This week was the first week of the Chinese New Year. The boys covered the house in decorations, many of them for previous years. Given the non-stop rain we’ve had here in the UK for 2026, the additional colour was more welcome than usual. It was also half term which meant Oscar wasn’t at school. Alicia and I are fortunate enough that work is flexible and we can work from whatever venue Oscar is at. This week that meant a bunch of work from the poolside.
I started reading Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff. I’m only one chapter in but really enjoying it so far.
I started running again, managing 2 out of my 3 planned runs. I’ve signed up to the Kew Gardens 10km race at the end of March so time is running out on getting myself in a position to complete the distance.
Oscar has found two new obsessions. The first, sequencing has seen him spending hours in the Ableton Learn Music tutorial. The hot gadget amongst his friends is the Nintendo Switch. I asked if he wanted one (not a promise to buy one) and he said no, he’d prefer a sequencer instead. He isn’t completely against computer games. Train Sim World 6 would be top of the wish list if we had a machine capable of playing it.
I chained a number of half finished scripts together to extract Apple Voice Notes out of the Apple ecosystem and convert them to MP3 files. The idea is to feed these into a local transcription service and allow me to take notes anywhere, hopefully even when running. Which leads me into the next change this week. I’ve been leaving my phone at home more. I’m sure I’ll miss it at some point, but it has been nice to leave it behind when heading out.
We had a full day in the office with the team this week. Whilst it was nice to get in, it was a bit of a reality check to see how small the team has now become. As the team has shrunk, the role has shifted. Day to day it can be hard to pick up on these changes but when we all came together in the office, it felt very real.
That’s a wrap for this week. I’m looking forward to our normal routine returning next week. With Oscar back at school and no travel for Alicia and I, a familiar rhythm should return.
I’ll leave you with the four messages from our fortune cookies:
“A pleasant surprise is in store for you.”
“Good news will come to you from afar.”
“You have a secret admirer.”
“The person closest to you is more important than you realise.”
Celebrating the year of the horse
Learning to use a beat sequencer
There’s one album I’d like to listen to
Day in the office
300 years old and starting to shed limbs
Monopoly Deal - round 88
Homework morning