Weeknote 1

Joining the weeknotes crowd

Hello friends and followers,

I normally reserve this space for the occasional long thought out, detailed article about subjects, often technical or academic in nature. I'd like to make more use of this space to share my personal thoughts and experiences in my daily life too. Many of my friends in the IndieWeb community, work colleagues and beyond in my social circles do this regularly too, calling them weeknotes or similar. I may not manage to do this every week, but we'll see!

Why start now?

I feel it helps me on a therapeutic level to have a place to write something about my own life, even if no one else reads this. We're all living through this climate crisis combined semi-post-pandemic world of uncertainty, whilst Putin's horrific war in Ukraine inflicts needless atrocities, deaths and suffering for so many, with seemingly no end in sight.

I remind myself, whatever I'm going through in terms of work or life challenges, that it's nothing compared to the pain and suffering the citizens and refugees of Ukraine are going through. The level of trauma and sadness is as much, if not more, as the experience just under two years ago during the worst of the pandemic here in the UK.

Weeknote 1

The past week, I met an old university friend I'd not seen in almost eight months. We headed to a favourite beauty spot of mine on the Kent coast at Folkestone Harbour for lunch, followed by an energetic, refreshing hike over Capel-le-Ferne Cliffs towards Dover.

I followed up an enquiry through BorrowMyDoggy website to provide dog sitting for a gorgeous twelve-year-old Labrador Retriever next month, and went to meet him and his owners, which went well.

Staying with the dog theme, I watched a film following three stray dogs through Istanbul called Stray.

Flirting closely with the decision to sell my current abode of seven years out in the countryside for something more city-based and less Tory heartland. An hour spent trawling two-bedroom flats in London on RightMove for anything half-decent, comfortably within my budget, soon dampens any such optimism or decision for another twenty-four or so hours.

It's been a good news week at work with something significant and very positive happening there soon client-wise. I was also heartened by finally getting some appreciation in sizeable levels for my work in educating the team on accessibility. It's no easy task changing company culture to adopt a strategy focused on accessibility, but early signs are it's moving in the right direction.

The past couple of weekends I've been trying to find the time, plus get into the right vibe and headspace to finish my article and talk idea with the current working title: recovering the accessible web. More on that later...

I encountered genuine appreciation and kindness this week in many ways, even from some people I hadn't expected it from. That all helped me feel a little more positive this week, as well as strengthen the trust and appreciation I have for the friends and colleagues, close or distant, in my life now.

Until next week folks, stay safe and look after yourselves!