw a castle
Ate the best ice cream of the holiday (quite a high bar in Italy)

Wednesday

Went for an excellent run in the trails behind Bagnore, happy not to have encountered any boar this time
Went to Si’s aunt’s in Bagnore for brunch but quite quickly pulled the rip-cord when the kids started being total pricks
I attempted to make ciabatta (because Tuscan bread is weirdly drab given how good everything else tastes) but apparently the words ‘yeast’ and ‘baking soda’ are interchangeable in Italy and I picked wrong. So I basically made a (shit) pizza

Thursday

We bookended the day at the playground and miraculously managed to dodge the storms in between

Friday

It was finally sunny
I ran up to the outcrop we could see across the valley after a few false starts to avoid very shouty dogs
Little man finally got pizza for his tea (nice food/very off vibes restaurant)
The kids were absolute champs staying up late and didn’t put up a fight for what ended up being the fastest bedtime ever

Saturday

I was delighted to hand the dented car back over. The car rentals folk didn’t bat an eye which made me feel better still. Fully comp insurance all the way from now on
Kids were so good all the way home (save for a minor duty-free-ridiculous-toy-demands skirmish with little man)

Running

Monday: Santa Fiora – Selva – 10.33mi at 9:00/mi
Wednesday: Santa Fiora – Morreto – Bagnore – 7.85mi at 8:34/mi
Friday: Sasso di Petersola – 7.76mi at 8:35/mi

06.03 – 06.09

2024-06-10T15:30:05Z

Life

On leaving nursery in a flap on Wednesday I forgot to strap baby girl into the buggy and tipped her out face first onto the pavement. Thankfully she escaped with just a scrape. Top dadding.

Bae set off before breakfast for a conference in Glasgow on Friday and didn’t return until after the kids were in bed. They were pretty good for me all day tbh – I definitely expected it to be much harder work.

Departed Luton for Tuscany on Saturday for a holiday with Si and Lou (the last time we’ll be able to go outwith school holidays and, consequently, the last time we’ll have the chance to be on holiday with these guys for about 15 years).

Baby girl was dramatically sick on the plane, largely into Bae’s face. She hated it so much she outright refused to be sick in the car even though she clearly needed to be. Little man would have just avoided being sick in the hire car had we driven to the right place instead of to the top of a hill in the wrong town. I scrunched the too-big car down the too-small lane back down the hill. I ultimately didn’t feel too bad about it since I’d asked for a smaller car than the tank we were forced to take and they’d forced me into taking out fully comp insurance – at least I’ll get my money’s worth out of it.

Little man inevitably puked on the final 20 minute leg of the journey to the frankly idyllic house. I hadn’t realised that all of Tuscany apparently looks like a painting.

Some of Si’s family live nearby and they came round on Sunday for a barbecue and excessive drinking, all of which was very pleasant.

Work

Just about managed to do something useful for the design system MVP. Stretching the definition of ‘minimum’ but we’ve got a flow that allows designers to create token in Figma and sync them to GitHub, an npm package built from the resulting json that exports the tokens as a js object, and a branch of the wellcomecollection.org repo which imports that package and uses the spacing values.

Did an anti-ableism module of the Social Justice Curriculum. It was a lot.

Reading

Think Like a Street Photographer by Matt Stuart – such an incredible body of work, especially since it’s all film. Heartened to read he takes pictures all day every day and ends up with only about 10 of what he considers to be ‘keepers’ a year

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday marshes

Right achilles playing up. Never not something wrong with my right lower leg ¯_(ツ)_/¯

05.27 – 06.02

2024-06-05T08:56:26Z

Life

A mercifully calm week (in relative terms). I definitely felt less overwhelmed.

The slightly rubbish fair pitched up in Clissold Park on Friday which would ordinarily mean I’d have to set up a direct debit for infinite carousel rides, but the weather was so bleak nobody turned up and they didn’t bother turning on the generator. Little man was fairly fucked off about this, then (in what felt like a bit of a flash-mob) a bunch of children just arrived on the carousel (little man and baby girl included), and some bloke took it upon himself to push it around by hand. Everyone had a grand old time. Until security chucked us off. Probably about the best outcome I could have asked for in the circumstances.

We took the train to Cambridge Saturday to see my fam. The weather was still a bit shit and one of the girls couldn’t make it, and as a result the little man probably got slightly shorter shrift than he has done in previous years. Baby girl was in her element though, showing off her new walking skills. It’s impressive how antagonistic my aunt and uncle insist on being towards each other – I think they treat it slightly like sport, but it’s certainly not a very good one.

Sunday we wound up accidentally crashing one of the little man’s nursery pal’s birthday parties in Clissold. He’d been invited last year and we’d had to carry him home while he screamed something incoherent about cake, so it was hardly surprising he was NFI this time around. When he discovered he wouldn’t be getting a party bag (because he wasn’t actually invited) I had to drag him off in a huff again. Two from two.

The same slightly rubbish fair was infinitely better attended on Sunday afternoon though and we spent a happy couple of hours in the sun with some of the little man’s pals.

I got a cold.

Work

I looked into the Figma API with a view to getting icons out and storing them as svgs in the to-be-created design system repo/module. I got sidetracked into trying (again) to understand how OAuth 2.0 works.

Had a good meeting with a UI designer who’s been testing out Tokens Studio for Figma on our recommendation/request – he’d put it through its paces and it seems like it maybe has legs.

Running

Tuesday Ally Pally
Thursday Hills

05.20 – 05.26

2024-05-27T21:19:22Z

Life

Mr Sunak announced an election and bae correctly predicted this would spell disaster for her Islington North campaign hopes. Indeed it seems there was no process at all – HQ simply selected the candidate. A strange mix of gutted and relieved for me. I think bae was 98% gutted. None of this appears to have deterred her though, and she’s now putting in applications for both Queen’s Park & Maida Vale, and West Ham & Beckton. This is the shape of things to come and I’m going to have to strap in.

Little man was faced with two of his bêtes noires on Sunday – being told the telly had to go off and being asked to go to the toilet. It heralded in an hour of screaming. Then he shat himself. We thought there’d been progress on the shitting-himself front but there’s been some significant indicators to the contrary this week. Pretty sure we could/should have de-escalated the telly situation better but can’t quite figure out how.

We got a call that little man got a place at our first choice of school after clearing. He doesn’t know anyone going there and he was already quite excited about the other school he had a place for (and wrap around care would probably have been more convenient). But I think we’ll stick with our first choice and hope he doesn’t hate us for it.

Work

Started the Social Justice Curriculum about racism and ableism specifically in the context of Wellcome and museums more generally. It’s going to be a lot but I think it’s going to be good to live through. I’ve got a lot to learn and unlearn.

Did a bit too much moonlighting and not enough design systeming.

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday marshes
Sunday Tower Bridge loop (furthest I’ve been for a while and almost felt quite good about it)

05.13 – 05.19

2024-05-22T19:52:41Z

Life

Thursday evening rolled around. I was just settling in for a relaxing weekend with the kids (ha!) then Bae mentions that she’s putting herself forward to be the Labour candidate for Islington North.

Since then I’ve been scrambling to put together a website and a leaflet to be ready in the event she gets shortlisted.

It’s all a bit mad, exciting, and mildly terrifying. She would be excellent. She is excellent. And if it doesn’t work out this time round, it will at least have been good(?) to have a first taste of the potential mayhem.

Niamh came to stay for the weekend (and beyond) and put in a Herculean stint as child-minder-cum-content-strategist.

Sorry to have missed the Hackney Half but hope Andy P will forgive me in the circumstances.

Work

Playing catch-up on my colleague’s excellent design systems discovery work. Feeling a bit guilty about not having done more.

Running

Tuesday Hills
Thursday Marshes
Sunday Hills

05.06 – 05.12

2024-05-12T21:21:00Z

Life

On a bit of a comedown from an excellent weekend in The Lakes and generally feeling like a massive imposter at work. The kind of week where I think maybe I should have done something else entirely with my life and struggling not to feel too sorry for myself.

All day in Finsbury and Clissold Parks looking after my bonkers children vastly improved my mood on Friday. Little man seems to have become more outgoing after the weekend away – it’s hilarious to see him coercing older kids into his batshit-crazy (currently largely Moana-based) schemes.

Baby girl has been slightly more shouty and irritable than usual. She’s not firing on all cylinders for sure, and we’re constantly paranoid she might have more serious respiratory problems ever since she was in hospital. I don’t think she always has to be quite so much of a dick about it at 4am though.

Still getting to grips with the idiosyncrasies of my camera. Folks said nice things about some snaps I took last weekend. I maintain the trick is to be prepared to chuck away >90% of the pictures. I think I’m going to buy a ridiculous toy lens with a photon-gobbling giant aperture (then inevitably be mildly disappointed by the results because it’s a bit cheap).

Work

Stupid Prismic migration stupid Prismic stupid. Breaking websites is one of my least favourite feelings but I have a self-destructively yolo attitude towards doing it. Which would be fine, except I don’t deal with it well. I’m hugely grateful to my excellent colleagues who helped me fix things I’d broken and stayed chill while I flapped. There are still more things that are broken that I’m hoping I can fix before anyone else notices.

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday marshes
Sunday hills x 2.5

Somehow got an ankle sprain that only showed up on Saturday. I feel like it’s related to going over on my ankle in the lakes last Sunday but seems like a long time to wait to feel the pain. Hopefully it’ll clear up.

04.29 – 05.05

2024-05-08T18:26:39Z

Life

Late to press because I was having too much fun in the Lake District with Glasgow University pals on the bank holiday weekend. It was excellent, the nine hour drive and the fairly crap weather notwithstanding.

I was really aware how much easier it was this year than the previous two (especially last year when baby girl was brand new). Little man bollocked about entertaining himself (and others) for decent stretches, and baby girl was friendly with everyone – nursery has deffo helped bring her out of her shell.

Drank powerful cocktails because it’s apparently Bruce’s new hobby. Did a quiz (Katherine and Maeve’s old hobby). Did half a ‘treasure’ hunt (it was doomed to end in mild disappointment for the little man from the off). Just about survived some running up hills with Don. Took lots of snaps. Ate excellent food served up by Si and Lou.

Work

Dry ran the Prismic changes and concluded it was sort of working just about enough to go for it for real next week.

Watching

Slow Horses – hugely disappointing

Running

Tuesday hills
Thursday marshes
Saturday small Coniston loop
Sunday The Old Man loop

04.22 – 04.28

2024-04-28T21:13:45Z

Life

Spoke to our architect about ‘Stage 02’ and sounds like we might have to start making actual decisions any day now. Somehow still feels like it’s never going to happen though.

I’ve generally been feeling a bit blue. Not doing much exercise and drinking a bit much almost certainly not helping.

Little man’s routine pant-shitting continues to be a source of considerable stress.

On the plus side, everyone slept until 6am on Tuesday – possibly the first time we’ve had eight hours straight in over four years.

And baby girl is so so close to walking (fairly sure she’ll crack it next week). It’s hilarious/lovely how proud of it she is. She also has a cough so manky I’m slightly worried it’s in the same league as the one that put her in hospital.

Work

Seemingly pretty simple things have had me roundly stumped for a while, playing right into the hands of my old pal imposter syndrome.

Prismic work limps on, but actually getting it over the line feels as elusive as getting the flat renovated.

A colleague announced their imminent departure to become an organiser for Prospect union. I’m delighted for them because they’re obviously excellent with union matters. I’m gutted for us because they’ve been obviously excellent with everything they’ve done at Wellcome.

TIL

Flying saucers (the sweets) were invented by a guy who had a surfeit of communion wafers

Running

Sunday 5 x Swain’s

Going to try to get back to it properly next week.

04.15 – 04.21

2024-04-22T10:15:36Z

Life

I’ve just spent three days at a 40th birthday in Center Parcs (stupid spelling). Never been before and was curious because I’d heard mixed reports. Now I’m ready to file my own: it’s some fresh dystopian hell.

We saw lots of old friends though, and can’t deny we had a lovely time in spite of the venue. Kids obviously loved it (that’s the problem).

I’ve been taking a lot of pictures. Still not convinced I’ve got my gear acquisition syndrome in check (lusting after an x-pro 3), but having fun with manual focus. It strikes me that slightly-out-of-focus shots evoke quite a nostalgia because they’re pretty unusual with an autofocus lens (my new excuse for not having nailed focus).

Work

Didn’t quite get the design system enthusiasm I was hoping for, but plodded along, trying to understand what might be feasible with Figma (while trying/failing not to solutionise too much).

Running

A few laps of Center Parcs on Sunday

I didn’t feel awful and I enjoyed being out on a trail.

04.08 – 04.14

2024-04-14T21:21:37Z

Life

The kids have successfully shared a room for a week and things haven’t been noticeably worse than they were before sleep-wise. If baby girl could learn to stop shouting at 5am it would be great but even so I’ve been pleasantly surprised.

I’ve been messing about with an old FUJIFILM XE-1 and a cheapo knock-off manual lens for the week. It has been so much fun that I cancelled my order of the hugely hyped X100VI (fixed lens), arranged to send back the XE-1, and ordered an XE-4 and a Voigtlander manual lens instead. I think this should draw the curtains on my current round of camera/lens indecision (but I think it will probably set the tone for much more of the same in the future). I’ve definitely got a bit of the joy of photography back though – I hope it will outlast the thrill of having a new toy (I think it will).

Took the little man to the fair on Friday and Saturday. He demanded to go on the dodgems even though the last time we did that he really hated it. He hated it again. Aeroplane and hot air balloon carousels were a hit though – I wish I could bottle that look of unbridled joy on his face.

New skatepark in Finsbo looks sick.

Work

Got a Prismic staging environment up and running after some initial teething problems.

Didn’t quite get round to looking into any of the design systems stuff I was supposed to. I’m struggling to be enthused about it and have been putting it off if I’m honest. Maybe (hopefully) the enthusiasm will come when I start working on it next week.

Attended two OKR presentation meetings. Dry af. It’s clear why attendance is mandatory because otherwise it would be non-existent. Can’t help but feel like there has to be a better way to share knowledge between teams.

Listening

You’re Welcome from the Moana soundtrack on repeat

Running

Having a break. Not missing it too too much just yet so another week off probably makes sense.

04.01 – 04.07

2024-04-08T06:31:49Z

Life

We put the kids in a room together at Gangan and Baba’s. They were no worse than they usually are so we’ve decided to move them into the same room at home. Little man was quite up for this in principal, but apparently less enthused about the reality once the cot arrived in ‘his’ room earlier today. We’ll see how they get on tonight. On the plus side our expectations are already hilariously low. I am slightly concerned about how much the neighbours might object as and when it kicks off though.

Went to the York Railway Museum on Tuesday with little man’s little cousin/biggest fan Rory. Caroline came down on the train too and everyone had an almost exclusively excellent time.

The kids were excellent all week including, remarkably, both car journeys. Watching the cousins bollock about was hilarious/magic – they were always so delighted to see each other and very rarely wound each other up.

Baby girl is right on the cusp of being able to walk – I definitely thought it was going to happen on more than one occasion but now I’ve accepted that it’s probably going to happen at nursery next week.

We went for our first meal out since baby girl was born. We even managed to talk about things other than the children.

Overall I got an impressive amount of rest and yet somehow I’ve ended up feeling worse. I wonder if it’s the exhaustion equivalent of pins and needles and it has to get worse before it gets better. Back home now, so presumably I won’t be in a position to find out in a hurry.

TIL

All odd numbers contain the letter ‘E’
John Major MP’s dad might have been the inspiration for David Bowie’s ‘Major Tom’

Running

Monday Hudson Way, Cherry Burton, Westwood
Wednesday Bishop Burton climb
Friday Beverley Hills

2024-04-nipples.jpeg

MEDIC! Shouldn’t have worn white in the rain

I’ve realised I’m not enjoying running much and I’m feeling consistently buggered. I think I might be a bit over-trained, or under-recovered (same thing?). Going to take a couple of weeks off and see if my mojo comes back (and, crucially, my legs stop feeling like lead).

03.25 – 03.31

2024-04-01T08:20:36Z

Life

I can’t remember what has happened. I think it was largely survival. It certainly wasn’t sleep. The creases beneath my eyes have started to ooze a faintly bloody slough and the skin’s taken on the texture and appearance of bible paper. We trod water until the weekend then fled for refuge at Gangan and Baba’s.

Little man has scored an insane amount of chocolate eggs. A week of larger-than-average tantrums awaits. I’m tempted to let him get piled in until he makes himself sick on the off-chance it puts him off long-term. I’m not sure it’s a strategy that’s going to wash with bae (and his track record suggests he has the temperament of a labrador that would sooner repeatedly eat himself sick than learn any lessons).

Work

Took part in my first ever ‘Firebreak’ week. I have an almost allergic reaction to anything approaching a hackathon and I’d been mildly concerned in the run-up as I saw this looming in my calendar, but the reality was very pleasant. There was no pressure to achieve anything of substance or build anything or demo anything or impress anyone. For my part, I took some courses about Docker and AWS with a view to incorporating what I learned in my objectives for the year. It came at the perfect time because my capacity for autonomous thought and problem solving was severely impaired by my children’s sleep-abhorrence and a week of regular work would have been a disaster. I think I now have a very basic grounding in Docker, IAM, Route 53, S3, and CloudFront.

Hugely grateful to Gareth for fixing the plethora of weird Prismic Slice Machine build issues we were having.

Reading

The Player of Games by Iain M Banks – probably the most into science fiction I’ve been to date

Watching

Severance – thanks Andy P
Moana – a hit with the little man

Running

Tuesday Hills
Wednesday Regent’s
Thursday Marshes
Friday Hills

Still off watch. Slightly more deliberately. Definitely getting slower.

2024-03-teddy.jpeg

First casualty of the bank holiday spotted on Friday’s hills

03.18 – 03.24

2024-03-24T21:39:58Z

Life

I have generally been feeling slightly rough. I wondered if I had post-viral fatigue, but I couldn’t remember when I last had a virus. Then I couldn’t remember when I last had much sleep and concluded I probably just had common or garden (non-prefixed) fatigue. I’ve also ended the week in a bit of a slump that I’m attributing to things at work not going my way. I really need to keep that in perspective though because it’s definitely not worth getting depressed about (and the weather gave us a glimpse of what summer might be like).

I traded in my old camera gear and immediately felt like I missed it. I’ve been hoovering up YouTubes and blogs about potential new gear to fill the void.

Bae went on Woman’s Hour and BBC News at 10 on Thursday. She’s so good.

Little man went to Heather’s party on Saturday and had a decidedly mediocre time. In his defence, pass-the-parcel and musical statues are objectively a bit shit, especially when you have the powers of anticipation of a four year old. They both seemed to have much more fun pratting about in Clissold Park playground on Sunday at least.

2024-03-banksy.jpg

New Banksy in the neighbourhood

This site

I updated my Open Graph images with page titles, dates, and word counts thanks to this excellent Eleventy plugin.

Work

Really thought it would be the week I got the initial Prismic Slice Machine work over the line but the build insisted on breaking in various interesting ways. So no.

Running

Monday Hills
Wednesday Horrid hill from work
Friday Hills
Sunday LSR Ally Pally & Heath

Off-watch still. ITBS flared up. Legs felt like they might stop working altogether.

03.11 – 03.17

2024-03-17T18:30:27Z

Life

Progress with getting the flat renovated is glacial. I’ve already got decision fatigue and I don’t even think I’ve made any decisions yet. I thought I’d made a breakthrough when I saw some kitchen styles I liked that were a bit different from everything else but bae’s initial reaction appeared to be one of visceral disgust so I doubt that has legs. Beyond that, our architect appears to spend most of his time telling us what we can’t afford to do. Still, apparently we’re entering Stage 02 now so we must have done something.

Spoke to a GP about the little man. He said he wasn’t particularly concerned but has prescribed something to try and ‘keep him regular’. But before getting him onto that, we’ve decided to give him a week where we basically don’t talk to him about using the potty at all – it feels like a significant part of the problem is oppositional defiance and there’s a chance it might improve if we don’t give him anything to oppose. And even if it doesn’t help (early indications are that it won’t), I think we’ll all be a lot less stressed and upset about it.

Bae went to Birmingham on Saturday for a course and took baby girl with her. She had to stay overnight and isn’t quite ready for a night apart from a screaming snotty baby that barely sleeps. I heard Stockholm syndrome is made up, but if it wasn’t I think it would look a lot like this. That meant that me and the little man got to spend the weekend together. We had a modicum of success on his balance bike, spent several hours playing hide-and-seek in Finsbo, baked muffins and banana bread, made a train set and a fairly exceptional den, flew paper planes, did two jigsaw puzzles, and ordered pizza. LADS! LADS! LADS! Had to confess to the existence of Frozen II as bribery for letting me wash his hair. So far we’ve watched the first half four times.

Slightly on a whim I’ve decided to trade in all my largely unused camera gear that sits on a shelf and makes me feel guilty for a point and shoot which I’m far more likely to keep close to hand (“the best camera is the one you have with you”). I miss taking a nice camera out and about but whenever I try, it feels a bit too much like an albatross and I invariably end up clocking at least one of my children in the head with it as it dangles round my neck while I attempt some dad admin (dadmin?). I can’t deny I’m a total sucker for the rangefinder stylings of the x100 series and I like that the decision of which focal length to choose will be taken out of the equation with a non-interchangeable lens.

Work

Why would adding the slice-machine-ui package break types in another app, or stop a Storybook Webpack from building? Fuck knows, but apparently it did. On the plus side, they seemed to be things that genuinely needed fixing (how were they even working at all?) and about which we were previously unaware. After a week of whack-a-mole and git history obliteration I got a couple of PRs to pass all their checks. Feels like a bit of a pyrrhic victory.

Running

Monday Marshes
Tuesday Regent’s
Thursday Hills

All semi-accidentally off-watch. I’m feeling tired, heavy, and sluggish.

03.04 – 03.10

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

I was relieved to find that what I’d initially believed to be a hangover last Sunday turned out to be some manner of sickness instead. Sure, maybe the booze helped catalyse the storm for whichever microbe had seen fit to take up residence in my gut, but at least it wasn’t going to be an accurate bellwether for future hangovers. Spent Monday and Tuesday in bed feeling fairly pukey and sorry for myself.

Rode my bike home from the office on Wednesday – the first time since before I was off on parental leave. Felt good, but my bum’s going to need a bit of reacclimatisation to survive the rock-hard saddle.

Baba and Gangan came to town on Friday morning for little man’s fourth birthday. We all went up in the London Eye in the glorious hazy spring sunshine. Little man’s review: “Boring”.

2024-03-thames.JPG

”Boring.”

We phoned in a lo-fi party in Clissold Park playground on Friday afternoon. It was baltic, but the kids didn’t seem to care as long as there were breadsticks and cake. I think the little man felt well celebrated and he held it together remarkably well (apart from when his helium balloon inevitably ended up in a tree). In most of the pictures we get from nursery he seems to be out on a limb doing his own thing, so it was heartwarming (and a bit of a relief) to see him and his pals actually playing together and getting on. It was an inset day at nursery so I think most the amassed parents were pleased that there was some largely self-perpetuating entertainment laid on for their kids too.

Bae’s parents babysat for us on Saturday night and we went for a jar in the Bank of Friendship in amongst the revelling gooners who’d just gone top of the league. It was a really good atmosphere, and a revelation that you can have two pints and then stop and go home. We’ve resolved to do it more often.

Little man’s encopresis continues to be a worry. I had a bit of a wobble about it at the weekend, and we’ve resolved to talk to the GP about it. I hate that I might have been partly responsible for psyching him out about it and potentially making it worse.

News about ‘significant concerns’ at Homerton fertility clinic broke towards the end of the week which has left us feeling slightly traumatised.

Work

The two days I was working, I was largely plagued by Node dependency resolution issues and assorted skirmishes with TypeScript. Not a vintage work week.

Reading

Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks – space opera is probably never going to be bang in my wheelhouse, but I enjoyed this enough to want to read more of the Culture series

Running

Converted my Garmin and Strava to kilometres in an attempt to rid myself of imperial nonsense.

Thursday: Hills – 7.27mi at 7:37/mi
Saturday: LSR – 18.63mi at 7:38/mi

02.26 – 03.03

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

I have to accept that this feeling of creeping existential dread and mild nausea is, in fact, a hangover. This is something I was keen to avoid in my phased reintroduction to booze, but here we are. Si and Lou came round last night and provided excellent company and food. I genuinely went to bed feeling slightly smug for not having overdone it. Oh the hubris.

As for what else has happened in the week, from what I can remember it’s been boilerplate: little man shitting himself c. once a day (plus associated low-level worry about what we should be doing differently) and baby girl staying up all night shouting at us (plus associated low-level worry about what we should be doing differently).

Work

More Prismic Slice Machine discovery and wrangling.

TIL

There’s a bear in the Toblerone logo

Running

Tuesday: Hills – 6.98mi at 8:00/mi
Thursday: Ally Pally – 8.27mi at 7:42/mi
Sunday: LSR – 10.58mi at 7:36/mi

02.19 – 02.25

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Bae’s parents stuck around till Wednesday to look after baby girl. They have a smattering of idiosyncrasies, but certainly far fewer than me, and I feel guilty for ever getting wound up by them because I know I’ve won the in-laws lottery. Can’t deny I was grateful to get our space back when they left though (even though it meant having to cook our meals and clean our dishes).

Uncle Rich came to hang out on Friday. He gave the little man a toy train track building masterclass and (after I pretty much strong armed him into it) had a bit of (long-overdue) quality time with baby girl. He wouldn’t have visited had he not been in town for work, but it was genuinely lovely to see him. I think he enjoyed himself too.

Caught up with Kika and Karl at King’s Cross before they set off on a last minute jaunt to Paris. Little man was in fine form. His wild energy earned him some impromptu applause from a group of passers by and it seemed like he got a taste for it.

Enjoyed seeing Scotland beat England in the rugby. Bae asked little man who he was going to support and he settled on shouting, ‘COME ON LONDON’, for the whole match. A diplomatic and hilarious response.

Everyone’s sleep continues to be an utter shitshow and trending to the bad somehow.

Work

I spiked the effort required to upgrade our repo to use Prismic’s Slice Machine. I could feel some dust-sheeted corners of my brain crawling into action which was (at times) a reasonably pleasant experience. In conclusion I think it’s going to be a bit of a ball-ache and it’s not going to bring us much in terms of tangible benefits but we should probably do it so as not to get left behind.

Reading

The Hike by Lucy Clarke – an unimaginably rubbish sack of complete balls

Running

My ephemeral dalliance with skipping reminded me that I’ve got a massively flakey right knee. Fortunately I don’t think I’ve done any (more) permanent damage. Going to stick to running and cycling only from now on.

Tuesday: Hills – 6.24mi at 7:48/mi
Thursday: Marshes – 7.85mi at 7:37/mi
Sunday: Heathside LSR – 17.52mi at 7:38/mi

02.12 – 02.18

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

A week to forget. Baby girl stayed home on Monday full of (we thought) cold and seeming like she was pretty sad. Tuesday morning she went to the GP who said he didn’t think there was cause for concern. Tuesday evening she went to A&E where it was determined she had a chest infection affecting both lungs, and she spent the next 72 hours on oxygen. We finally got her back home on Friday evening.

In the intervening time George and Rachel kindly took turns to babysit the little man while I got to the ward. I’m glad the guy who tried to steal the phone out of my hands by the hospital on the first night was unsuccessful.

Me and the little man had a couple of spectacular screaming matches. I felt immediate regret and shame each time (not to mention embarrassment since the neighbours must have heard). I’ve (conveniently?) let us both off the hook since we were both probably a bit scared.

Bae’s parents came to help out at the weekend for which I’m hugely grateful.

Called and electrician out because we had no electricity in any of the sockets on the second floor for several hours only for him to point out that the switch on the main fuse box labelled ‘test’ had tripped. I had checked the fuse box and had seen it was in a different position to the others but I can’t explain why I didn’t at least try to move it. I felt pretty daft for having called him out. I’m blaming exhaustion.

Now she’s out, baby girl is somehow even worse at sleeping (she has set a high bar for shit sleep so this is no mean feat). God knows how we’re going to break this cycle, but mostly I’m just thankful she can breathe again. She’s not 100% but she’s getting there.

Work

Second week back post parental leave and I was barely there. I’m very glad I’ve got kind and understanding colleagues.

Running

It’s fair to say I’m not on form. Felt progressively worse through the week, probably the result of too much sugar, not enough sleep, more than a dash of stress, and perhaps a hint of illness.

Tuesday: Hills – 7.08mi at 8:05/mi
Thursday: Hills x 2/3 – 5.82mi at 8:11/mi
Sunday: LSR – 13.01mi at 8:03/mi

02.05 – 02.11

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Baby girl got sick on day one of nursery and has remained worryingly poorly since. If memory serves, this is going to be the story until she’s scraping the bottom of the multifarious germ bucket (which, from the state of the coughs and impossibly snotty faces of all the kids I saw when I sat in for a settle, will be a very long time).

The flat is now unnervingly quiet on the days they’re both at nursery.

Auntie K came to hang with the kids on Wednesday. She’s been through the wringer the last year and seems finally to be coming out the other side. I really hope so.

Survived a Saturday/Sunday double-header of birthday parties for the little man’s nursery pals, hitherto unknown levels of sugar ingestion notwithstanding.

Work

A bit depressing to be back. Quite nice to be back. New colleagues seem good. I didn’t break anything.

Reading

The Bridge by Iain Banks – this is going to haunt me for some time – a really incredible work (that I wasn’t remotely ready for when I read it last, age 14). It’s prompted me to give Iain (M.) Banks’s Culture series another go
First passages of rolled-up Herculaneum scroll revealed – rare sighting of a not depressing use of AI

Running

Tuesday: Hills – 6.15mi at 8:25/mi
Thursday: 3 x Swain’s – 8.40mi at 8:32/mi
Sunday: Heathside LSR – 16.71mi at 8:22/mi

01.29 – 02.04

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

We have kept baby girl alive for a year. Bae’s parents and cousins came to visit to help us celebrate. Bae baked an(other) insanely good cake and baby girl got piled in. We got her a cute little wooden walker but she obviously couldn’t give two shits about it.

2024-01-birthday-cake.JPG

Chocolate. Fig. Minifig.

Baby girl had three settles at nursery at the beginning of the week. In my head she wasn’t going to start proper until tomorrow (when I go back to work, ooft) and I was not emotionally prepared for the realisation that she was in fact starting on Thursday (February 1st). I spent the day tidying up and intermittently having mild panic attacks (shit shit shit where’s the baby!?).

We had our architect over to do a survey. It felt good to get even the slightest hint of movement on the project (he measured some stuff and I pulled up a bit of the staircase). Looking forward to seeing his concept drawings in a few weeks.

Took little man and his pal to see a ‘musical telling of The Gruffalo’ at the library on Saturday. It was about as budget as I’d envisaged but the kids seemed happy enough.

Got a skipping rope. Turns out I am legit rubbish at skipping. In my head I was going to look like an (admittedly weedy) effortless boxer – after all, I thought, it’s a piece of piss doing it without the rope. That’s not going to be happening any time soon, though. My main concern now is where to practice without feeling like a total knob – didn’t have that on my trials-and-tribulations-of-high-density-living bingo card.

The little man has been a massive prick all week and (almost certainly related) has had more accidents than successful trips to the potty. I know that me getting angry about it is only likely to make things worse but I’m rapidly running out of other emotions. He’s definitely not trying to shit himself, but he still manages to make it feel pretty personal. I think we’d have to call it a regression, but that feels slightly unfair given how little progress he’s made in the six months since we started down this road. When I manage to stop feeling angry with him I feel sad for him because he’s obviously bottling something, but we can’t figure out what it is or why. Perhaps he’s embarrassed that his dad’s taken up skipping.

Watching

Ted Lasso – we’re late (as usual) to this party

TIL

Lidl coffee beans are a false economy
Plus ça change is short for plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (which is blindingly obvious now I know it, obviously)

Running

All felt pretty sluggish and not particularly enjoyable. Maybe nursing a low-level bug. Or tired. Or both.

Tuesday: Hills – 7.04mi at 8:39/mi
Thursday: Marshes – 8.35mi at 7:59/mi
Sunday: LSR – 9.97mi at 8:57/mi

01.22 – 01.28

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

“I FUCKING HATE HIM”, was the message I composed to bae after having to carry the little man home, kicking and screaming, for the nth time. As I hit send I felt as predictably terrible as you’d imagine I might, but he’d really done a number on me, again. His arseholery has, once more, coloured my memory of the week. It certainly hasn’t helped that he’s continued to shit himself approximately once a day.

Took baby girl to see Emyr (who I’ve not seen in c. 5 years) on Thursday and had an excellent lunch at the Holy Tavern in Farringdon. We chatted, among other things, about not drinking. He’s dry January-ing and thinking about dry 2024-ing. I’m considering a phased return to moderate drinking after the best part of two years off (and I’m fairly confident I’m capable of it). But one of the best things (maybe the best thing) about not drinking is not having to spend any time thinking about whether or not (or what) I’ll be drinking and when, and whether it is, or was, too much. Simply the prospect of considering it is clearly weighing heavy on my mind (based on an appraisal of my pretty-much-exclusively drinking-based anxiety dreams). Baby girl was on top form.

I joined another (Islington) library and found our nearest branch has a superior children’s book selection (and no late fees). Think we’ll be spending a lot more time there.

Sarah, Steve, and their kids were on a whistle-stop tour of London on Saturday and managed to fit us in for a remarkably mediocre meal at Café Rouge St. Pauls. It’s always lovely to see them – I continue to hope against hope that our kids can even come close to how well-mannered and good natured theirs are. It won’t be any time soon if they do.

We finished the week with a first birthday party in the park for baby girl and Liv (can’t believe they’ll be one next week). The light was the same as it was the day baby girl was born, and from where she got her name. Everyone had fun. Little man, with a grinding inevitability, had a meltdown.

I’ve completed 100 days of Greek on Duolingo. I have very little Greek to show for it.

I’m thinking about taking up skipping (with a rope, rather than along the ground). Haven’t got any further than thinking about it yet though.

Watching

Predestination – I enjoyed it even though it is pretty ridiculous

Reading

Border Crossing by Pat Barker – this was gripping throughout, and I was set for more of the same at the end but (spoilers) it felt like a bit of a damp squib to me

Running

Tuesday: Hills – 7.06mi at 8:29/mi
Thursday: Highgate wood – 6.72mi at 8:08/mi
Sunday: LSR – 15.65mi at 8:14/mi

01.15 – 01.21

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Yesterday, bae went early to Birmingham for a course, only returning once the kids were asleep. In the intervening time, I took the kids to a fourth birthday party for one of little man’s pals. I survived the day apparently at the expense of my ability to recall most of the rest of the week.

Here’s what I’ve got:

Little man was a total pain in the balls on countless occasions (highlight was having to carry him home from nursery one day with him screaming all the way). Really hoping it’s a just a phase. Bae has (for now) talked me down from my position that he’ll only improve if we punish him (he didn’t like it much when I threatened to take his toys to the charity shop – I can’t promise I won’t snap next week and find myself following that one through)
A remarkable amount of regression in the little man’s toilet training and (related) a lot of washing
Everybody’s a bit ill
Nobody’s sleeping
Combining the above, we decided nobody’s ready for baby girl to move into the same room as the little man at night. On the one hand, there’s never going to be a perfect time, but this feels close to the worst time to try

Listening

Shoptalk 598 with Jen Simmons – lots of interesting stuff about Interop

Reading

The Women of Troy by Pat Barker – I didn’t rate it as highly as The Silence of the Girls, but I enjoyed the writing

Watching

Nyad – I think I’d have preferred it as a documentary, but a truly bonkers story

TIL

If you add cooked.wiki/ to the start of any recipe url (before the https://) it strips away everything but the recipe and organizes the ingredients and method into separate columns

Running

Tuesday: Hills – 6.12mi at 8:23/mi
Thursday: Ally Pally – 8.21mi at 7:15/mi
Sunday: LSR – 19.56mi at 7:24/mi

01.08 – 01.14

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

The week has mostly been an attritional battle with the little man, trying to convince him to only eat soft food cut into tiny pieces on account of him having smashed his teeth in last week. To be fair, he likely feels we’re being pointlessly officious (it’s almost as if he doesn’t have even the most basic grasp of modern dentistry).

Bae’s parents treated him to a day out on Friday because they were feeling sorry for him. I slightly put the kibosh on them getting him anything (expensive) from the transport museum shop (he only wanted anything he saw because it was right there/it’s only just been Christmas) but immediately felt guilty about it – it’s their right to spoil him as much as they like. I tried to atone by promising them I’d let him spend the cash they left as frivolously as he liked. Can’t wait to find out what manner of plastic garbage he’s going to unearth in the local charity shops.

Baby girl seems to quite like me these days which rates pretty high on the feel-good scale. I’m really loving the time that we’re getting to spend together (and already ever-so-slightly dreading the alarmingly imminent return to work). I think we’ve made some headway with sleep (re-)training – Saturday both kids were still asleep past 6am! – but she’s now got more teeth coming in so it’s highly unlikely the stars will align again any time soon.

Running

Last Sunday’s 20 miler was, it turns out, too far, and my feet are busted up once more. I will never learn.

Tuesday: Hills – 6.15mi at 8:16/mi
Friday: Alpe d’Hampstead – 12.22mi at 7:19/mi
Sunday: Heathside LSR – 16.53mi at 7:56/mi

01.01 – 01.07

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

I had a drink on NYE – felt like I needed to keep my hand in. I was pleased to discover I didn’t immediately want another ten drinks, but I did find it enjoyable at the time. Hoping I might be capable of drinking in moderation on occasion. Importantly, I don’t want to catch myself looking forward to the next drinking opportunity, or using it as a crutch.

First day back at nursery I had to carry the little man kicking and screaming (literally) the whole way. I managed to portray an outward calm while he could see me, but once he was over the threshold I was a mess. And my back has been in bits ever since.

Baby girl has been in full voice at night since she was ill and has shown no sign of improving, so we decided to go full bore on another round of sleep training. Bae hides in the spare room and I try very hard to ignore the screaming. It’s early days but there’s maybe a hint of improvement.

The health visitor passed baby girl with flying colours. One side-benefit she mentioned with having a noisy baby is that when they’re not noisy, you know something’s up. It’s not much, but I’ll take it.

I survived Wednesday and Friday on my own with both kids. It was largely a case of making sure the little man’s blood sugar levels were dangerously high and leaning in to the consequences.

Sunday, I wound up running further than I have for probably over a year, and was just settling in for a warm bath and what I hoped was going to be a relaxing afternoon (what a mug) when the little man tripped up our stairs and pushed in his tooth. I took him straight to A&E where they told me to ring 111 (very much the opposite of how things have gone down historically). Got an emergency dentist appointment and, shortly after, a child very disappointed to learn he’s not going to be allowed anything apart from soft food for the week.

Reading

Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes – retelling of Greek myths with more female agency is very much my jam

Watching

Tetris kill screen – wild!

TIL

carbon.txt

Running

Monday: LSR – 13.48mi at 8:00/mi
Friday: Ally Pally – 8.65mi at 7:59/mi
Sunday: Heathside LSR – 20.37mi at 7:57/mi

2023 in review

2023-12-31T18:48:26Z

Had a(nother) baby
Moved house
Wrote a weekly blog

Monday: Xmas swim – 6.49mi at 8:20/mi
Wednesday: Beverley hills – 6.80mi at 7:29/mi
Saturday: Beverley bogs – 8.70mi at 8:16/mi

12.25 – 12.31

2023-12-31T18:55:20Z

Life

Emotions ran predictably high on the 25th and beyond and I frequently totally failed to deal with the little man. More than once the best I could manage was ignoring him while he screamed in my face. Not a particularly effective strategy, but at least I didn’t also end up hating myself for having shouted at him. Threatening to withhold or withdraw things he likes can sometimes work, but I worry I overuse it and it always leaves a bad taste. I told him he was making me sad – that just felt like emotional blackmail (to which he’s entirely impervious, so again only served to make me feel worse). Thankfully, he got better towards the end of the week as the adrenaline of Christmas wore off and while he’s characteristically fucked off about having to leave Baba and Gangan’s, I think even he gets the sense that we’ve slightly outstayed our welcome and it’s time to go home (and/or I’m projecting all over him).

None of baby cousin Aila’s infinite chill rubbed off on either of our kids unfortunately.

We Santa got the little man a Yoto Mini which wasn’t a runaway hit (i.e. not a rocket or a magic elf tree – requests for which Santa roundly ignored) but it seems to be growing on him and it’s so good I’m genuinely considering getting one for myself as a lo-fi internet clock radio.

We went for lunch with Andrew, Charlotte, and their youngest Alma, over from Sweden and the first time we’ve seen them in years. Real nice to see them – everyone much more tired and preoccupied with children than before. And we scored some sweet doll’s house furniture that they were otherwise going to be giving to charity.

We also went out for a drink one evening with Johnny and Dani. It’s very sweet how proud Dani is of Johnny and lovely to see how good they clearly are for each other – a lot of that gets lost in translation in the family WhatsApp group chat.

Bae’s uncle William came down to perform a locum baptism for Aila. I was surprised to learn that it included an exorcism. Pretty mad, I thought, but then again you don’t have to pull too hard at that thread to be reminded of how mad all of it is. At least an exorcism gives you something to talk about. I kept my heathen skin out of the holy water firing line to avoid any burns.

We had a big ol’ party after the baptism and caught up with Bae’s uncle Derek and aunt Janet who we’ve not seen since pre-Covid, so they finally got to meet the kids.

We drove back to London via uncle Rich’s on Hogmanay (today). Was nice to see him holding baby girl. Little man (predictably) didn’t want to leave, but he scored some more brio train track which sweetened the deal.

Published my much-slaved-over 2023 in review.

Happy Hogmanay!

Listening

Adam Buxton ep. 217 – Adam and Joe live at Royal Festival Hall

Running

Xmas swim
Beverley hills
Beverley loop (off watch)
Beverley bogs

My feet have been injury free for a fortnight and I’m delighted about it.

Monday: Xmas swim – 6.49mi at 8:20/mi
Wednesday: Beverley hills – 6.80mi at 7:29/mi
Saturday: Beverley bogs – 8.70mi at 8:16/mi

12.18 – 12.24

2023-12-24T21:00:20Z

Life

We had a plumber out to fix the hot water. He in turn called out an electrician. I was surprised and relieved to find that it could all be fixed relatively simply without any work required on our laughably decrepit boiler. I’d already spent an imaginary small fortune on it (and imagined a winter without hot water), so even though we ended up paying two people to do something (apparently) fairly basic it somehow feels like we dodged a bullet.

I’m so tired of the little man bringing everyone down by screaming his head off at nursery drop-off, I told him I didn’t care what he did (more for my own benefit than his). The first day I tried this strategy, he didn’t cry. The next day he did, but true to my word, I didn’t care – turns out my problem was more to do with managing my own expectations rather than his.

I had a lot of fun hanging out with baby girl this week. She’s still a massive mummy’s girl, but the shrift I’m given isn’t quite as short as before. She does still frequently demand to be continually held on pain of hugely disproportionate screaming. I’ve been listening to a lot of old skool hip-hop, deep house, and UKG with her – none of that ‘wheels on the bus’ bollocks this time around.

We drove up to Beverley on Thursday. Bluey the aging Vauxhall Corsa gave a good account of himself and mercifully the traffic wasn’t too mad. The kids were both pretty great (even when the little man, inevitably, had to puke). Saw Johnny, over from Ecuador, for the first time in about 18 months and met my niece (born a week after baby girl) for the first time. She’s painfully cute and (irritatingly) good natured.

There are a lot of people staying in the house. There are a lot of dynamics. I’m doing my best to fly under the radar.

A trip to the local garden centre had been arranged for a painfully shit Santa’s grotto experience. I mostly felt sorry for the kids – they don’t need any more gaslighting at this time of year.

I’m impressed we’ve managed to get the little man to sleep at a reasonable hour on Christmas Eve. He’s beside himself with excitement. I really hope there isn’t too much of a backlash if/when it transpires Santa has totally fucked it.

This site

:has support landed in Firefox 121 so the totally pointless ‘theme switcher’ now works there (I mean I haven’t actually checked this because I currently only open my laptop to facilitate CBeebies consumption, but it should).

Listening

Adam Buxton ep. 216 – Joe Lycett

TIL

Nacreous (mother of pearl) clouds are a thing, spotted on Christmas Eve over Beverley

Running

Tuesday: Hills – 5.82mi at 8:18/mi
Friday: Beverley roads – 10.28mi at 7:16/mi
Sunday: Bev trails – 9.65mi at 8:02/mi

12.11 – 12.17

2023-12-18T08:03:17Z

Life

Survived my first solo Wednesday with the kids. It wasn’t pretty, but not an abject disaster either.

We took the train to my brother’s on Friday for a Christmas meal with Leanne and Dave. Narrowly avoided a minor disaster because my brother had asked if we wanted to bring a vegetarian main course and I had (I maintain entirely reasonably) assumed he just meant for the two vegetarians, rather than for everyone. I still think it was slightly mad to invite us to his house for lunch, knowing that we’re travelling by train, with two demonstrably quite hard work small children (extra car seat in hand), knowing that we basically don’t ever sleep, and expect us to have cooked lunch for everyone. But then there are many things that I find baffling about my brother. ‘Panic’ averted by a swift Tesco trip anyhow.

Liz and Peter dropped in and ended up staying for a few hours – was lovely to catch up with them and see them getting on with our mercifully not-too-shouty-at-the-time baby girl.

Little man scored some brio trains and diggers from Rich, Leanne and Dave and got his (now mandatory) ride on the lawnmower ‘tractor’. He was as distraught as ever to have to leave what he obviously views as uncle Richard’s palace of fun.

I find it hard staying there because it’s so heavily imbued with memories of my old man. I didn’t really like staying there even before he died – so much clutter and dust. Now I still don’t like it but the clutter and dust remind me of him and I feel guilty about not liking being there. And the little man was an absolute disaster in the night. On the one hand it feels like a bit of a waste to only stay for 24 hours when we’ve gone to the trouble of getting there, but I think I’d have struggled to stay much longer. I was (as ever) delighted to get back to London and resolved to force my brother to pay us a long-overdue visit next time.

The sadness of not being allowed to stay in Kettering was swiftly forgotten when Niamh arrived to stay on Saturday. I think the little man might be in love with her.

Jumped-started a car – felt pretty macho.

Added B vitamins, Voltarol, and rolling-my-foot-on-a-tennis-ball to the bursitis rehabilitation project. Maybe prayers next week.

Watching

Succession – polished this off. Glad I can move on with my life
Le Mans ’66 – Rich made us watch this. Another two hour’s sleep would have been infinitely preferable
Bobby Fingers – thanks Andy P, this is amazing
Strictly final – a vintage edition

TIL

It’s ‘shore up’ not ‘sure up’

Running

Tuesday: Hills – 7.02mi at 8:28/mi
Thursday: Hills – 4.94mi at 7:33/mi
Sunday: LSR – 15.51mi at 7:10/mi

12.04 – 12.10

2023-12-10T20:42:19Z

Life

We got some light shades up in the flat and it immediately feels less like a prison. Feel a bit silly for not having done it sooner.

Caught up with old Friday pals on Tuesday for a very pleasant evening of frites and non-alcoholic Sportzot in The Dovetail, Farringdon. I’m still periodically chuckling to myself about the idea that Blink-182’s latest album is type safe.

Felt slightly hungover the next day, so either hangovers aren’t entirely to do with alcohol content, or I wasn’t entirely drinking non-alcoholic beer. I’ve long had my suspicions about the former, but can’t entirely rule out the latter either.

Trell came to visit on Wednesday and witnessed the full gamut of emotions (mostly from the kids, mostly because we strong-armed her into staying for tea).

Bae’s parents came to stay for the weekend and Bae went to Birmingham for a course on Saturday. I was really grateful for the help because baby girl is full of the most manky cold I’ve ever encountered which means sleep is at a higher premium than usual (keen readers of this organ will note that this is an impressive feat). I’m shitting myself about this coming Wednesday when Bae’s back at work and I get to deal with both ~~barrels~~ kids solo. Can only hope baby girl has improved some by then.

I feel a bit emotionally flat, ratty, and very quick to temper. I can’t begin to think why. And turns out I was prematurely optimistic about any improvement in the bursitis in my foot. Fuck.

Reading

TIL

RGI_Emoji is the subset of all valid emoji symbols recommended for general interchange – reckon I can press that into service in a regex soon
Tony’s Chocoloney is actually called Tony’s Chocolonely 🤯

Running

Tuesday: Hills – 6.19mi at 8:11/mi
Thursday: Marshes – 7.82mi at 8:13/mi
Sunday: 5 x Swain’s – 10.03mi at 8:13/mi

11.27 – 12.03

2023-12-03T21:49:53Z

Life

I don’t know why I’m consistently surprised that I have to have to build everything that comes from IKEA, right down to the dolls house we got for the little man. Can’t deny that I kind of enjoy it though.

Scarlet fever seems to be tearing through the nurseries of north London. Little man appears to have avoided it so far, but him and baby girl have both been fairly poorly all week. I’m not convinced that they have to behave like such total pricks as a result, but perhaps I’m not being very fair. Suffice to say we could all do with having had a lot more sleep this week.

Baby girl has reminded me repeatedly that the quickest way to find the most dangerous thing in the vicinity is to put her on the floor and let go. She certainly likes to give Darwin a run for his money.

Looked around another couple of schools. It makes me want to cry a little bit.

Got a Christmas tree (christened ‘How’ by the little man) on Friday. Think it might be our best one yet. And, of course, a new weapon in baby girl’s danger arsenal, which she’s delighted about.

Little man’s got two advent calendars. Fair to say he doesn’t quite get it yet, but he’s invariably happy to get some chocolate.

Don’t want to get complacent, but I think I’ve put the dampeners on last week’s incipient bursitis. Could have been thanks to one or more of: thermals, thick socks, slippers, ibuprofen, or deep heat. Might have been none of those. Might not have actually put any dampeners on whatsoever and I’m just in denial. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Reading

Examples of Great URL Design

Running

Thursday: Marshes – 8.23mi at 7:15/mi
Sunday: LSR – 14.94mi at 7:52/mi

11.20 – 11.26

2023-11-26T22:28:00Z

Life

From memory, I struggled to get out of work mode when I went on leave with the little man a few years ago. I’m pleased to report that there has been no such struggle this time around.

We went to visit a couple of schools. I can’t believe that this is happening, why on earth did we let him grow up? Not going to make the same mistake with baby girl.

We had the architect around to our place for a chat. For all the fact he was fairly negative about everything, we liked the cut of his jib, and it feels like there’s a glint of hope for turning it into a nicer home. I’m looking forward to the next steps.

We got the little man a Frozen-themed electric toothbrush and it’s an absolute game-changer. Not sure how long it’ll last, but for the time-being at least, it means two fewer arguments per day.

My AW2023 health anxiety season has arrived. I’m worried the bursitis that plagued my feet last winter might have set back in. I talk a big I’m-a-man-of-science game, but when it comes to the crunch it turns out I’ll throw any old hokum at it. Consequently, the flat is now overrun by the powerful odour of Tiger Balm. And I got some slippers.

We went for lunch at Bubala in Soho on Thursday. It was all round delicious but stand out favourites were the celeriac, artichokes, and Brussels sprouts (particularly hard to see those being bettered any time over the festive period). Then we went to look at sofas on Tottenham Court Road and I’ve now got a sinking feeling we’re going to spend a bomb on one.

Little man stayed in his room until 06:30 on six of the last seven days and I’m dishing out the gold stars like there’s no tomorrow. At the same time, we’re seriously contemplating moving baby girl into his room soon because it’s obviously the right thing to do in the long run. Can’t shake the feeling it’ll be the stupidest thing we’ll ever do given we’ve only just had our first week of passable sleep in 3.5 years.

I got some mild food poisoning at the end of the week, which wasn’t fun for anyone. At least it made me feel so cold that it finally prompted me to buy some thermal underwear – something I’ve been threatening to do for a decade. Little man was very sweet to me as a result, but it seems it has probably given him the impetus to take his first steps in sicky-pulling. Quite enjoyable to watch.

My old man died two years ago today. I miss him.

Running

Tuesday Hills
Thursday Ally Pally – pretty happy to get on the leaderboard for the Ferme Park hill segment

Tuesday: Hills – 6.17mi at 7:58/mi
Thursday: Ally Pally – 8.03mi at 7:15/mi

11.13 – 11.19

2023-11-26T22:28:00Z

Life

Started my second block of shared parental leave and took the kids to Beverley so that bae could go for a meal in honour of her aunt’s 60th. Unfortunately, her dad had got shingles so we opted to stay in the Premier Inn instead of chancing baby girl getting chicken pox.

2023-11-room-101.jpeg

My children were in the room and the wifi didn’t work. The horror.

Little man was up at 4am and no amount of threatening to tear up his gold star chart was going to get him to go back to sleep. He’s otherwise been making strides in the staying-in-bed-in-the-morning game, though, and I only hope this won’t trigger a regression. Let’s face it, it probably already did.

I’d intended to convert the buggy into an upright position for baby girl but obviously didn’t get round to it. There’s bags of parental leave left though, and I’m looking forward to all of it. Going to try and get the nice camera back out and capture as much of it as I can.

Went round to Carla’s in Waltham Cross on Sunday. We had a lovely time, but it’s fucking miles away and I won’t countenance any of this, ‘it’s not as far as you think’ horseshit!

Work

I think I left a PR to unify various tab-like things in fairly good shape.

TIL

Cmd-Shift-C opens dev tools with the element selector active. I’ve been using Cmd-Opt-I forever and this is going to take some getting used to. I’ll have forgotten about it by the time I get back to work, anyhow

Running

Tuesday: Marshes – 8.26mi at 7:47/mi
Thursday: Beverley – Skidby – Beverley – 11.76mi at 8:23/mi
Sunday: LSR – 15.77mi at 7:08/mi

11.06 – 11.12

2023-11-13T14:04:16Z

Life

Think we might have found a way forward with an architect. Let the money haemorrhaging commence. Not excited about the prospect of the water, gas, and electric having to be turned off for up to eight weeks though. Don’t want to think too hard about how we’re going to handle that just yet.

Bae’s parents were due to visit but her dad got shingles so they stayed home. The little man was understandably pretty disappointed but he dealt with it much better than I thought he might. To try and soften the blow (and probably more because we’re lazy parents looking for an easy ride) we let him massively overindulge in cheese toasties, chocolate, and pizza instead. This backfired and he was sick all through Friday night. We’re not totally out of the woods yet, but hopefully this was entirely the effects of gluttony and not something more virus-y. He’s almost back to the non-stop eating machine we know, so fingers crossed.

Caught up all too briefly with Si and Lou on Saturday afternoon who kindly volunteered to help us hoover up the excess curry we’d ordered in for Bae’s parents.

Then legged it over to the Olympic velodrome to watch the grand final of the UCI track champions league with Gareth who very kindly gifted me a ticket that was going spare. I felt pretty bad about leaving Bae in the lurch, but the little man is far happier in Si and Lou’s company than mine and by all accounts everyone had an excellent time. And nobody puked.

The racing was ace even though I mostly had no idea what was going on. Still quite hoarse from all the shouting.

2023-11-track-stand.jpg

Who’s the wanker with his phone out?

I wish someone could bottle the smell of fallen leaves after the rain.

Work

Storybook 7, Yarn, Node version dependency whack-a-mole (all of which ultimately turned out to be red herrings). I don’t think we’ll get much obvious benefit from upgrading Storybook, but if we don’t it will probably become more of a pain further down the line. One of my least favourite parts of software development is upgrading almost just for the sake of it.

Also Shared Parental Leave policy changes, with associated union-backing considerations.

Think I’m slightly burned out and never really got back up to speed after my first block of parental leave. Still, only two more days then I’m back on leave till February, by which time the team will have a lead software engineer and two new product owners. I’m hoping all of that will help.

Watching

Beckham – this has had an impressive capacity to unlock long-buried memories, often totally unrelated to anything remotely close to the doc

Running

Tuesday: Swain’s x 3 – 8.33mi at 7:55/mi
Wednesday: Regent’s – 4.41mi at 8:10/mi
Thursday: Hills – 7.09mi at 7:50/mi
Sunday: LSR – 13.62mi at 8:10/mi

10.30 – 11.05

2023-11-05T20:10:57Z

Life

I used up some going-out-of-date holiday at the beginning of the week to hang out with Bae and baby girl. Good to be reminded of how nice/hard parental leave’s going to be again.

End of the week Bae took baby girl to a funeral in Scotland. Boys club for me and the little man largely comprised him ‘helping’ me put his IKEA furniture together, and the first three of what will presumably become hundreds of Frozen viewings. We also had a Big Day Out involving the transport museum, a walk across the river for pizza, multiple tube trains, three playgrounds, chocolate cake, an ice-lolly, a babyccino and a game of scary bears (don’t ask what the rules are, I have no fucking idea). I scored some high dad points that day.

Little man’s new jam seems to be slipping swears into gibberish (presumably) to see what kind of rise he can get out of us. “Icky-licky-lucky-fucky-bucky-wucky-woo”. This wasn’t in the training manual. I’ve successfully ignored it so far and plan to continue doing so.

His obsession with death continues unabated.

We got a tip-off on another architect who sounds like they might be a better fit for us – going to have a chat on Thursday so we’ll see.

Baby girl’s got a rotten cold, trapped wind, and back teeth coming through. She’s not happy about any of it and she isn’t scared of letting us know.

It is time to work out how the heating in this house works.

Work

Storybook noodling

Watching

Race to the summit

Running

Tuesday: ooooooOOOOOOOOOoooooooo – 11.10mi at 8:19/mi
Thursday: Hills – 7.07mi at 8:01/mi
Sunday: LSR – 14.53mi at 7:34/mi

10.23 – 10.29

2023-10-29T20:45:36Z

Life

Why was the man in her hair?

Little man on hearing Nellie Forbush singing in South Pacific

We’ve just thrown a Halloween party for an assortment of sugar-crazed agents of chaos and almost everything else about the week has evaporated from my brain.

Little man loved dressing up as a (Peppa Pig) fairy and announced he never wants to wear anything else. Already looking forward to how that’s going to pan out before nursery tomorrow.

I’m mostly just happy we all survived without (too) too many tantrums.

Since visiting my old man’s grave the other weekend, little man has had a minor obsession with death that is often tricky to play. “Is grandpa Mac lost underground? How will he have breakfast?”

Spoke to an architect, but (as we slightly expected) he was quite upfront about the fact that he’s not going to be a good fit for what we’re after. The hunt goes on.

MacGyvered the stair-gate. Think it’s safe-ish?

Work

Got rid of all the Google Universal Analytics code that has been lurking in the codebase doing nothing for a couple of months.

Started looking at what it would take to move our design system on to Storybook 7. Initial feeling is, quite a bit.

Watching

Lost in the Desert – fairly insane
Succession Season 2

Running

Tuesday: Marshes – 8.42mi at 7:02/mi
Wednesday: Regent’s – 4.46mi at 7:58/mi
Thursday: Hills – 6.92mi at 8:21/mi
Sunday: LSR – 13.37mi at 7:44/mi

10.16 – 10.22

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Little man had his 4-in-1 pre-school vaccination and it has torn through his guts (and by extension, several pairs of his underpants) with a merciless intensity. Really hoping he’s through the worst of it (nobody has much appetite for another double-shitting-of-the-bed night). Felt a bit guilty that we didn’t take him to the fair in Clissold Park, but I can’t imagine centripetal forces would have improved the situation.

Andy P came to visit on a textbook autumn Sunday for pizza, chocolate cake, and Finsbury Park playground attendance – all factors that have cemented Andy’s position (quite rightly) high up the little man’s leaderboard of excellent adult humans. He remains high up mine, too.

Baby girl said, ‘dada’ once, but looks like it was an accident and she’s been back to solid ‘bababababa’-ing ever since.

I failed to erect a stair gate – the (relatively crucial) part that makes it stay shut didn’t survive the house move (possibly still attached to the wall in the old house). Baby girl’s newfound capacity for speed-crawling towards stairs render this situation highly problematic.

Made my first porridge of the season. Completed level one of Greek Duolingo. Lined up a Zoom call with an architect. Replaced Alfred with Raycast. Phoned in a blog.

Work

Mostly a11y fixes.

And I’m absolutely delighted that the lead software dev role has been filled (once more) by someone I hold in the highest regard.

Watching

Succession (pretty good innit)
Gone Fishing (Succession antidote)

Running

Tuesday: Marshes – 7.81mi at 7:08/mi
Thursday: Hills – 6.15mi at 8:03/mi
Sunday: Ally Pally and hills – 11.14mi at 7:44/mi

10.09 – 10.15

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Highlight(?) of the week was taking the little man to see uncle Richard in Kettering where he has unfettered access to shit pizza, squash, and bourbon biscuits. Bae and baby girl not in attendance because they were headed north for a funeral. It winds me up a bit how little of a shit my brother appears to give about his niece. He did eventually ask after her as he was driving us back to the station. But he lives on another planet where editing the village hall magazine and cleaning old salt and pepper mills takes precedence over spending time with (or at the very least showing the faintest interest in) family. He’s always been like this so I suppose I shouldn’t let it get me down as much as it does.

Went to the Young V&A on Friday. I thought it was excellent, but quite hard to work out what the little man made of it. After the fact he claims to have enjoyed himself, but that certainly didn’t feel like the overarching mood at the time. It’s definitely more museum than soft-play and my guess is he wasn’t quite prepared for that. Maybe we’ll go again soon now he knows what to expect.

I burned through three ceramic rotary drill heads to get through the buggy axle. I really didn’t think it was going to work out (again), confident it would end with me having buggered the buggy beyond repair. It was an intense rush of relief when I finally got a new wheel on. A couple more wheels and the knock-off Drimmel will have paid for itself, but not sure my blood-pressure can withstand it.

An ex-architect pal has put us in touch with an architect they hold in high esteem and I’m really hoping they can help us knock our slightly depressing flat into something less bleak. They’ve not yet responded to my initial message so I’m not going to get my hopes up yet.

The little man continues to wake up far too early.

Baby girl has a rotten cold.

Work

Mostly boshing through accessibility improvements flagged in the recent audit.

Listening

Adam Buxton podcast ep. 207 with Billy Bragg

TIL

outline: 0 doesn’t play nice with Windows’ high-contrast mode

Running

Tuesday: Swain’s x 3 – 8.39mi at 7:30/mi
Thursday: Hills – 6.23mi at 7:57/mi
Saturday: LSR – 17.10mi at 7:24/mi

10.02 – 10.08

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Back to work after a month off. Nursery drop-off was worse than ever and I really missed Bae and our mad-as-all-heck children. Mostly just survived the week and tried to abide by the slightly random (but I think reasonable) set of new rules I came up with in my time off:

Only eat one breakfast
Don’t eat the little man’s leftovers
Don’t look at your phone while eating
Don’t look at your phone in bed
Don’t look at social media outside work hours
Listen to your thoughts more often than podcasts.

Which, I suppose, boils down to, eat less, put your phone away.

Got knocked off my bike cycling home from work on Tuesday in what felt like an unimaginative, physical manifestation of the metaphysical crashing-back-down-to-earth I was already enduring. It was fairly dramatic (I pretty much did a summersault) but I escaped with only minor grazes and a strong resolve to get a massage.

Bae’s little sis had another baby on Tuesday and we went up to Bev to meet it at the weekend. There’s no denying that he’s painfully cute, but no amount of hormones or cajoling is going to get me to want to go through that again. I think perhaps the more traumatic it is for you at the time, the greater your capacity for forgetting, so I feel like I have a duty of care to Bae to stop her from trying to get us to do anything ~~even more~~ stupid ~~than we already have~~.

I downloaded Duolingo again to give learning a bit of Greek another shot. I have low expectations of how that will work out.

Number twos update

Baby girl can’t poo. Little man won’t poo.

Work

Nobody else had announced they were going to be leaving in the time that I was away, thank piss. The office did seem pretty quiet though. I’m told the process for filling vacant positions is going well, and I’m going to stay hopeful.

Running

Tuesday: Marshes – 8.37mi at 7:10/mi
Thursday: Hills – 7.00mi at 8:10/mi
Saturday: Beverley parkrun – 3.07mi at 6:17/mi
Sunday: Bev – 7.92mi at 8:08/mi

09.25 – 10.01

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

The rest of the holiday continued to be broadly excellent. Then we tried to come home. We should have got back about 10pm on Wednesday but didn’t make it till around midday on Friday.

We got a hotel at 2am when EasyJet finally admitted that our first flight was cancelled (thirty of our fellow passengers weren’t so lucky). Then we were summoned back for a flight that was alleged to be departing at 3pm which (once everyone had checked in) promptly disappeared from the departure boards. Of course, it never really existed.

At this point we managed to get back out through security and took the bus back to town for an unscheduled tour of Chania’s playgrounds – I might have broken if we’d spent another eight hours at Gate 16 listening to the announcement that announced there were no announcements at Chania Airport, every 20 minutes.

One family learned a Bollywood dance.

One couple got engaged.

One trio got so smashed on the first night that they were told they were unlikely to have been allowed on the flight if it had materialised. Then in what can only be described as a dedication to airport-rules drinking they doubled down and achieved dizzy new heights of inebriation on day two, sealing their fate when they started shouting at other passengers and airport staff instead of just each other. The sea of empty bottles they’d enclosed themselves within as they insisted they weren’t drunk and aggressive painted quite a picture. When it became apparent that there was a plane (30 hours later than scheduled) and they weren’t going to be allowed on it, there weren’t quite cheers, but the members of the ad hoc compensation claims WhatsApp group shed no tears. I wonder how they are getting on. Maybe they just live at Gate 16 now.

I was once more very grateful I’m not drinking.

I half expected an announcement to let us know we’d all be part of an elaborate and ethically questionable sociology experiment.

We got to Gatwick in the middle of the night and there was a rail strike. We opted for a hotel. They gave us room 209. Room 209 didn’t exist. By this point (with the additional sleep deprivation) it seemed more David Lynch simulator than sociology experiment. I heard the distant ring tone as I tried to call reception, and thought it might be my cue to wake up. Nobody answered and I didn’t wake up so we went back to reception to get a room that did exist.

I’d obviously rather it hadn’t been such an ordeal to get home, but there was something weirdly good about it. I was proud of how we’d all held it together. The kids were absolute troopers and a lot of people commented on how good they were. I think we’re all stronger for it.

Little man missed two days of nursery and then it was the weekend again. I’d been worried that 10 days straight as a family might have broken us. As it is, it’ll have been 14 days and I’m going to be very sad we’re not going to get to hang out when my parental leave ends tomorrow. That said, there has been serious potty training regression over the course of the last two weeks and I’m looking forward to that being someone else’s problem for at least a few hours a day.

Getting badly stung by faceless capitalism will make us think twice before flying EasyJet again. What a bunch of utter pricks.

Running

Tuesday: Χανιά τέσσερα – 9.93mi at 7:33/mi
Saturday: Finsbo parkrun – 3.23mi at 6:46/mi
Sunday: Heathside LSR – 14.28mi at 8:16/mi

09.18 – 09.24

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

To think we used to find anything difficult

Bae

Departed Gatwick for Crete two hours late, but it was raining for take-off, which is the ideal holiday schadenfreude.

It has been a truly excellent week, epic meltdowns and an emergency tetanus jab notwithstanding. Bae tells me she’s long known that I’m largely solar-powered and I’m inclined to agree. I think I’m maybe a bit olive oil-powered too. But whatever it is, almost everything about this week has felt restorative.

The hotel has a play room with a decent collection of stuff to hold the little man’s attention when the sun has been too oppressive. But it is Lina – a child-minder he’s slightly in love with – who is the play room’s real draw. There’s no denying she’s made the days far more survivable (she even sat for us one evening while we had our first uninterrupted evening in as long as I can remember).

I’ve been very glad there are plenty of other young children about – the more screaming kids drawing flak away from ours the better (although not always quite enough for us to avoid having to pull the rip-cord and get one or both away from wherever we happen to be ruining everyone else’s fun). For the most part they have both been excellent and we’re already planning more of the same for next year.

True to plan, I’ve not been on my phone much at all – really going to try to keep that up when we get home too.

Reading

30 Criticisms That Hold Women Leaders Back, According to New Research – ‘The researchers found that there was no “sweet spot” where a woman could position herself without being criticized. Women were either too young or too old, too attractive or not attractive enough, too educated or not educated enough. Introverted women were not seen as leaders and extroverted women were viewed as aggressive. They ultimately found that women leaders were “never quite right”’
In it for the Long Run – an actual book that I started before baby girl was born and have just got round to finishing. It was ok

Running

Wednesday: Χανιά – 9.33mi at 8:11/mi
Friday: Moar Χανιά – 12.68mi at 8:02/mi
Sunday: σκύλος μαλάκωμα – 11.36mi at 8:44/mi

09.11 – 09.17

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

This was the week parental leave felt like it kicked in properly and I was finally disconnected from work.

We took a trip to Cumbrae on the ferry from Largs and made some high-end sandcastles on Millport beach. The Millport sweet shop (only place selling takeaway coffee) was faintly reminiscent of the butchers in The League of Gentleman, so I was relieved once we’d made it back to the mainland with our organs intact.

Next day we went down to Troon where Bae had been planning on going in the sea, but she was understandably discouraged by the countless jellyfish that lined the shore. We settled for more sandcastle building.

Little man put Bae’s uncle William through his paces that afternoon (non-stop good fun) then we got the train back to London the day after, thus concluding holiday #2.

Most of the rest of the week passed without incident. Then Saturday we entered cheese-dream anxiety levels to try and fix the buggy wheels before we take it to Crete tomorrow. One of the ball-bearing casings had rusted onto the rear axle and no amount of hammering and WD 40 could work it loose. Two local bicycle mechanics were precisely zero help. Several YouTubes and hardware/buggy-wheel purchases later we still had a buggy with a ball-bearing casing rusted onto the rear axle, but now we had a lot less money, and the bearing casing and rear axle both had chunks taken out of them from my power tooling efforts. And we had a new wheel that didn’t fit. Remarkably we got the knackered wheel back onto the now compromised axle and we’re just going to pray it doesn’t fall apart while we’re away. At least we now own a rotary multi tool kit for all that rotary multi tooling we’re always doing. And some safety specs to help me feel like I’m back in the chemistry lab at school.

One way of looking at baby girl’s sleep training is that she’s improving. Another (far more accurate) way is that we’re getting better at ignoring her screaming. Either way, we’ve had a bit more sleep which has been gratefully received.

Going on Big Holiday™ tomorrow. Going to try not to use my phone for anything other than navigation/comms(/blog).

Watching

Break Point, The Maverick – part 1 of a Netflix docuseries which felt staid and formulaic. Wasn’t left with an inclination to watch the rest of the series
Louis Theroux: The City Addicted to Crystal Meth – in an effort to find a banker doc as an antidote to the above we went with this. Not an easy watch (clue in the title)

Reading

Luro – interested in this, but not going to dig in till I’m back in the office
Sanity – I guess I’m disconnected enough from work that a subroutine in my brain decided to fill the vacuum by getting me to Google headless CMS options. This one looks to have come on a lot since I last looked

TIL

ctrl-shift-alt-win-L will open LinkedIn in the default browser on a Windows machine

Running

Monday: Killie – 7.85mi at 8:27/mi
Tuesday: Moar Killie – 7.44mi at 8:37/mi
Thursday: Hills x 2 – 9.54mi at 7:54/mi
Saturday: Finsbo parkrun – 3.15mi at 6:04/mi
Sunday: Easy(?) hills x 2 – 9.53mi at 8:26/mi

09.04 – 09.10

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

Arriving back from Paris neither of us had anything left in the tank to deal with baby girl’s screaming. We went to the opposite end of the flat and left her to it. It felt awful, but by this point (c. 7 months) we were totally out of energy and options. We all survived the night. It hasn’t been a miracle cure, but her (and by extension, our) sleep has been markedly improved this week. Hoping we can all continue on the same trajectory.

We got the little man a light that can change colour at a given time to let him know when it’s time to get up. The upshot is that any time after 5am is now largely spent listening to him hitting his new light and telling it to change colour (and/or shouting for me to come to his room so he can explain to me that it’s not time for him to get up yet). He does at least appear to understand the concept so there’s hope.

Got the train up to Scotland and Niamh laid on three glorious days of sunshine for us in Leith, despite me managing to lock us out of her house within minutes of arrival, and having to get a (deeply unpleasant/creepy) emergency locksmith round to break in.

We took a trip across the Forth rail bridge and hung out on the shore in North Queensferry among a frankly nightmare-inducing number of shells – like some sort of mollusc massacre. Next day went to Portobello beach for Bae’s birthday and caught up with the Anderson’s – an almost exclusively excellent day.

Closed out the week seeing old pals and new babies in Glasgow. The weather finally started behaving like it should in the west of Scotland and we got reassuringly drenched in a playground after lunch. Then took the train through to Kilmarnock to see Bae’s folks. Hoping they won’t need too much encouragement to do the 5am shift tomorrow.

The potty-training emotional rollercoaster continues.

Work

I couldn’t help noticing the site has been having issues. I’m fairly sure it isn’t the result of something I deployed last thing before I went on parental leave. But (as ever) there’s a niggling doubt.

TIL

View transitions look set to be coming to all browsers

Running

Monday: 5 x Swain’s – 10.46mi at 8:05/mi
Saturday: Edinburgh LSR – 10.33mi at 8:24/mi

08.28 – 09.03

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

I started my first block of shared parental leave on Friday. Finding it hard to pin down my emotions – I’ve got a lot of them. Delighted I get to hang with the kids for the month (that’s contractual). Terrified I get to hang with the kids for the month. Sad a bunch of colleagues won’t be my colleagues anymore on my return. Non-specific dread about various holidays. Tired af (ibid.) and worried that that’ll (somehow) deteriorate further.

Visited friends in Paris at the weekend which helped to dissipate some of the amorphous dread – there’s something reassuring about spending an extended period of time in the company of someone else’s kids to get a different and unfiltered angle on the chaos. I got stranded on the political tightrope of dealing with their kids a couple of times (“I don’t think your daddy would like you to feed antiseptic hand gel to your sister”/“please stop hitting my boy with that sword”), but apart from a multi-hour screamathon the little man and baby girl instigated 4am Sunday, we (broadly speaking) had a lovely weekend. Park des Sciences and a walk down the canal were both fairly successful. Pastries and ice-cream were unsurprisingly the biggest hits.

Back on home turf, trying to figure out who supplies our gas and electricity and why we’re getting harangued by four separate three-letter energy companies (eon, edf, ovo, sse) is helping to ensure my anxiety levels remain topped up.

Work

The kids came to visit the office on Wednesday. Little man took a while to warm up, but in the end I think he had a nice time. He says he wants to come every week (strong chance this is because I gave him some chocolate after lunch). Baby girl had played the majority of her being-a-total-dick cards the night before and was sweetness and light as a result. Probably for the best.

Signed a depressing number of goodbye cards.

Watching

Arnold – he obviously got a very generous edit (it’s definitely not warts and all) but there’s no denying he’s had an extraordinary life

Reading

Baby sleep has become a sign of parenting competence – and a source of shame – made me wonder if bae is moonlighting as the Guardian's assistant opinion editor
Make the Thing a Link
EDUCATIONAL SENSATIONAL INSPIRATIONAL FOUNDATIONAL – A historical record of foundational web development blog posts
Native CSS nesting support arrives in the Big Three browsers – time to rewrite the CSS for this site
A quick introduction to CSS @scope
3 questions to evaluate design patterns and avoid unnecessary work that degrades UX – ‘The purpose of design is to solve actual problems. Not made up “I’m bored so I’ll come up with something new” problems.’

TIL

Promise.allSettled() (probably should have known about this before now)

Running

Tuesday: Hills – 6.19mi at 7:51/mi
Thursday: 3 x Swain’s – 8.34mi at 7:55/mi

08.21 – 08.27

2025-12-24T13:30:55Z

Life

I continue to be impressed by how tightly synced my mood is to the evacuation schedule/location of my firstborn’s bowels. He really upped his game this week and I felt unbridled glee on each of the several occasions he got one on target.

Bae convinced me to stay home while she took the kids to Yorkshire for the weekend, being as it would be my last chance to have some peace before a month of parental leave. I’m just about managing to stay the right side of rudderless by watching world championship athletics and doing house tidying/admin. But it feels very weird (and quiet). Good job I’m not drinking, because I’d probably have been surrounded by cans in my pants on the sofa and warming up for an existential crisis by this point.

Annoying that my body clock now seems to be hardwired for a 5am start though.

Reports from The North are that the little man is being painfully cute with his little cousin. I’m a bit sad that I’m not there to see it in person (then again, he almost certainly wouldn’t be being cute if I were there).

This site

Convert templates to WebC Add a <word-counter></word-counter> Web Component Minify assets Organise Eleventy config Add <details> for posts lists

When the cat’s away… the mice will check off a raft of tech-debt tasks on their personal sites.

I also took a look at the Frontend Masters Svelte course and updated my latest project with some spring physics accordingly.

Work

We had two three-hour sessions with an accessibility consultancy. There was a lot of interesting stuff, and I couldn’t help but feel a little bit proud of what a good job we appear to have done on the whole. But shit the bed three-hour meetings are long. Especially if they’re remote. And if they’re more lectures than meetings.

Put in a PR for past event-series event pagination. Anything with date logic makes me feel slightly queasy, and I’m hoping I’m not going to be responsible for the next batch of hard-to-diagnose bugs (not least because at the current rate of attrition I’ll be the only person left to fix them).

Listening

Powering through back issues of the Socially Distant Sports Bar – I don’t really care about much sport, but (as with almost anything) I enjoy it when people do and can talk enthusiastically about it. Good recommendations for documentaries/books/clips every week, and frequently makes me buckle laughing. Hoping it’ll help me pass for more of a bloke if and when the need arises

Reading

Organizing the Eleventy config file – I cribbed off this and feel almost zen as a result

Running

Sunday: Heathside LSR – 15.28mi at 8:18/mi

08.14 – 08.20

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Life

It’s taken every shred of my resolve not to shout, ‘STOP SHITTING YOURSELF’, at the little man. In my defence, he hasn’t stopped shitting himself for going on 10 days at this point. Friday was a 10-pairs-of-pants day. And now seems like he’s stool withholding. I haven’t felt this helpless as a parent for a long time (maybe ever?) and have found myself being reduced to tears more than once by a toddler who refuses to use the potty. He knows something’s up and we’re trying hard not to give him any more anxiety about it. But it would really help in so many ways if he could just do a single poo on the potty. I worry that he’s expending so much mental energy holding it in (invariably unsuccessfully, obvz) that it’s even harder than usual to get through to his tiny mind. Doesn’t help that work team news has been utter balls and sleep training baby girl is going less than great. I’m miserable and struggling to stay positive.

Apparently when I feel stressed I like to learn new web frameworks. This week it’s enhance.dev and WebC.

Work

Spent a while chasing my tail in Prismic trying to work out why the content team couldn’t use a particular component where they wanted to. Think I got to the bottom of it.

More depressing/worrying team decimation news. On the plus side, it gave me something to try out in WebC and Eleventy.

Reading

TIL

Private class fields are native to JavaScript
‘Exclusive’ lists (that don’t have to appear in your home timeline) are part of Mastodon 4.2

Running

Tuesday 3 x Swain’s. Wednesday lap of Regent’s and Primrose Hill. Thursday round Hackney Marshes. Sunday west along the canal to Regent’s, Primrose Hill, Parliament Hill, Swain’s, Highgate Wood, back down Parkland Walk.

08.07 – 08.13

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Life

I caught up with an old pal I’ve not seen in approximately three years. I haven’t got the emotional bandwidth to look head on at why we’ve not been in touch for such a long time, but we’ve definitely got some stuff to unpack. We unpacked precisely none of it. I don’t know if that was the right thing to have done, but it felt like it at the time. We spoke about catching up again soon. I guess we’ll see if that happens.

Bae had a KIT afternoon leaving me with a screamier-than-average baby girl. That morning we’d discovered the expressing pump wouldn’t charge, so calming her down with milk wasn’t an option. She eventually chilled out enough for me to get some mashed banana passed her lips – her first ever solid food – and she gave me a smile the like of which she’s hitherto reserved for bae alone. It felt good. I could easily get addicted to that smile, the mankiness of the poo it resulted in notwithstanding.

Potty training the little man started in earnest on Friday. So far, it has been an abject disaster and I’m not sure I’ll ever feel clean again. Dropping his lunchtime nap has meant that he’s invariably a monster by 5pm. The last three days he has been a monster with the added bonus of being frequently covered in shit. Fair to say I’ve not enjoyed vast swathes of the weekend.

My foray into Web Components continues. At the suggestion of a colleague I took a look at what it would take to rewrite our AudioPlayer in Lit and I think I’ve broadly got the hang of it – here’s a proof of concept. I haven’t looked much at the server-rendered story yet. I probably need to get a feel for that next.

Work

We had a Design System replay with the consultants we’d had in. Having a dedicated team was probably the obvious key recommendation. Makes sense. The recommendation to make Figma the source of truth rather than the code left me (someone who admittedly has never opened Figma) come out in a bit of a rash. And the recommendation to have all the various brand systems moved under the one umbrella continues to make me feel uneasy.

Finally got the terribly named ‘Media object list’ (I take full responsibility for the naming) out of Prismic and replaced it with the (better named?) ‘Text and icons’ that we’d created for Visual Stories.

Finished the week thinking I’d made a change that would allow some functionality the content team have been asking for for a while and I felt a bit smug about it. Then at the last minute I realised it wasn’t going to work as I’d expected and spent the weekend wondering why and feeling mildly stressed about it. Hopefully I’ll get to the bottom of it tomorrow.

Reading

Assistive technology shouldn’t be a mystery box
An Introduction To JavaScript Proxies
Type vs Interface: Which Should You Use In 2023 – tl;dr just use Type (and some stuff I’m going to ignore about extends being more performant than &)
The self-fulfilling prophecy of React – largely preaching to the choir, but another reminder that I should give Svelte(Kit) another look

TIL

Hypocrisy is the virtue-signalling of fascism – not sure I’ve learned this (or if I agree), but it’s something to ponder

Running

Tuesday 3 x Swain’s. Thursday hills. Sunday loop of Ally Pally and Hampstead Heath – furthest I’ve been for a while.

07.31 – 08.06

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Life

I got through the last of my dental escapades and no longer feel like I want to remove my head altogether. Attempting to get things out of the hole where my tooth used to be is taking up quite a serious chunk of time. Digging my silver tooth bling though – my transformation into my old man continues apace. Bae increasingly (and understandably) terrified.

Baby girl somehow got worse still at sleeping (just when you thought there was nowhere left for her to go). I’m wrecked, but I’m not the one feeding her every 90 minutes or the one who’s hair she demands to pull for comfort, and Bae is hanging on by a thread at this point. Something has to give soon. We’ve got the bigger cot put up at least, so if we do have to leave her to scream it out for a bit there won’t be the distinct possibility of her launching herself out of the crib (which there has been recently).

Decided to try Safari as my daily driver on Mac in light of the Web Environment Integrity kerfuffle. So far I haven’t missed anything too much.

Started trying to take Web Components seriously (by way of Lit) and re-built my feed tracker in an attempt to grok some concepts.

Bae started on the Zoe programme, so I’m being relayed a lot of blood glucose stats and conjecture. Seems like fun – I might get involved myself in a bit.

This site

Whittled 36.36% off the length of my domain – s/dmc.omg.lol/dmc.lol. I thought it was high time I owned my domain proper rather than sub-letting a subdomain (from the excellent omg.lol service). I didn’t have the time/energy to figure out how to redirect everything properly and set up canonical urls so in the unlikely event you’re subscribed via RSS (looking at you Andy P), there’s a good chance you’ll have to resubscribe at the new URL. Sorry. Of course there’s also a good chance you’ll never see this and I’ll have to tell you about it the next time we meet, like some kind of manual DNS propagation with extreme latency.

Work

Finally added the logic to allow our Space component to use (flex) gap. Can’t work out why we left it this long
Dogfooded the Visual Stories work we’ve been doing and put together a test page with the available components in the CMS. Think it’s getting close to being ready for production, but we need to work out the URL structure first (not something I enjoy)

Listening

RHLSTP 452 – John Robbins – a very frank and interesting discussion of his recent acceptance that he’s an alcoholic. I don’t think I’m remotely in the same league, but it all has a faintly familiar ring – I definitely think I have great potential to become a problem drinker. Related: I’m still not drinking and I don’t miss it
ShopTalk 576 – prompted my resolution to do something with Web Components
Tea and trails 33 – Gary Thwaites Lakeland 100

Reading

User feedback – the bit about playground slides resonated hard
Classes, Super, and You
Things you forgot (or never knew) because of React – so many (more) frameworks I’ve never head of
If Web Components are so great, why am I not using them?

Running

Monday hills. Wednesday Ally Pally nipple-chafer in the hammering rain. Friday hills. Sunday hills (with an extra three for luck).

07.24 – 07.30

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Life

Monday 9:20: impacted wisdom tooth removal. That set the tone for the rest of the week. And the tone was shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. The duality of being largely pain free (anaesthetic is amazing) alongside the relatively extreme forces being subjected to my face (and the sounds of snapping tooth and bone) was very strange. I knew I was going to pay for it. And I did. It felt (and continues to feel) like someone had kicked my head in before royally fucking up their knitting inside my gob. I had very little appetite for getting my temporary crown refitted two days later. Spent the rest of the week slamming painkillers and feeling sorry for myself.

Fitted a total-blackout blind to the skylight accompanied by much swearing – possibly on a par with tooth extraction stress levels. We can now theoretically sleep in darkness (just need baby girl to get the memo).

Cutting out the lunch time nap is fast becoming the norm for the little man. The upshot is an early-evening meltdown then peace for the rest of the evening. Feels very weird – not a world we’ve ever known before. We even found time to watch the Wham! documentary one evening (enjoyed it a lot).

Bae’s parents came for the weekend (giving bae some desperately-needed respite in the light of my even-more-useless-than-usual condition).

Work

Think I’ve largely wired up the new components for Visual Stories in Prismic.

Listening

The Socially Distant Sports Bar – subscribed to this off the back of hearing Mike Bubbins on RHLSTP last week

Reading

Formative posts – working my way through the posts in here that I’ve not previously encountered
Blockquotes in Screen Readers – TL;DR do whatever you like screenreaders are all pretty rubbish with blockquotes

TIL

Gorillaz Clint Eastwood hook is the Rock 1 preset on an Omnichord

07.17 – 07.23

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Life

We had an interior designer round at the beginning of the week. Apart from being storage obsessed and totally failing to listen to us regarding what we currently hate about the kitchen, she gave us some useful tips. Not likely to be going with her ‘bold mustard-coloured bannister’ suggestion though.

We then got a recommendation for a construction project manager who has in turn put us in touch with an architect, and hopefully they’ll figure out whether what we’d like to do is feasible and/or what else we could do to improve our kitchen and living space. I don’t mind too much living in limbo, but I think I’ll feel much better once there’s more of a firmed up plan for what we’re going to do. At least the slightly funky smell that had been emanating from the kitchen since we moved in crossed the threshold at which I could no longer ignore it and hope it went away. We now have one fewer dead mice rotting in a cupboard.

Had an electrician round to check everything was safe and tell us what various switches and electrical contraptions in the flat do. These kind of interactions lay bare just how little I understand about how things work.

Had my follow up with the GP. Turns out I’d written my blood pressure numbers down wrong and I’m ok to get back on the coffee (good job because the keen-eyed reader will note I already did). A couple of weeks off really made me appreciate it though. Scarring on my lungs probably won’t go away apparently, but shouldn’t affect my ability to get back to full fitness. Good news on balance.

Stood on a wasp (barefoot). Would not recommend.

Had the hygienist (didn’t get too badly told off), then dentist for a temporary crown to be fitted. Got wisdom tooth extraction tomorrow (joy), then temporary crown to be refitted on Wednesday (it fell off almost immediately). Real crown goes on August 3rd, after which time I’m hoping I won’t have to see anyone about my teeth for a considerable time hence.

Far too cold for Clissold Park splash pad today really, but mild hypothermia is well below the upper limit of what the little man is willing to pay for a slice of cake at a three year old’s birthday party.

Baby girl still almost impossibly shit at sleeping. Getting worse somehow. We desperately need something to change in this department before everyone keels over (I’m not sure how bae hasn’t already). To add insult to injury, little man is threatening to get rid of his lunchtime nap – currently the only time in the day when anyone has a fighting chance of being allowed to sit down for five minutes.

Made miso and peanut butter chickpea salad on the recommendation of JPB. Tasty af and not too fiddly for an Ottolenghi recipe. Pretty sure it’s going to be a regular in the repertoire.

Work

Glad I was off the week of the OD announcement and the dust has had a chance to settle a bit. It’s not all doom and gloom but still fairly sad. And what I think has just been less than ideal comms has tended to come off as a hint of gaslighting. Hopefully this will improve.

I ended the week trying to query Visual Story content from Prismic with varying degrees of success. I got something rendering on a page at least, but I’m confident there was a better way to have gone about it.

Listening

RHLSTP 449 – Mike Bubbins – enjoyed this a lot

Reading

TIL

If you covered the surface of the Atlantic Ocean with 12pt printed text with lines wrapping at the coasts, the expansion of the ocean basin due to plate tectonics would increase your word count by about 100 words per second

Running

Tuesday hills. Thursday 3 x Swain’s. Sunday Hackney marshes loop. All round buggered.

07.10 – 07.16

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

Wasn’t at work for the week, but dipped in for news about what, to the casual observer, has appeared to be a hugely drawn out and shambolic high-level OD process. The top line as far as I’m concerned is that three of the colleagues I have the most time and respect for have decided to leave and I can’t hide from the fact I find it upsetting on a personal level and worrying professionally.

Life

Arrived home from Beverley to a cleaned flat which immediately made it feel infinitely better. Now we just need to make everything else about it a lot less shit.

Bae and baby girl went to France for a couple of days while me and the little man hung out back home. Back-to-back museum trips (transport and postal) ending with gift shop purchases (tube train and post bus) ensured that I largely stayed in his good books and we didn’t get into too many fights.

I’d stopped drinking caffeine because on my last trip to the doc I put what I thought were the numbers I’d seen on the blood pressure monitor into an online BP explainer and it told me I had stage 3 hypertension and was at risk of an imminent heart attack. In all likelihood I’d written the numbers down wrong. I hope that’s what it was. In any event, I had a shot on a home BP monitor bae’s parents had and it said my BP was healthy. So I spent the rest of the week getting stuck right back into the tea and coffee. I guess I’d better check with the GP when I have a follow-up on Tuesday.

Niamh came to visit at the end of the week. She’d been given a less than good offer for her book from a publisher. I think/hope the little man’s vibes went some way to alleviating her pissed offedness.

Six months after purchase, little man’s potty received its inaugural wee on Saturday. I was beaming with pride.

Big four two for me today. I celebrated at a three year old’s cowboy-themed party at Spitalfields City Farm. Little man broke the slinky that came in his party bag and lost his helium balloon – two rites of passage ticked off in quick succession.

Sketching

2023-07-teether.jpeg

Expensive teething toy

Bae very thoughtfully gifted me an Apple Pencil for my birthday so I’ll probably be doing more crap pictures in a different format soon.

Reading

Loss Aversion Bias: Why Most People Fail Before They Even Try
Tailwind and the Femininity of CSS
The mathematically correct way to tie your shoes – skip to the end. I think I’ll continue to do it ‘wrong’ since I’ve come this far
Nobody cares about your blog

Running

Tuesday Hudson Way, Cherry Burton, Beverley Westwood loop. I was feeling p smug about how good I was going right up until I (literally) ran into a wall. Friday hills. Sunday round the heath after a storm the night before. I can’t remember a time the heath looked so wild (I’m very much here for it). Huge tree down on the Parkland Walk too – I feel like that storm deserved a name for the amount of devastation it caused.

07.03 – 07.09

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

We started the content modelling for some of the Visual Story work. I think we’re now getting in reasonable shape with this stuff (feel like I’ve said that before). I wasn’t exactly motoring along on account of the house move, but it felt good to tie up some loose ends before clocking off for a holiday.

Life

Had Three broadband delivered to our old address like an idiot which meant I got to find out how hot my phone can get after a day of internet tethering (pf hot). Still, now it’s here, early indications are that it will deliver a decent level of service for £20 (and hopefully I won’t have to go grovelling back to Virgin Media).

We got the window fixed, locks changed, arranged for a mountain of the previous owner’s junk to be collected by the council, and tore up all the festering carpet (ranked among my more alpha-male accomplishments, and I had no idea carpet gripper was so lethal). Got a deep clean booked in, and we’re maybe starting to feel like we’re going to enjoy living in the flat at some point. Sending the invoice for the clean to the seller via our solicitors seems to have made her realise that we’re not taking the piss about how much of a state it was in and looks like she’s going to pay it.

Baby girl was awful almost every night. I don’t think we’ll have made a good impression with our new neighbours. Having been long-term victims of noise pollution I’m keen that we don’t become perpetrators, but we’re failing in that department so far.

I seem to spend the majority of the time telling the little man that he can’t do things. I can see it’s frustrating for him – as far as he’s concerned I’m just arbitrarily making up rules to stop him doing stuff he enjoys. But when I try to explain, for example, that he can’t jump indoors because our floor is the neighbours’ ceiling, he looks at me like I’m at best an alien, but more often than not, a total fucking idiot.

He’s had a bit of a regression at nursery drop-off (massive meltdowns on arrival every day), but on the whole I think he’s happy enough with his new home. He’s out of the cot and into his own little bed which he seems fairly chuffed about. And there’s plenty of space for his toys (downstairs neighbours presumably want to murder us even more when he tips all the Duplo out – sooner we get his room carpeted the better).

Bae went to see The Boss play a three hour set in Hyde Park on Thursday (a very long time to be listening to distinctly middle-of-the-Road tunes by my estimation). I’m very grateful Si came over to assist with the little man (a role that largely comprises rate-limiting pizza ingestion and watching endless Peppa Pig) while I desperately tried to get baby girl to take the bottle from me and go to sleep. We just about got away with it.

Sought refuge in Beverley at the end of the week. Got some rest, hung out with the in-laws, celebrated nephew’s 2nd birthday. Restorative.

Feeling a lot better health-wise. Still hocking up a fair amount of green, but think I’m mending. Primed and ready for the next nursery illness.

Reading

TIL

At 11:15 UTC each July 8, 99% of the world’s population is in daylight

Running

Tuesday hills. Thursday big loop of Ally Pally. Saturday Beverley Parkrun (missed the start, slightly destroyed myself at the end to come in 8th). Sunday struggled around Beverley’s fields (and nettles). Highest weekly mileage in a while. Hoping my foot has improved a little.

06.26 – 07.02

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

I felt the darkness creeping in when the designs shifted again and I was struggling to see a sane way through. But (as is invariably the case) just spending some time talking about it shone a light on the sensible path. I’m grateful to my colleagues who are better at initiating such conversations when my default setting is to put my headphones on and see if I can blindly hammer it to bits. I know I do this. I should get better at not doing this. This isn’t the first time I’ve had this thought. It won’t be the last.

Life

Mercifully got away with root canal pretty much pain free. Heard the dentist mention ‘Fuji nine’ which gave me some mid-tier lols.

Moved house. Fuuuuuuuuuuck me that was stressful. Still is. We’d been told we couldn’t move in till later in the day because the person selling it to us was getting it cleaned. It wasn’t cleaned. It was (and at time of writing still very much is) a manky tip. There’s a broken window. Toilet looks like something out of Trainspotting. Estate agent lies to house-buyer shocker — HOLD THE FRONT PAGE.

It’s overwhelming thinking about how much we need to get done and how on earth we’re going to be able to do it all. We’ve had a few wobbles over the last few days but just about managing to keep sight of the long game. It’s tempting to go down a we’ve-made-a-terrible-mistake spiral of despair, but hopefully we’ve given those waters a wide berth.

Thanks goodness for Bae’s sister – Aunty Kika – coming to help out with the kids. We would have been lost without her. She’d originally agreed to come and look after them so that we could go to see Pulp play Finsbury Park, but got more than she bargained for when the completion date was set for the same weekend.

Pulp was special. I got a bit emotional – it was quite moving in its own right, but I guess it was also a safety valve for the week’s (and the rest’s) burgeoning collection of life stressors.

I’m sure lots of other stuff happened this week but as a result I took my eye off the ball in terms of writing any of it down.

Sketching

Not a vintage week.

2023-06-thumb-sucker.jpeg

Thumb sucker

Listening

The Adam Buxton Podcast ep. 202 with Louis Theroux

Reading

TIL

The iOS photos app can decipher laundry symbols

Running

Tuesday Ally Pally (I think, might’ve been Swain’s though – feels like a lifetime ago). Wednesday trot around Regent’s. Thursday hills. Sunday hills. Felt pretty rubbish for all of it.

06.19 – 06.25

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

I never quite got going this week. Illness and mental state didn’t help. I think at least we’ve got a pragmatic way forward for how we’re going to handle Visual Stories.

Life

It never always gets worse

David “Horty” Horton

This quote from an ultra-runner has been rattling about in my head. I like it in its deceptive simplicity. I suppose it’s also a very back-handed way of tacitly admitting that things must occasionally get better, but the less upbeat framing appeals to the cynical pessimist in me (me). All of which is to say things have got on top of me a bit recently. And I’m trying to keep sight of the fact that it won’t be like this for ever.

Results from scan indicated that I’ve got scarring on my lung from chest infection, and I’ve previously fractured three ribs in that area which is probably why it hurts to cough. The good(?) news is (as I’ve long suspected) my poor posture is more than laziness alone – there is ‘evidence of Scheuermann’s in the mid to low thoracic spine’. Not sure what to do with any of this information. Not much I suspect.

Then I picked up another one of little man’s endless arsenal of manky bugs and it wiped me out midweek. I’m sure I used to have a more resilient immune system, but it’s currently threadbare. Baby girl got a horrible cough too. They said it couldn’t be done but she proved all the doubters wrong – turns out she could get even worse at sleeping.

Bae’s parents came to look after the kids on Friday while we started trying to pack boxes for next week’s house move. I wouldn’t say we’ve broken the back of it, but we put more than a dent in it at least. It’s definitely vindicated the decision we made to pay people to help us move. Really hoping we don’t have to move again for a while.

Discovered (after c. 2 years on a waiting list) I’ve got root canal scheduled for tomorrow morning. Glad it’s going to get done. Not overly excited at the prospect of it being done.

Sketching

I was broadly happy with both of these. One of them even made it into the sketchbook.

2023-06-meral.jpg

Meral K, off of the internet

2023-06-bryan.jpeg

Bryan McCormick (no relation), off of the internet

Reading

The New CSS – “CSS is now the most powerful design tool for the Web”
Apple Is Taking On Apples In A Truly Weird Trademark Battle – filed under ‘stupid shit that wound me up this week’
Fit-to-Width Text – nifty
Cascade Layers are useless^* – haven’t used them yet but this makes sense
sizes=auto is a great idea – testify!

Running

Monday 8 x Mayfield hill “sprints”. Reader, last week’s hope was misguided – my running form has not turned a corner. Friday went for a (probably ill-advised) set of hills mostly to clear my head. Got a niggle back in my right foot which at least draws some attention away from how much everything else hurts. Longish (by current standards) loop of Hackney’s greatest hits on Sunday morning. Hot af.

06.12 – 06.18

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

We came up with a straightforward direction for dealing with inter-component styles that feels like it might have legs.

We concluded that it doesn’t matter how well we think we’ve locked down what should be possible within a component for use in the CMS, the content team will find weird and wonderful ways to abuse it.

The site came down as a result of the NextJS app querying for CMS fields that had been removed in remodelling. This has happened before and the fact that it can happen certainly makes me hesitant when changing the content model. We had an incident retro, and I’m hoping this time I’ll finally remember where all the foot-guns are stashed. Hopefully we’ll figure out how to tighten the mesh on the various safety nets we have in place too.

Life

There’s a growing body evidence suggesting our children are solar-powered. Little man routinely demanding his first of three breakfasts at 04:30 and refusing to sleep until 23:00. Baby girl still robustly abhors sleep at night.

Little man got nits. We all got nits. Seems like that’s going to dominate the next several years of our lives. Quite an emotional evening spent trying/failing to comb them out of his preposterously tangled and matted hair.

Had a CT scan. If you have to go to hospital, going for a CT scan is among the more pleasant hospital experiences. I was in and out within half an hour and the sensation from the radioactive dye injection was faintly reminiscent of very weak poppers. Results in two weeks.

Niamh stayed in the week and Bae’s parents stayed at the weekend. Lots of help holding baby girl and chasing the little man round various playgrounds. I even got to sleep in the sun for a blissful hour.

Logistics meant baby girl had to be bottle fed (by me) on Saturday for the first time. She gave the bottle a very vocal one star review. I think we’ll both be dealing with the trauma for a while.

It is hot and I’m here for it, always-on solar-powered children notwithstanding. All the heat haters can step off (and better believe it’ll likely get another 10°C hotter before summer’s out).

Ten days cold turkey from caffeine and I feel ok. Not sleeping any better mind.

Sketching

I decided I have to commit to drawing in a sketchbook instead of loose printer paper. Haven’t quite managed to hold myself to it yet, but it’s a process.

2023-06-onions.jpg

Unionion the union onion, mascot for the Japanese Trade Union Confederation. Don’t have nightmares

Reading

How to password protect a static HTML file with no JS – clever/stupid – also alerted me to the existence of Bullshit Sans
Web Development, the back and front of it – “The appeal for companies was to have just one developer instead of two. This was justification enough to ignore Front-end Development altogether”
whocanuse.com – not ‘reading’ exactly, but a tool for colour contrast accessibility
The five types of people who produce inaccessible code – I’m 2, 4 and 5. And probably 1
Vibe shift – eerie
Cyclic Dependency Space Toggles – slightly makes my head hurt
Accessibility ‘Gaps’ in MVPs – “if your MVP does not have accessibility factored in, it is not viable. If you claim accessibility is a core principle but your version 0 does not include it, then it is not a core principle”

TIL

option-command-+ increases text size in desktop Safari (without changing layout)

Running

Tuesday to Ally Pally which was almost pleasant in the sun – very hard not to feel calmed by Highgate Wood. Hills on Thursday and still felt like there was negative progress on the fitness front, but there were the briefest glimpses of genuine enjoyment running 3 x Swain’s Lane in the Saturday evening sunshine. I’d love it if my form was turning a corner.

06.05 – 06.11

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

I boiled down the three main ways we achieve spacing into a Codepen and went through it with our UX designer. I think I did a relatively good job of explaining it and it reminded me that I think it’s quite a robust system. Hopefully we’re now singing from the same hymn sheet and the specific limitations should be more understandable.

Thinking about this also forced me to confront a sneaky bug that I’ve been avoiding for a while whereby slightly different amounts of space can occur between paragraphs in body text depending on whether they’ve been added in a single block in the CMS, or in multiple adjacent blocks – :has() selector to the rescue (and it even seems like Firefox is close to having support for :has()).

I made a bookmarklet for the editorial team that hopefully improves the UX of dealing with groups of things in the CMS.

Life

It continues to be a complete mystery as to what will prompt an ‘I DON’T WANNA GO TO NURSERY’ meltdown, when some days we get there and he seems almost annoyed that I’m hanging around and cramping his style (‘BYE BYE DADDY SEE YOU LATER’). Often both happen on the same day. I certainly wouldn’t object to either child working out how to have a modicum more chill.

We instigated a gold star system in an attempt to reduce the little man’s resistance to washing his face, brushing his teeth, putting on suncream, going to nursery. By day two the currency was devalued to the point of worthlessness. Now wishing I hadn’t bought so many gold stars.

My health anxiety has flared up a notch in response to the fact I don’t feel like I’m getting better. I’ve taken the fairly idiotic step of cutting out caffeine – my sole remaining vice – to see where that gets me. So far I’ve got a bit of a headache, I’m slightly irritable and I’m knackered all the time. Much the same as I was before. CT scan booked in for next week – not sure I’ll get any answers but it moves the plot forward at least.

Sketching

2023-06-sophie.jpeg

Sophie la Girafe

2023-06-hand.jpeg

Left hand

2023-06-ray-bans.jpeg

Ray-Bans

Listening

RHLSTP 293 – Sophie Duker – “I have reached the point where the world has become too confusing for me to operate in”. Same

Reading

Running

Hills on Monday – bad. Hills on Thursday – worse. Hills on Sunday – dead. This isn’t how fitness is supposed to work.

05.29 – 06.04

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

We started building Visual Story prototypes, initially knocking something together as quick as possible, then getting real with how it might all work hooked up to Prismic. Dave Rupert came up with a solid piece of design system thinking that I think we’d do well to abide by.

I had an excellent use-case for container queries. But Styled-components said no. It made me pine for the days of writing html, css, and js in… wait for it… .html, .css, and .js files.

Life

We just about survived the bank holiday. It’s a bit sad that that’s how I feel about spending four days straight with my children, but hard to deny that getting back to work felt like a bit of a relief.

Booked a holiday that’s going to involve 10 days straight with my children. I’m sure bits of it will be wonderful. I’m equally sure bits of it will be horrific. Going to try not to dwell on it too much.

I drew a picture in the almost imperceptible gaps between very-long-weekend-meltdowns and I don’t hate it.

2023-06-littleman-bic.jpg

Littleman. Bic on printer paper. 2023

Moved the little man on to reduced salt and sugar baked beans in an (admittedly very faint) attempt to do the right thing. But apparently they’re packed with stevia and it seems like that makes him go berserk. At least that’s my working theory – it’s entirely possible that he’s just entered a phase of going (more) berserk. Really hoping it’s the beans.

We exchanged contracts for the sale and purchase of a flat. Holy shit. I don’t think I ever really thought it was going to happen. I think I’m happy about it. I wonder what the new neighbours are going to be like. And just how much of a money pit it will turn out to be. Almost certainly a bottomless one.

Sleep is a distant memory.

This site

automatically add code styles when needed

Listening

Ronnie O’Sullivan on Desert Island Discs – fascinating man and life. Annoyingly good runner

Reading

Scroll-driven Animations – this week’s Chrome(-Canary)-only bit of css voodoo. I’d definitely like this one to get picked up by other browsers
Tomorrow & tomorrow & tomorrow – “I think about the vibrating foil blade every time anyone mentions engagement”

Running

My weekly trip to the GP indicated I’ve still got a chest infection and I’m now getting lined up for a CT scan. At this point I should probably swap out ‘Running’ for ‘Health woes’. Still, I managed a run around Finsbury Park on Saturday afternoon. Suffice to say I felt pretty rubbish. One run after four weeks off has given me a keen sense of why non-runners aren’t always massively keen to take it up as a hobby.

05.22 – 05.28

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

We started getting real with Visual Story designs. I’m excited to be coming into a phase of building new UI after a period of fixing/tidying/maintaining.

I installed the Styled-components syntax highlight and Stylelint plugins for VS Code. I feel fairly silly for not having done this a long time ago.

I came out in a cold sweat when our UX designer suggested we overhaul our spacing hierarchy. I need to get better at accommodating change.

JPB made a totally banging cake.

Life

I moved on to round three of antibiotics and finally feel like something might be shifting. Although still not at any great pace. Really hoping I’ll feel up to going for a run soon. I’ve actually been slightly surprised by how little I’ve missed it while I’ve been feeling like this – if it had been a musculoskeletal thing, I’d have been scaling the walls by now, but I’m currently spending most of the time worrying about how much it’s going to hurt when I cough next and the prospect of running seems weirdly alien.

I think I’ve got antibiotic-induced dysgeusia because everything tastes manky. I’ll have some industrial reconstruction work to do with my microbiome when I come out the other end.

Little man announced that his ‘tummy felt wobbly’ on arrival home from nursery on Tuesday. Bae said he looked a bit pale. I definitely thought he was just hamming it up in order to be allowed to watch telly but he rapidly disabused me of that opinion by painting me (and swathes of the living room) in vibrant shades of chunky puke. Thankfully he got over it after one night, but he does now seem worryingly addicted to sleeping on the sofa instead of in his cot as a result.

We had to forcibly evict him from his pal’s birthday party when he had a post-cake meltdown on Saturday – the same day he chose to start dropping the F-bomb with wild abandon. What a wee character^[1]. He had a wild time at a production of WOW! Said the Owl on Sunday though.

Baby girl’s on the brink of teething so she’s experimenting with a different quality of screaming. She’s spending considerably longer stretches being fairly content though. She continues to be completely shit at sleeping.

They have both made the end of the week exceptionally challenging. The good weather is working very hard to the edge off.

I made my VS Code look like Zed by adding the Custom VS Code UI CSS plugin and this line to my settings.json – the upshot is almost all the UI (as well as any code) has the same monospace font (current fave MonLisa).

"customvscodeuicss.css": ".mac { font-family: 'MonoLisa Variable'!important; }"

I can’t see Zed being a viable option yet given the total lack of extensibility. And since it was very much the way it looked rather than features such as ‘every buffer is a CRDT’ (don’t even know what that means) that was peaking my interest in Zed in the first place, I’m happy with this result.

I also sorted out my Alfred workflow that launches various URLs such that it can take multiple arguments, making it considerably more useful. For example, I can launch localhost on a port by typing lh {port}. Felt like some top-end nerdery.

Reading

The Yellow Fade Technique with Modern CSS using @starting-style – another Chrome Canary thing to keep an eye on
Markdown images are an anti-pattern
Boringness in design systems
My double standards about JS framework compilers – Dave Rupert on a blogging tear
A Web Component Intro – about time I wrote one of these. Trying to think of pointless/fun things to componentise
UK to crack down on plant-based food and drink labels – this wound me right up – “plant-based products should even be prohibited from saying they are ‘not milk’” and “misuse of protected dairy terms” are two of the stupidest things I’ve read recently

Pain in the arse ↩︎

05.15 – 05.21

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

I met the creator of the lobotomised owl css selector. I tried to remain cool.

Had a preliminary meeting about establishing what our design system is, who owns it, how to document it, how to ensure it reflects the truth, and where it lives. It feels like a Herculean task and thinking about it all at once makes me feel dizzy. Good meeting though.

I embedded some of our Storybook stories in our GitBook documentation, finally making use of the oEmbed functionality that initially prompted us to deploy our Storybook with Chromatic maybe a year ago. Must have been because I had design systems on the brain.

I got rid of some jank that has bothered me for the longest time. It’s entirely possible I may have introduced some different jank in the process.

Life

I started the week with another trip to the doc and an X-ray to confirm that I‘ve got a chest infection (thought so), although doc seemed to be slightly annoyed at me for taking the course of antibiotics he’d previously prescribed (when I told him I thought I had a chest infection and he disagreed) because it made it harder to interpret the X-ray (which he’d not ordered at the point I told him I thought I had a chest infection). Anyhow, got another course of antibiotics now and really hoping this will shift it for good.

Our house sale generally feels on the brink of falling apart – we eventually got the lease for the place we’re trying to buy from the Land Registry and it isn’t right. The estate agent is displeased that we’d want to get this corrected before completing. We’re so square to want to do it by the book and actually know that we’d legally own the place instead of just spunking all the cash we have in the world (and much more) and hoping for the best. The person buying our place is rumoured to be getting tired of waiting and in the meantime the person we’re buying from has put in more tenants so it’s increasingly hard to see it ending well.

Bae took the little man swimming on Friday while me and baby girl watched from the viewing gallery. He loved it so much (“I’M IN THE SEA!”) – it fills my heart to see something generate that much unbridled glee in him. Almost makes up for how mad he makes me ~~most~~ a lot of the time.

Saturday we spent the day in Cambridge with my cousins. All of their kids are unfeasibly kind, generous, and good at playing with the little man. I hope some of it rubs off. It was a lovely day. And my first encounter with a delivery robot.

2023-05-robot.jpg

I for one welcome our new non-alcoholic-beer-delivering Baby-Shark-singing overlords

I opened a sketchbook and drew some stuff. It was almost entirely rubbish, but I’m glad I’ve done it. Going to try to continue doing it and continue to not care too much about it being rubbish.

Finished the week with a trip to the newly re-opened splash pad in Clissold Park and a frankly excellent sodo bake.

2023-05-sodo.jpg

Yes!

This site

I added text-wrap: balance to headings. In the highly unlikely event you’re looking at the site in Chrome Canary with a narrow viewport, you’ll notice how multi-line headings are now nicely balanced. I hope other browsers pick this up.

Listening

Syntax.fm – Where Should You Host Your App? – reminded me that I should try to move my recipes app to fly.io in order to stop paying $12 a month for a toy in cozzy livvy times

Reading

Building a Frontend Framework; Reactivity and Composability With Zero Dependencies – I want to spend more time playing with Proxy objects
The problem with disabled buttons and what to do instead
See your identity pieced together from stolen data – a personalised visualisation of data breaches that have exposed your internet identity. Yikes!

Running

:sad-trombone:

Hats off to all the the Hackney Half runners. And the Cape Wrath Ultra runners.

05.08 – 05.14

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

Wrote a Playwright test for expected behaviour with a page’s JavaScript turned off to prevent a regression that was only previously being caught (by chance) with pa11y. This was the first of its (no JS) kind and good to know it’s possible. There’s plenty of scope for adding more to check we’re doing a good job of progressive enhancement.

We found lazy-loaded images don’t print (unless they’ve been scrolled into the viewport). People do still love to print the internet, and to be fair some have legitimate grounds — Visual Stories are definitely a candidate for print, and without doubt the most important thing that should print in a Visual Story is the visual bit. I had what may turn out to be a rubbish idea of including them as background-images for print media.

Life

We departed Coniston for Beverley Monday morning. Both offspring had puked within five minutes. Ultimately this worked in our favour because they passed out shortly after and the majority of the journey passed without incident. I’ve made my peace with a final-hour-screamathon being the theme for car journeys nowadays.

I felt considerably more alive arriving in Beverley this time than just a few weeks ago. Baby girl is spending much longer stretches without screaming her lungs out which lets a little bit of air blow through our thoughts. Not to say she can’t still give it absolute laldy when the mood takes her. A screaming baby does somewhat mask the sound of a melting down toddler though.

My cough isn’t improving. Or if it is, it’s doing so at a glacial pace. It’s not so much the cough as the associated rib pain that’s getting me down – paracetamol and ibuprofen not touching the sides. The out of hours GP prescribed something that makes my ears ring so I now have sore ribs and ringing ears.

A little sad I missed seeing little man on his big day out to York Railway Museum. By all accounts he flipping loved it – even went back for a second go around after lunch. I’m mildly concerned the steam engine gene (that mercifully remained recessive for me) has made its way through to him. We can but hope he grows out of it.

Last day of the holiday trip to East Riding Community Hospital to get little man’s foot X-rayed. Just a sprain thankfully.

Re-routed via my bro’s house on the way Back to London to avoid a hold up on the motorway. Worked out nice for all involved – everyone happy to see each other and a short enough stay that nobody had a chance (ok I didn’t have a chance) to get to get wound up. Went to Dad’s grave for a bit – still doesn’t make any sense that he’s not here. Baby girl had a good scream at him – he’d have liked that.

In lockdown #2 I got (back) into sketching. My fortieth rolled around shortly after and I amassed a stack of exciting art kit from pals who’d been told that was now my jam. Ever since, it has all sat dormant under the bed, occasionally making me feel guilty – my (idiot) ego won’t let me put pen to paper in case it’s rubbish (which it definitely will be, but I shouldn’t care – my logical self certainly doesn’t). Anyhow, also in lockdown #2 I picked up the book SKETCH! by France Belleville-Van Stone and first learned of the iPad app Procreate. I finally had a play with it this week and I think it might be the key to getting over myself. Probably going to ‘have to’ buy an Apple Pencil to be sure (I can always add it to the guilt stack if it doesn’t work out).

This site

I played some more with twitter/opengraph images using a different plugin (previously discussed). It’s neat but ultimately it still felt like too much of a faff so I took it back out.

On Friday my timeline was suddenly awash with the View Transitions API so I had to have a little dabble. It’s some fresh voodoo. I foresee much shoehorning-it-in-ad-nauseam.

Download video

ooooOOOOOOoooooh

Reading

1-bit Hokusai’s “The Great Wave”
The problem with sticky menus and what to do instead
Andy P’s annual post – My name in lights
Ligatures in programming fonts: hell no – hard agree

Running

Tuesday round Beverley Swine Moor (navigating various bogs and barbed wire fences to avoid cows and horses). Set off for a trot on Saturday afternoon but almost immediately pulled the rip-cord because of sore ribs. Trying(/failing) not to feel too sorry for myself as a result.

05.01 – 05.07

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

I made some buttons less shameful.

I wasn’t aware of the museum definition of Visual Story until recently. We’re looking to improve how we create these and I spent some time thinking about requirements and looking at what other people do. A pleasant change to be reading and thinking instead of hammering away in a code editor.

I don’t feel like I got much else done, but it was a short week in my defence.

Life

As a life-long drummer, erstwhile dj and sometime over-indulgent clubber I didn’t have baby-screaming-at-me on my bingo card for how my left ear was finally going to pack in. But here we are. Maybe it was the straw that broke the camel’s back (it was a fairly hefty straw tbf).

The journey to The Lakes was unfeasibly good all things considered. Only stopped once at Rugby services albeit for an hour and a half (little man got maximum value from the playground). Baby girl screamed for the last hour or so, but we’ve put in the training and that was easily survivable. I’ve never known the little man to be so well behaved for such a long stretch. Least of all in a car. Worst part of the day was getting everyone in the car (little man relatively lucky not to have been murdered by at least one of us). Second worst part was getting little man to bed. A lot of unexpected entries on this bingo card.

So good to be in the company of old pals and seeing their kids another year older. Little man immediately announcing that he wanted to ‘go back to my London’ bringing a strong metropolitan elite vibe. Mostly hilarious, slightly embarrassing, slightly heartbreaking.

I wasn’t emotionally prepared for the amount of bunting and union jacks festooned on Coniston. Mad as all heck.

Baby girl did her most impressively catastrophic poo while I was looking after both kids and bae went for a swim in the lake. My dear friend Dave looked on, filled up his pint and versed me (unprompted) in the relative merits of a combi-storage boiler while I dealt with the fallout from the little lady’s bum. Fun times! Twenty-four hours have passed and I’m still not sure I’ll ever feel clean again. But I do have some invaluable boiler knowledge.

On a whim I had a crack at coding Conway’s Game of Life. I’m fairly happy with it. I’m aware it is a popular interview coding task. I am not looking for a new job.

See the Pen Game of Life by David McCormick (@davidpmccormick) on CodePen.

Listening

ShopTalk episode 563 – interesting thoughts about AI, and alerted me to perfect-freehand for quickly creating and copying svgs (then optimised with SVGOMG yeah?)

yeah?

Reading

Circles and Momentum – “I’m going to try and be more mindful of noticing the directional momentum of seemingly circular paths”. Same
Lego googol machine – in the ‘practical limits’ section the author notes that nobody would ever see the final gear turn because the earth would have fallen in to the sun by then
Blue skies over Mastodon – “I would love to see even half the kicked-anthill energy being spent hating a closed beta app directed toward making Mastodon better for more people”. Same

TIL

The M in ‘vim’ stands for iMproved

Running

Monday around the marshes. I spent an extra five minutes foraging for the smell and found this innocuous-looking tree/shrub when I was about to give up (again). Siri Knowledge has offered up Prunus Mahaleb as a possibility and I’m inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt.

2023-05-mahaleb.jpg

Prunus Mahaleb. Maybe.

Wednesday hills. Thursday hills. Saturday a loop up Coniston Old Man – confident it’s got higher and steeper since we were here two years ago. Couldn’t resist a last-minute little loop of Old Man’s lower slopes on Sunday afternoon too.

2023-05-ice-cream.jpg

Spirit of the hills

04.24 – 04.30

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

I think I’ve finally got the Google Analytics/Tag Manager monkey off my back. I wrote a hook to replicate GA4 enhanced measurement events in our custom <audio> and <video> components which tied up the loose ends.

I probably have to accept there are bits of React 'magic' that will never flow through me – why do changes to the cachedSteps only work if I run them through a useState hook? God knows. Half a day lost figuring that out.

I also hadn’t accounted for the fact that using gtag('event', 'blah') doesn’t send events direct to GA, but instead populates the dataLayer with a custom event which you then get to respond to from within GTM. That cost me another half a day.

We had a mini workshop about our design principles for accessibility and inclusion. It feels good to give some proper thought to this stuff – ‘accessibility’ is a term that gets bandied about as something that has to get done rather than something that is integral. And inclusion is often overlooked altogether. These kinds of meetings remind me how hard language is.

Ended the week using the Accessibility panel in Chrome Dev tools to solve a problem on our pa11y dashboard (ok only theoretically solved at time of going to press). Felt pretty good about it.

Life

I entered the ballot for the London Marathon 2024, joining 515,000 other hopefuls. Looking forward to the curious sensation of disappointment and relief when I once again don’t get a place.

I’m a sucker for a new shiny text editor and zed looks nice. There would have to be a far more parsimonious story for porting my VS Code settings and shortcuts over before I’d consider switching though.

Got moderate rib-ache from excessive coughing. GP reckons I’ve trapped something or pulled a muscle but gave me some antibiotics in case things get worse. Woke Sunday with diplacusis which is both a new word and a new sensation for me. Like I’m listening to the world relayed on a slight delay through a really poor quality headphone in one ear. Something particular about the timbre of the little man’s voice makes him sound like a Dalek, which is hugely disconcerting. This coupled with the fact I’ve never seen phlegm so green emitting from my face and am generally feeling quite beaten up is making me think the antibiotics might not be a bad idea.

Bluey the ageing Vauxhall Corsa passed his MOT (Go oan yersel Bluey!). Now we’ve got to drive the little blue bastard to the Lake District with two far-from-chill kids so I panic-bought an iPad in abject fear. Will spend the week downloading the CBeebies back catalogue in its entirety.

I used my last drop of resilience when baby girl hung off my armpit hair while screaming in my ear. I had a cry. Felt a bit daft. Then things seemed marginally better. An absolute rump of a haircut (NO SALAD BARRY) helped too.

Bae’s parents came to help out over the weekend for which I am immeasurably grateful. We all rounded out the week with an afternoon at the fresh hell that is Clissold Park fair. Remarkably we escaped without a major meltdown.

Reading

Load Balancing – some neat visualisations
CSS Blend Modes – nice interactive post. Nice blog
The URL is the ultimate global state management tool – preaching to the choir. Preach away
Scoped CSS is back – this melted my brain slightly. There’s some undeniably cool stuff here, but I worry that if I ever find myself relying on scoping strategies like the ones described, I would very quickly end up in a world of pain

TIL

You can hide text in CSS pseudo elements from screen readers
You can search open tabs in Chrome with @tabs – and how to set up custom search engines

Running

Monday hills. Wednesday Ally Pally (not to be confused with a11y or pa11y – must’ve been a subroutine in my brain that took me this way) out and back. Saturday hills.

04.17 – 04.23

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

I’d normally have felt more existential dread about a morning in departmental communication training but that was largely staved off by exhaustion (so it’s not all bad). I tried to keep an open mind, but I’m not sure what I got out of it. I’m guilty of thinking I need tangible outputs (and more than just having learned a new acronym) for something to have been worthwhile, when maybe living through the process is where the worth is. The cynic in me (i.e. me) struggles to see beyond the expense (but then it’s not my money and money’s made up anyhow). I did at least meet some colleagues I hadn’t encountered before and had some interesting conversations.

2023-04-no-margin.jpg

Commit of the week

Life

Baby girl will be 12 weeks tomorrow – the literature suggests this is the time by which colic will have abated. Baby girl is all set to be sticking two fingers to the literature.

Little man went down to three days at nursery. I’m now under strict instruction never to be late home on Wednesdays.

We all got a manky cough. Or perhaps we all finally got the manky cough the little man has had for the past year. I hope we’ve all stopped having it by April 2024.

Everything’s taking its toll. We’re through the Blitz Spirit phase and firmly into the will-this-ever-fucking-end phase.

On the plus side the weather feels like it might be trying to turn and the smell of freshly cut grass in Highgate Cemetery and Clissold Park gave me a glimmer of hope.

Family Big Day Out to Tate Modern for the Yayoi Kusama exhibition on Friday. Baby girl loved it. Little man was (understandably) a bit overwhelmed.

2023-04-tate.jpg

Infinity Mirrored Room – Filled with the Brilliance of Life – Yayoi Kusama, 2011. “Fit. Would go well with some pounding techno.” – DMC

And we went to see our pals Niamh and Donald both go very fast at the London Marathon on Sunday. Only felt slightly jealous that I wasn’t running it and won’t be running anything close to it for some time.

This site

I added the highlight (<mark>) style to post dates (the only colour option within the almost laughably stringent design system I’ve appropriated).

I also wrote a post about an idea I had in CSS. Temani Afif pointed me to a Stack Overflow post with various other (~~probably~~ better) ways to get the the same end, but as far as I can tell I might have had an original idea, which could well be a first.

I’ll be happier when text-wrap: balance has better browser support and post titles look a bit more typographically considered.

Listening

RHLSTP 437 with Kiell Smith-Bynoe – nearly lolled off my bike
DJ BobaFatt – 25 years of Massive Attack’s Mezzanine
Everything But The Girl – Fuse – worth a 24 year wait

Reading

Transitioning to height auto (two ways) – it’s silly that this hasn’t been possible without JS till now, but I’m happy there’s a viable hack

TIL

There’s a thin-space ( ‌) and a hair-space ( ) in html (for when a regular space is too spacey). From Mike Mai’s Typography Manual
Ugly people receive longer jail sentences (or maybe attractive people commit nicer crimes?)

Running

Tuesday marshes (the elusive smell is strong around here). Thursday 2.5 times up Swain’s Lane. Saturday hills.

Preventing item separator display on new lines

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

If you’ve got a list of things separated by vertical lines, it tends to look wonky if that list breaks onto a new line and there’s a vertical line either at the end of first or start of the second line.

something | a | bit |
like | this

or (worse still)

something | a | bit
| like | this

Using mix-blend-mode: difference we can make them display only when absolutely-positioned :before and :after pseudo-elements are stacked on top of each other (i.e. when they’re on the same line).

See the Pen No pipes on new lines with mix-blend-mode: difference by David McCormick (@davidpmccormick) on CodePen.

I’ve since learned from Temani Afif that there are several more idiomatic ways to get the same result.

04.10 – 04.16

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

I didn’t really reap the productivity rewards I’d hoped for from a week sponging off bae’s parents. And some possibly yarn.lock-related shenanigans pissed all over any hopes I had of getting much done towards the end of the week (hopefully someone else will have figured it out by the time I’m back). At least I wasn’t responsible for bringing the homepage down (this time). Probably just about par for the week all told.

Life

I basically blacked out with tiredness last Sunday night and started this week feeling more alive than I have in months. Overall we didn’t do as well recovery-wise as we might have, but can’t deny it’s been a big help. Even just not having to cook and do the dishes has been huge.

Consumed too much mediocre chocolate and felt predictably rubbish about it. I’m in my forties and it seems reasonable to conclude that I will never learn how to change this pattern of behaviour.

Baby girl’s capacity for screaming prompted bae’s parents to (somewhat unhelpfully) question if there’s something we (and all the doctors) are missing. Fairly sure there’s not.

The kids got showered in love and gifts. It’s so lovely to see the effect they (mostly) have on the mood of everyone in the tribe – especially the elders. Kids understandably not that impressed to be back in the sole care of mum and dad now (actually I don’t think baby girl gives a shit – she was bound to scream her face off regardless). In spite of this, we had another unimaginably good train journey on the way home – knackered old iPad mini working overtime stuffing CBeebies into the little man’s eyeballs.

Little man developed a bit of a ‘big bed’ addiction and is less than happy to be back in a cot at home. Don’t really want to have to buy him a bed if we’re actually going to move house imminently though.

Spent a hugely enjoyable Sunday afternoon in the company of the inimitable Andy P (‘ANDY P! ANDY P!’). Even if the rumours are he only visited to see his name in lights in his feed reader.

This site

In a moment of madness I added some JavaScript last week. I since regained a degree of sanity and accomplished what I was after with CSS alone. In fact, I was much happier with the overall effect. It had the added bonus of working with overscroll, and worked regardless of how quickly you flick the screen (something that was causing the IntersectionObserver to crap out on iOS). There’s a .shadow element that’s always in the same place, but if you’re not scrolled at all, it is masked by a .shadow-mask which is a taller element with a higher z-index and a linear-gradient background that fades to transparent. When the page is scrolled, it appears as though the ‘shadow’ fades in because it is covered by a decreasingly opaque mask. This is plainly not an original idea, but I was pleased it dawned on me nonetheless. Anyway, I then decided to get rid of the shadow altogether ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Cool story.

See the Pen CSS-only shadow on scroll by David McCormick (@davidpmccormick) on CodePen.

I’ve also started using CSS custom properties – something I’m slightly embarrassed to admit I’ve never worked with for real. Going to have a proper CSS tidy-up soon.

And I made the pointless pseudo-markdown/code toggle look more like the version in iA Writer for iOS.

Listening

Classic FM – a frankly objectionable amount. At high volume. But it’s hard to complain when you’re being given free bed, board, and childcare.

Reading

AI & the Science of Creativity
Using color-mix() to create opacity variants – in my (limited) experience, this approach maps closer to how UI designers think about creating colour variations than relative color syntax does
Native [css] nesting – looks like this is very nearly good to go
Don’t override screen reader pronunciation – we occasionally do this (e.g. to make an <audio> element with timecode 00:00 announce the time as ’zero seconds’ instead of ‘zero-hundred hours’). I think I’d defend our decisions, but something we might have to revisit. A blanket ban feels too strong without any clear grounding in research
The details element is amazing – thinking about a no-JS version of our image gallery

TIL

Running

Monday life-affirming windy/soggy af loop of Beverley fields and Hull River. Wednesday Beverley Hills (b’dum tsssssss). Friday and Sunday London hills where the universe continues to communicate with me, this time via the medium of a board game for ages 4+.

2023-04-gingerbread.jpg

I’m trying, yeah?

04.03 – 04.09

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

Work proper was business as usual. Mostly Google Tag Manager wrangling, although I did solve a problem with CSS — a bit of a rarity these days. It involved spoofing the intersection between two components (header and body) to make it seem like the header was completely responsible for the result. It got me wondering about how these kind of one-offs can fit into design systems, which also got me to thinking that I’m less confident about what a design system is than I once was. Something I’m hoping to rectify.

We went for some enforced bonhomie, axe throwing at Whistle Punks. I thought I might enjoy it a bit more than I did tbh (perhaps I didn’t expect to be quite so rubbish at it!). I’m grateful that I enjoy the company of my workies though – real nice just to hang out. Rumours are we might try a trip to a museum next time – fairly confident I’d enjoy that.

Life

Baby girl impressed the osteopath with how much she can scream, which was strangely comforting.

We busted out of the Old Smoke for a week with Gangan and Baba up in Beverley, looking to cash in on some long-overdue help with the kids. Little man was a total champ on the train, and baby girl slept the entire way. I don’t expect the stars will align so well for the return leg.

There’s a smell I smell this time every year – a plant or tree – and I wish I knew what it was. I occasionally stop mid run to sniff various bits of foliage like a nutter. The closest I can get is Sanex roll-on deodorant ‘for men’ (why?). Going to investigate whether smell libraries are a thing. Or maybe I need to hop on the perfume organ (TIL).

Sunday (Easter) was largely an exercise in rate-limiting little man’s chocolate intake. He and his little cousin pulled off a very cute egg hunt in the garden entirely devoid of tears.

This site

I added an IntersectionObserver to put a shadow under the nav when the page is scrolled instead of the solid line that was there before. This is the first bit of JS I’ve added and took the opportunity to use es6 modules which is definitely a hammer to a nut.

I’ve just noticed that the shadow applies to the top of the nav container when you’re over-scrolled (on iOS at least) and that’s already annoying me. ~~I’ll probably have to find a different way to add the shadow~~ I’ve updated this to add back the bottom border instead of a shadow, which I feel better about overall.

Also in iOS Safari, the IntersectionObserver doesn’t appear to register changes to isIntersecting until scrolling finishes (as if it’s debounced) if you flick to scroll instead of keeping your finger on the screen. Seems like a bug.

Listening

The F-word – a new (to me) frontend podcast. This episode mostly a chat about Safari
Tea & Trails with Damian Hall – talking about the Spine and the Berkeley Marathons

Reading

The revenge of the pop-up – ‘Holmeser’ won the comments with “There’s some real pot and kettle energy at play here”
The world’s most satisfying toggle
Chasing rainbows – I thought maybe the sliders were broken, but turns out I must have the same colour blindness as the author. Going to link people to this when they ask me ‘what do you see?’ in future

TIL

A perfume organ is a thing
The longest straight line in Britain without crossing a public road might be c. 47.2 miles (previously believed to be c. 44.4 miles)

Running

Monday hills. Thursday up the Husdson Way and Beverley’s environs. Saturday had a bit of a dig at Beverley Parkrun. I didn’t totally break myself and fared better than I thought I would off the back of two hours’ sleep (and the general baby-related circumstances) — p10, 20:17. And had a pleasant trot around Beverley Westwood in the sun afterwards.

03.27 – 04.02

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

All in all I felt more effective than I have recently.

I had more than one interesting and useful chat about how and when to A/B test (after establishing that there were still several reasons why our current implementation is flawed).

I also started using Tag Manager in anger and feel like I’ve mostly got as much of the hang of it as necessary. I can see the appeal for getting set up quickly with short-lived tests. But the code living outside source control means that anything reliant on specific markup is liable to become stale. I think it might be harder to keep track of what we’ve done before as well. But perhaps I’m being unduly negative – it’s almost certainly going to help with data collection and analysis overall.

Life

Very little movement on the screaming baby front.

Took the little man to a birthday party in Southwark. Two juice boxes and a giant slice of cake later he was basically drunk. It struck me that toddlers bear all the hallmarks of drunks – one second they’re the life and soul of a party and they’re making you laugh till you cry. The next, they’re eyes-glazed-over screaming incoherent bollocks on repeat. And occasionally shitting themselves.

Listening

Housetrap podcast 353 – found a whole bunch of flow with this

Reading

Last baseline alignment
Css shapes
Bicycle – I found this depressingly impressive – why don’t I understand basic physics? How would I begin to code any of that? Or illustrate/render it? Maximum imposter syndrome fuel
Apple Passwords Deserve An App

Watching

Introduction to Dev Tools – started this. Hoping I’ll get more comfortable with the scarier panels (maybe one day I’ll be able to understand a flame graph). Already learned a couple of things to make everyday dev easier

TIL

Running

Monday hills. Wednesday ~~swallowing tiny flies~~ round the marshes. Saturday hills.

I spotted this array of bins half way round a set of hills, shortly after I’d had an oxygen-deficit-induced what is it all about moment.

2023-04-bins_42.jpg

ok I get it!

I learned that the latest iteration of my preferred runner – the Saucony Kinvara – looks like a bit of a departure from previous editions and I don’t think I’ll like it (more cushion, less ground feel — the things that drew me to them in the first place). Thinking about stock-piling the old version. Or maybe it’s time for a change (although historically that has tended to result in injury).

03.20 – 03.26

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

I put together an A/B test for whether linking to a comic series or an individual comic resulted in more views of individual comics overall. We do these so infrequently that I have to relearn the process each time (i.e. actually update and deploy the lambda) and it always feels clunky. I’m determined to try and do it more often so that 1. we’re testing more things and 2. so that it doesn’t take me two days to figure it out(/burden my colleagues) every time.

Next JS 13’s layouts and nested routes seemed like a good fit for the work we have planned for our catalogue details and digitised item viewer pages. I had early success with some prototype code, but the wheels fell off as soon as I tried to get real with various aspects of our current setup.

Reading the :focus-visible article mentioned below prompted me to get rid of our JS that determines whether to show focus styles (PR). Always feels good to delete JS in favour of platform CSS. Especially when I wrote the JS.

Life

Not much to report. No real change with baby girl – she continues to scream a lot and refuses to sleep unless held.

Little man had a series of increasingly wearing meltdowns, but I could barely contain my pride when we had this exchange:

Me: Would you like a biscuit?
Him: Yeah
Me: Yeah what?
Him: YEAH BOOOIIIIIIII!

We all got sick again. I feel heavy, slovenly, and exhausted. Trying to accept the fact that that’s all entirely understandable in the circumstances, but struggling not to feel a bit blue.

This site

I changed the header styles to have a less stark border and a very-slightly transparent background. I’m a bit happier with it for now. Will see if that lasts.

I dabbled with the 11ty screenshot API to make more dynamic OpenGraph social cards, but ultimately was unsatisfied with what I achieved so threw it in the bin. This OG image plugin looks promising though so might give it a go next.

Masto

The week’s regex: [\W| ][B|b]ard[\W| ]|[\W| ]AI[\W| ]|LLM|GTP‌|GPT

Listening

Freerange Records podcast No. 257 – absolute banger

Watching

The Outlaws – kept me awake, but I found the balance of comedy and drama quite awkward
TypeScript and Vue 3 – I’ve been enjoying playing with Vue recently and feel like TS has largely been a help more than a hindrance (not something I can always say about my day gig)
Line of Duty – never watched any of it before. So far it’s methadone to the Happy Valley smack. And there’s plenty of it

Reading

When is :focus-visible visible?
Better JavaScript currying examples – more of a plea to people writing about JS than a bunch of useful currying examples (which is what I was hoping for from the title)

Running

Hills on Monday. Something like 14 miles on Wednesday before work, which was frankly far too much and reminded me that my feet have not recovered. More hills on Friday. All of this is definitely doing more harm than good.

03.13 – 03.19

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

I made it in to the office for the first time in a while. It was good to see some other adult humans in 3D.

We’ve updated our apps to run on Next JS 13 and I’ve been trying to learn what that means. React Server Components seem like a good idea, but I find the breathless rhetoric surrounding them a little emperor’s new clothes-y – perhaps that’s unkind (or I’m missing something fundamental), but as I understand it, at base they facilitate a return to how everyone was making websites before React existed c. 10 years ago.

I found out I could hack the playback speed on the mandatory e-Learning up to 16x in devtools. Is there a market for internal e-Learning speedrun YouTubes?

And I achieved some inner peace by hiding the infantilising emoji that precede list items in Notion.

.notion-selectable > a > div > div > div:nth-child(2) {
  display: none!important;
}

I would pay good money for an OS-wide hide-all-emoji setting.

Life

We got into a sleep routine of sorts whereby I drink a bunch of coffee at what would ordinarily be my bedtime then attempt to stay awake for as long as possible while holding the baby. Then hand her over to bae when I’m about to pass out, and hope the little man lets me get a few hours before demanding to be taken out of his cot. It’s certainly not a lot of sleep but by the time it comes around it’s weapons-grade stuff.

For her part, baby girl was possibly a bit less shouty this week. Not much in it though.

The little man pushed our patience to the limit on several occasions. Whoever called it ‘terrible twos’ neglected to mention ‘total arsehole threes’.

I updated my weather app to Vue 3 and converted it to the composition API with TypeScript. Then I swapped out Vuex for Pinia. I hadn’t really planned on doing any of it, but I started pulling at the thread one night and got a bit carried away.

Watching

Happy Valley – flippin’ heck it’s good. And a powerful stimulant (side effect: nightmare fuel) for sitting up with a baby that refuses to sleep without being held

TIL

V is the only letter in English that is never silent

Running

Monday hills. Wednesday marshes. Friday hills.

03.06 – 03.12

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

Not convinced I achieved anything. Barely kept my head above water.

Life

I can’t believe our baby boy turned three. Also can’t believe my bae single-handedly got him and his baby sister out to the transport museum with almost zero drama. The joint party for him and two of his pals at the weekend was an absolute smash.

Baby girl’s colic continues to deteriorate. I apparently told her to “shut the fuck up” during one of her seemingly infinite bouts of industrial band-saw screaming which resulted in the little man immediately parroting it back at me. Strangely it had no impact on her screaming. I’m a great dad.

The good news is the ‘heart murmur’ the doctor heard the day she was born turned out to be nothing. Having now (obviously) spent several hours scouring the internet for information about newborn heart murmurs, it turns out it’s remarkably common and very rarely a cause for concern. But if you don’t know that (we didn’t), the words ‘heart murmur’ will almost certainly elicit panic in situationally vulnerable new parents. I think the medical profession would do well to find a less terrifying term.

Updated my weather app to use the Pirate Weather API in advance of Dark Sky’s being shut down at the end of the month. It’s a straight rip of Hello Weather that I started tinkering with long ago to learn about scroll snapping. Nice to finally have it deployed somewhere. Probably need to stop hot-linking to Dark Sky’s icons.

Listening

Serial – the original one. I hadn’t even realised there were recent developments in the story. I feel like the format seemed really out there back in 2014. Now it’s the blueprint. It got its claws into me again this time around – maybe even more than before. I’m still itching for answers about lots of things

Watching

Unforgotten – passed the time (mostly 12am – 4am)
Vera – as above

TIL

Combat juggling is a thing
How to make the first word in a sentence sit on its own line using css
“Eleven and two” is an anagram of “twelve and one”

Running

Nope.

02.27 – 03.05

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

Did the first bit of half-decent sort-of new feature development work I’ve managed in a while. Got to use a Set in JavaScript which always makes me feel like a grown-up programmer.

Life

In spite of the shambolic absence of any kind of continuity of care from the GP(s) we’re hopefully marginally closer to improving the situation for baby girl. Bae went and stood her ground at A&E until she got a prescription for antacid. Of course we’re not sure it’ll make a difference and as a rule don’t hold with over medication, but it seems wild how unwilling anyone is to let you try to use something demonstrated to be effective for a condition that’s causing such unbridled agony when the possible negative side-effects are slim to non-existent. Saturday night was a new low though. Early indications are that if the drugs are effective, they’re certainly not fast acting.

Survived World Book Day by totally half-arsing it, sending the little man to nursery in his Snail and the Whale pyjamas.

Registered baby girl’s birth at Hackney Town Hall.

Got a cold.

Masto

I’ve been trying out following a variety of hashtags on Mastodon but limiting the amount of posts in my timeline by total number of back-to-back hashtags using a regex in Ivory – (#.*(\r\n|\r|\n| )){8}‌. More hashtags ≈ more spammy posts so this is working out quite well, and I can alter the number at the end of the regex to regulate the flow of posts when I want to add/remove tags. It’s a bit of a blunt instrument and I reckon I won’t be able to resist coming up with a variety of ever more convoluted regex before too long.

This site

add dark mode figure out why Google can’t find my sitemap

I didn’t add a dedicated toggle button for dark mode (it relies on the OS prefers-color-scheme preference) – I tend to think the whole thing is a waste of time and energy (not much solid evidence for any of the purported benefits) but given that at the very least people do seem to perceive a benefit, the relatively low effort required to put it together (put iA Writer in dark mode and pick the colours) in this instance wasn’t much of a barrier.

Listening

RHLSTP with Tim Key – I did that thing where I look totally insane because I couldn’t contain my ugly-cry-laughter walking through the park on my own

Watching

The Gold – so far up my street it was parked in my driveway and ringing my doorbell

Reading

The Great Gaslighting of the JavaScript Era – keeping the embers of the ol’ React debate smouldering
The Price Developers Pay for Loving Their Tools Too Much – less spicy, but more of the same

TIL

How to remember the difference between for...in and for...of in JavaScript. The former operates on objects and sounds a bit like ‘foreign object’. Stupid enough to work for me

Running

Hills on Tuesday. Highgate Wood on Thursday.

02.20 – 02.26

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

I picked off some ‘quick win’ tasks from the backlog in order to feel like I was getting somewhere without putting my severely limited mental resources under undue stress. Of course they didn’t turn out to be that quick – when I’m king referring to any task as a ‘quick win’ before it has been shown to be one will at a minimum be punishable by a significant on-the-spot fine. Still, I ended the week having gone marginally forwards (never a given) and didn’t bring the site down once (also never a given).

Turns out if you lazyload YouTube embeds you lose some GA4 auto tracking for video metrics because it only works if the YouTube iframe api is on the page (at exactly what point, I’m not sure). I’m not particularly proud of my solution but it seems to work.

Life

I didn’t think baby girl had left herself anywhere to go on the screaming front, but as if to shine a light on my underestimation she proceeded to deteriorate through the week.

We’ve concluded she has acid reflux and hopefully we’re now on a path to stopping her being in such heart-breaking pain, but the directions for administering infant Gaviscon to breastfed babies are absolute dog-shit and you can’t get your hands on the drugs that might actually work until they’re a month old so the path isn’t exactly the happy one. Lack of sleep is well into the ‘unsustainable’ category at this point.

Took the little man to get stuck in the arm for his second chickenpox vaccination on Friday. The net total anguish caused makes me wonder if he wouldn’t have been better off just getting chickenpox. We discovered the play area and model trains in Kings Cross afterwards though which improved his mood immensely.

Started watching Dave Rupert’s course on web components in the baby-won’t-f*@king-sleep hours but unconvinced much of it will stick given the suboptimal learning environment.

The blossom is coming out all over north London and I’m here for it.

This site

convert the font to woff2 (less than half the size) fix iOS checkmark positioning

Listening

The Coming Storm interview with Louis Theroux
RHLSTP with Josh Widdecombe
ShopTalk with Fred Schott of Astro – increased my desire to build something in Astro (not sure how/when)
SyntaxFM also with Fred Schott of Astro – recently I’ve not had the energy for syntax (a little too caffeinated for my taste), but this was good

Reading

Started <Type>Level TypeScript – I like the format, and didn’t fall at the first hurdle as I did when I tried type-challenges
What to expect from your framework – I did a lot of nodding along

TIL

Navigator.wakeLock is coming to Safari (currently in technical preview) meaning I can ditch the hacky implementation I rely on that loops a silent video
You can style alt text
If you drag an emoji family with a string size of 11 into an input with maxlength=10, one of the children will disappear

Running

I think I did some hills on Tuesday and Thursday but it’s entirely possible I hallucinated both. I almost certainly did on Sunday because I’m still in my kit at the time of writing. My running is embarrassingly monotonous at present but hills are solid bang for buck when time and mental energy are at a premium. Not wearing my watch for any of it and it’s liberating.

02.13 – 02.19

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

I got a blisteringly fast new machine at work and I'm wondering how I lasted so long without it, not least because it doesn’t make my legs alarmingly hot when I have more than two tabs open in Chrome. I got my dotfiles, fonts, keyboard shortcuts, and Alfred preferences copied across and now I'm sucking diesel. It's great, but it's robbed me of a good excuse for why I'm not being more productive.

I started to learn about GA4 and Tag manager after several years of passive resistance. Seems like it’s probably going to be fine.

Life

We’ve had an offer accepted on a flat. It’s a lot more than we initially offered or can really afford, but I’m taking as much comfort as I can from the fact that apparently it wasn’t the highest offer and the seller liked the idea of selling to us. Of course, that’s according to the estate agent, so there’s the distinct possibility it’s not even remotely true. More likely is that we’ve been played for total mugs. The flat needs a lot of work, but it has enough space to harbour the four of us for a long time, so hopefully we’ll be able to make it our own. This is of course contingent on us ever having any money again – not currently a given.

Wednesday night was the worst in recent memory for lack of sleep (although my memory is quite bad owing to cumulative sleep-deprivation, so perhaps it’s a meaningless statistic). I don't think there was more than 15 minutes when one of the weans wasn't awake. And when they were awake, they mostly wanted us to know about it through the medium of screaming and shitting themselves. Baby girl has a cold, a manky eye, and is less than three weeks old so gets a pass. I guess the little man is a bit jealous and doesn’t want to be missing out. It would be nice if he could find a way to cut us a little bit of slack though.

I made an app.

2023-02-boob.jpg

Genuinely might be the most useful output from my 10+ years in web development.

Reading

Native CSS masonry layout – more exciting things just around the corner for CSS
The anatomy of visually hidden

Running

A very lacklustre off-watch set of hills on Thursday. Didn’t think I’d manage but I got tangentially involved in a mugging quite early on which gave me a bit of adrenaline. Come to think of it, the mugging happened at the end of the street on which we’re going to be moving – good omen? Also had very leisurely and enjoyable trot around the marshes in the sun on Sunday.

02.06 – 02.12

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Life

Seems like colic is going to be a thing again. I’m hoping we’ll be better equipped to deal with it this time. Not really sure we will since there doesn’t really appear to be anything you can do (although I’ll definitely be more willing to throw money at any old bollocks that claims to help based on zero evidence). I suppose I have developed a higher tolerance for non-stop screaming over the last three years so hopefully that will come in handy. But the non-stop screaming definitely takes on a more visceral edge when it’s emanating from a newborn. Noise-cancelling headphones perhaps.

The boy is clearly in some emotional turmoil. It’s a lot for him to take in and it’s breaking my heart a little to see him wrestling with it all. He’s mostly being very sweet with the baby though. In any event, he’s getting a lot more telly and assorted treats than average. It’s entirely possible he’s gaming us for the mugs we are.

I can’t believe how big he seems all of a sudden. It’s like he’s a giant. Until he gets to nursery when he seems small again. Everything is relative.

Looking back, I hadn’t realised just how anxious, stressed, and borderline unstable I was when he was born as the world went into lockdown three years ago. It certainly wouldn’t have helped that he was our first. The time we’re having with baby girl feels like some atonement for all of that. That it’s not illegal to go for a walk, and that we can go to a coffee shop/pub definitely helps. And at the very least I’m spending the hours and hours we’re awake at night watching box-sets and reading for entertainment rather than doomscrolling through the latest Covid infection rates.

I didn’t drink while bae was preggo. I haven’t had a drink now she’s not. Now that it’s no longer something I’m doing ostensibly out of solidarity, I’m going to have to think about what I want to do long-term. I’m definitely not interested in being even the remotest bit hung over with a newborn/toddler combo (toddler alone was more than bad enough). I haven’t really felt like I’m missing anything and the thing I really don’t miss is wondering whether I’ve been drinking too much. I think I’ll see how I feel for a bit before making any rash decisions. Or maybe I don’t have to make any decisions. Anyhow, I’ve started eyeing up monthly kombucha subscriptions.

Listening

The Trojan Horse Affair

Reading

React Pays the Bills – a level-headed counterpoint to some recent trash-talk
The case for frameworks – a rebuttal of recent trash-talk.
ChatGPT is a blurry jpeg of the web

Running

I managed some hills Tuesday and Sunday (off watch), and a jaunt to Ally Pally on Friday. Physically I’m confident it went beyond ‘diminishing returns’ into ‘active harm’, but mentally it was a treat.

Tuesday: Hills – 7.63mi at 7:25/mi
Friday: Ally Pally – 8.93mi at 7:49/mi

01.30 – 05.02

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Life

have baby fix alignment of checkmark on iOS

We have a girl. 3.7kg. Bae and baby doing grand. I feel deeply content.

So much of what we’d obviously buried from first time around has come flooding back. The weird and wonderful noises. The undying hope that maybe this time she’ll sleep. What sleep-deprivation feels like (although I feel like we’ve got a lot further to go on that front).

Early indicators are that her big brother isn’t going to make it particularly easy for us, although he displayed remarkable tenderness when we arrived home.

Bae’s mum stayed for the week, made soup, held the baby, sent us for naps, looked after the boy. Not sure we’d have coped at all well without her. I guess we’ll see how we get on next week (I’m only mildly terrified about the prospect).

It’s hard to see how I’m ever going to have time to edit photos again, but I don’t want baby girl to grow up jealous of all the pics we have of the boy (although I now realise why I found infinitely more baby pics of my big bro than me when we cleared out Dad’s house). Going to try SOOC jpegs (the internet seems to think they’re good from Fujifilm, and when has the internet ever been wrong?).

Listening

Tea & Trails, Edwina Sutton Spine race – puts my exhaustion levels in perspective
A lot of white noise (straight out of iOS accessibility settings)

Reading

The Market for Lemons – doesn’t pull any punches

TIL

How to git rebase on main without switching branches

Running

Haha no.

01.23 – 01.29

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

I paired on some improvements to our frontend component library, Cardigan. It’s still not great, but it’s definitely better. Beyond that, I struggled to get into anything of substance. Mostly spent the time either putting out fires (that I probably started) or not really being able to concentrate. Possibly related, I’ll not be back at work until after paternity leave.

Life

Haaahaaa of course the person who’d accepted our offer on their flat decided to play us off against someone else and we got gazumped. I feel a mixture of disappointment and relief. Mostly relief. They really were exceptionally painful to deal with (bae bore the brunt of said dealings). At best hugely time wasting, but more often than not exhibiting the textbook hallmarks of a scammer. They had the audacity to ask us to let them know when we’d had our baby. Err no you can fuck right off mate. And don’t call us when it all falls through you unconscionable chump (at least bae got to write a couple of cathartic and exquisitely cutting messages making that point). On the plus side, it’s not every day that you get to use the word, ‘gazumped’. Silver linings.

Ate this and reckon we’ll be eating it a lot more. Hard recommend.

The boy has a horrific cough. We all got very little sleep.

TODO:

sell flat buy flat potty-train toddler have baby

This site

I sorted grouping posts by year (I started with a collection, but found a filter was more flexible when I wanted the same logic for tagged posts). Not sure what the benefit of having a collection would be. Perhaps it is purely a convenience? I’ve still got a lot to learn about Eleventy.

I though the site was starting to feel a bit horizontal line heavy as well, so I’ve got rid of most of them and tightened up the spacing on the post-list items. I’m still not sure about the one under the main nav – it feels a bit punchy. Getting rid of it felt a bit too stark (especially when content scrolls underneath it) and removing the white background from the nav feels a bit too brutalist (although I’ve not ruled that out altogether). And a lighter grey line feels line a bit of a cop out. Design is hard.

I was proud as punch when someone noticed the entirely pointless behind-the-scenes toggle and went on to write a kind post about it on Mastodon. Finally, the recognition I so richly deserve!

add checklist styles

And I added a colophon.

Listening

ShopTalk Show with Ben Ubois of Feedbin – prompted me to prune and tag my feeds, as well as set up some judicious filters to ward off the temptation to read news about billionaire bellends destroying everything in their paths (something I’ve set up to relatively good effect on Mastodon as well)

Reading

A Short, Totally Unofficial, History of Port Numbers – I’ve long been curious about this, but never quite curious enough to do anything about it
Changing the bulb in a Meridian Lighting CIR100B ceiling light – gripping stuff
Using AI to appease Jest – “If you’re on the fence about Copilot, I’d recommend it for the sole purpose of having someone else around who will throw spaghetti when you’re tired of throwing spaghetti at the wall”. I do a lot of spaghetti-throwing, so might reconsider paying up (or asking my employer to)

TIL

Tap and hold the 123 key on the iOS keyboard, move to the character you want, then release — types the character and auto returns you to ABC
There’s a new scrollend event in (Chrome and Firefox) town
Outlines of people’s bodies can be read by wifi signals – a new way to be surveilled
Farpotshket: a Yiddish word for ‘broken because someone tried to fix it’ – it me

Running

Hills on Tuesday felt ok-ish for the foot (as well as legs and lungs) at the time. And a truncated hill session on Thursday felt similar. Longest I’ve been for over a month today (Sunday) was mainly enjoyable. I think it will have been the last hurrah for a while. Hard to say if the foot has really improved any, but I’m boring myself dwelling on it at this point so I’ll try not to bother mentioning it in future.

Tuesday: Hills – 6.42mi at 7:35/mi
Thursday: Hills – 4.75mi at 7:34/mi
Sunday: LSR – 12.79mi at 7:55/mi

01.16 – 01.22

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

Had another skirmish with iOS Safari trying/failing to figure out why html audio elements intermittently stop playing. That makes three weeks of mobile Safari (why not iBrowse) fun on the trot. Going to try and avoid it next week.

It felt good to sort some invalid html we had lurking dormant in the codebase though and I learned a thing or two along the way.

Life

We got an offer on the flat and it feels like there’s an outside chance we might sell and move. I’m not at all sure how I feel about it. I think it’s probably positive. Buying/selling property is one of my least favourite things for sure. Spoken like a truly entitled prick.

Saw the hygienist on Tuesday for a mild telling-off. My teeth have been sore ever since (although foot not so much – whack-a-mole).

I’ve upgraded this site to 11ty 2.0. Don’t think I can say I’m reaping the benefits (I shaved a whopping 0.12 seconds off the 12-page build time) but feels good to be at the bleeding edge. It prompted me to investigate templating language compile speeds. And then I obviously had to swap out handlebars for liquid (and update the pointless toggle syntax where necessary). Everything went remarkably smoothly.

I wrote some fairly horrific CSS to give the impression of full-bleed code blocks (see previous post for illustration).

Spent a solid 1.5 hours chasing the boy around the transport museum on Friday morning. He didn’t know what to do with his excitement. We paid for it at nap-time, but it was totally worth it.

Thanks bae

My boy (playing with blocks): “I tried to fix it but I brokened it.”

My bae: “That’s what Daddy does at work.”

Looking forward to this

2023-01-potty.jpeg

Shit’s about to get real

Reading

Intuitive List Item Transitions with the View Transitions API
One line CSS solution to prevent anchor links from scrolling behind a sticky or fixed header – I think I knew this existed, but forgot how nice and easy it is (see also, this site now has a fixed header)
Line-height ratios and ex plus an addendum to explain why 1.25 is different from 1.25em from HTeuMeuLeu which I’d never bothered to take the time to figure out even though I’d often wondered about it
Coding Fonts I’d Actually Use — looks like I’m going to have to shell out for a new font innit
Per-file commit logs with Eleventy – I’m now rocking an ‘Updates’ section at the end of posts
So you want to make a new JS framework – enjoyably mild spice

Listening

I tried Darknet Diaries (again, maybe) and Cyber but couldn’t get on with either.

TIL

figcaption (if there is one) has to be first or last child of figure (making life hard when you want a caption to be as wide as an image with width: auto)
role="navigation" isn't valid on a ul

Running

I was once again less than optimistic about how things were going with my foot after some hills on Tuesday. And I set out for a trot around the marshes on Thursday half expecting to run myself into the ground. But things certainly weren’t as bad as I’d feared.

I suppose I was overly optimistic about the improvement though, and Sunday’s brain-freezer reminded me that it’s definitely still not great. But it’s not terrible either and just possibly improving a bit (still a rollercoaster of emotion every day).

Thought I needed some more gloves, but I’ll be hard pushed to find anything more effective than my Christmas socks tbh.

Tuesday: Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr – 6.38mi at 8:08/mi
Thursday: Marshes – 8.14mi at 7:19/mi
Sunday: LSR – 10.78mi at 7:42/mi

01.09 – 01.15

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

I spent most of the working week misunderstanding what min-aspect-ratio was doing in a sizes attribute on an img tag. I don’t touch images very often, and every time I do, I have to remind myself of how srcset and sizes work together. With container-queries landed or about to land in all major browsers, it made me hopeful the problem that srcset and sizes solve might go away for the most part. And it looks like there is at least some discussion to that end.

Life

I converted the website for btmat.org over to Eleventy (with the aid of my old friend SiteSucker) since I was paying for a server to run WordPress as an API for a blog that hasn’t received any updates for three years (and isn’t likely to receive any more ever really).

Had our final scan before d-day. Still burying my head in the sand about it. Don’t think I’m trying to – like I don’t think I tried to first time around — but like before I guess we’re not really going to know what it’s like until we’re living it (soon!).

I’m going all in on iA Writer for general note-taking as well as any other writing. I try a new note-taking system about once a year and historically have always ended up back with Apple Notes. I want to do all of my writing/thinking in one place though, so maybe it’ll be different this time. I hear the cool kids are using Obsidian. Maybe that can be next year’s doomed-to-fail notes experiment.

Spent much longer than I’d have liked waiting for cancelled trains at King’s Cross.

Big news

- // this is a blog without code syntax highlights
+ // this is now a blog with syntax highlighting and diffs

Only gone and added syntax highlighting innit? Conditionally load in the styles (which maybe need some work) only if there's a code block in the post an' all. Related: I definitely felt seen here.

Listening

Reading

Sibling scopes in CSS with :has() 🤯
Javascript, community – resonated hard
Text Replace Transitions
I miss Twitter — I’ve stopped missing it, but I feel the sentiments

TIL

The German equivalent of ‘and they all lived happily ever after’ translates as ‘and if they haven’t died, they are still alive today’
Brandolini’s law – the 'bullshit asymmetry principle'

Running

I had another go at some hills on Thursday and 5 x Swain’s Lane on Sunday. At least one of my feet hurts a bit and, as ever, I’m finding it hard to figure out whether I should be running on it. I tend to think that I probably shouldn’t be, but a cost-benefit analysis of where that would leave my mental health means I go out all the same (a short-sighted strategy, for sure). Unlikely to be a factor once new-baby-induced-exhaustion sets in anyhow.

Thursday: Hills – 7.16mi at 7:58/mi
Sunday: 5 x Swain’s – 10.24mi at 7:56/mi

01.02 – 01.08

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Work

It’s impressive how quickly I can get used to doing very little and my mind and body forcefully rejected the notion of work for a while post-merrineum (errr, what happened to hyper-indungence, sofa club and endless free childcare?).

Once I got over that, I spent most of the week fighting iOS Safari in an attempt to discover why and when it choses to add parts of wellcomecollection.org’s articles to its reader view. I have a not-at-all-well-tested theory that client-side fetching of related content was throwing it off, and moving that outside the <article> tag seems to improve things.

Life

I’m in nine iOS TestFlight Mastodon app betas. Which is silly. And I can tell I currently care slightly too much about the delivery mechanism and not quite enough about the content. But UX is key and it feels like an exciting time for it so I’ll probably continue to test out apps and nag developers to implement things that I’d like to see.

As a long-time Tweetbot user, I figured I’d love Ivory (by the same team). While I waited for a spot in the beta I played around with several others and found it easier to read the text in some more than others. Almost all of them use San Francisco (I like it probably because I spend a lot of time looking at it) and have the ability to change font size (good), but the thing that seemed to have the largest impact on my ability to read was line-height. When I did get round to using Ivory, I was struck by how cramped the text felt. I never noticed this with Tweetbot, but perhaps it’s a function of my age and/or just how much I’d disengaged from Twitter before I jacked it in for good. And likely also due to the amount of other apps I now have to compare it with. I want to like Ivory (not least because the iconography is :chef-kiss:), but unless that’s something that becomes configurable within either the app or the OS, I’m going to struggle with it. The upshot of all this is that a not insignificant portion of my life is now spent pestering iOS developers to increase the line-height in their apps.

In the meantime, Mastoot has become my daily driver. It doesn’t do nearly as much as many of the others, but it does plenty, it does it elegantly, and it has a public roadmap/feature/issue tracker. Importantly, I find it easy to read — a feature of underrated importance for what is predominantly a reading app.

And here’s me using a monospace font on my hipster blog. Don’t at me (and/or subscribe to RSS and choose your own typography adventure).

I’ve been thinking about how to put together a good system for blog drafting/posting because it’s another thing I can do to put off writing the content. But if I make it frictionless enough, I’ll be more likely to write something (is the theory). So far, it involves iA Writer on my phone and laptop, Working Copy on my phone, and Git/GitHub, where ultimately the main branch gets built by Eleventy to Netlify. It feels like keeping drafts in iCloud (automatically synced without recourse to Git) is the path of least resistance, as long as I don’t care about my drafts history (I don’t think I do, as a writing team of one). Then posting involves moving a post from iCloud to the posts directory (which can be accomplished through iA Writer on Mac and iOS) and pushing to GitHub (either through Working Copy on iOS, or the command line on Mac). I think there might be a Working Copy feature that would allow me to integrate iCloud and Git. ~~Perhaps I’ll procrastinate some more and look into that if things get desperate~~ edit: things got desperate, I did it.

Attended a trustees meeting for BTMAT – only the second meeting since its founder, my dad, passed away. Can’t hide from the fact it feels very sad without him.

Watched Stick Man and Zog more times than you did.

Failed to break the spine on a sketchbook.

Reading

Inside look at modern web browsers, part 1, 2, 3, 4 (not sure I’m much the wiser, but hopefully something went in).

Listening

RHLSP with Sarah Keyworth – enjoyed it a lot.
Running Commentary – to get me through the washing up while I’m not running much.
Gulliver’s Travels (mostly in order to get to sleep – haven’t heard more than five minutes. Hard recommend for insomniacs.)
The Coming Storm – listened to this last year, but thought I’d have another go since the anniversary of the storming of the US Capitol rolled around again. Fascinating.

Running

I’ve spent the past three weeks off games with self-diagnosed metatarsalgia. And in the time-honoured tradition of the injured runner, I spent my spare time buying kit. I picked up a pair of Saucony Peregrine trail shoes to deal with winter having concluded that it was my previous pair of trail shoes that led to my injury. I took them out for a gentle 5k in the week (a bit of a shock to the system) and managed some hill repeats on Sunday. I didn’t wind up totally broken, but so far don’t feel confident that the injury has gone away.

Friday: Shock to the system – 3.10mi at 8:23/mi
Sunday: Hills – 6.38mi at 8:12/mi

dmc.omg.lol

2023-08-23T08:39:10Z

Blog. Here. Soon. Hopefully.