Week 14, 2024
Holiday week.
I had a call to make - since our trip was cancelled, should I return to work for the week (so I can use the annual leave later in the year on actual holiday), or should I take the time off anyway? I went with the latter because (a) I’m tired and recovering from food poisoning, (b) I haven’t arranged childcare in advance, and (c) we can still make use of the time.
We took a trip to Cassiobury Farm with the kids and another local family. It was nice to get out in the (brief) sunshine - and even better to get the girls out of the house.
We decided to redecorate the living room. A decade ago we had a “feature wall” with giant red flowers, and magnolia elsewhere. Today we have refreshed the white of the ceiling, skirting and picture rails - and we have pale green painted walls. We’ve sawn up our broken 15 year-old sofa bed and taken it to the dump - and we’ll take the green sofa from my garden office for the living room until we have saved up to replace the broken sofa with something new. Reflections: first, more than half of the time in a redecoration if you care about the quality of the finish is preparation. Scraping, filling, cleaning, soaking, sanding. It doesn’t feel like the work, but it is the work and can really impact the end result. Of course, if the quality of the finish isn’t a priority, then you can significantly reduce the time you spend - the trick is to know what level of finish you need. I think the same is true at work - for high impact, things that might not feel like the work are incredibly important; equally, if you can achieve a good enough result to meet your needs with something low fidelity, (e.g. you can prove a point with a paper prototype) don’t waste your time doing more than that.
I’ve eaten out. A Zoe and Mummy date at the Harvester on Tuesday. Dinner with my husband at a nice steakhouse last night. And a family meal at the Giggling Squid this evening. Reflection: eating out served two purposes - functional because all our belongings from the living room are piled up in the kitchen, making it pretty much unusable for a stretch this week; and psychological because even though we haven’t gone away, it feels like we’ve still got to experience a little of “holiday mode”. I often find, when I’m on holiday, that I want to find ways of bringing that holiday feeling back with me - small things I can do - and it feels we’ve been doing that.
I’ve been reviewing submissions for this year’s Service Design in Government conference. There are some really cracking submissions in here - I’m really excited for September.