Weekapedia – Weeknotes 7

I’ve been feeling quite a bit brighter this week, which is a relief. On the recommendation of my father-in-law I asked the doctor for an anti-spasmodic to help settle my stomach before it really starts to give me grief. Just having these tablets seems to have calmed me, so much so that I don’t need to take them. Which I guess is a bit like a placebo, but not. Anyway, I’m glad to be feeling better.

This week has been my penultimate week before I start work at Skills Matter. They are a lovely, ethical company run by lovely ethical people, and the work I’m going to be doing is going to be very interesting. So if I have to work at all, I’m very pleased I’m going to be working there. But I have thoroughly enjoyed this time off, and it would be wonderful not to have to work at all. I’d never be bored, I’m sure of that. I’d always be busy, and I’d always be happy.

That said, a week tomorrow (as I type) I’ll dive into life at Skills Matter and I’ll have a great time. I was pleased to find out that I can get the train at Streatham station, ten minute’s walk away and go directly to Farringdon, ten minute’s walk from Skills Matter. The train journey is 30 minutes each way. I had got it into my head that it was going to take longer, and it was bothering me. I haven’t had to commute for getting on for twenty years, so I’m thinking of it as a huge time-sink. I need to work out how I can make the most of my journey – if I can use that time productively, it won’t be so bad. I suppose it all depends on how busy the trains will be. If I can get a seat regularly, then I can write. If not, then I’ll have to think of something else. I toyed with doing my bike up and cycling and/or getting a scooter and riding, and I still haven’t ruled those possibilities out yet. But for the first couple of months, it makes sense to do things as simply as possible. So I need to get myself an Oyster card this coming week.

I decided I need to freshen up my wardrobe a bit for the new job. I bought myself a couple of new pairs of trousers yesterday. Next on my shopping list – Cherry Red Docs, which I’m sure I’ll still be breaking in in a year’s time. New socks. And an electric shaver. And a few new shirts. And an iPad, just in case I can get a seat – I mean you’ve got to be prepared, haven’t you.

I was going to write why we went to Hyde Park for the TUC rally, then realised it needs a blog post of it’s own.

Arlo moved into his cot this week – I’m not going to tempt fate by saying he’s taken to it like a duck to water, because he hasn’t. But he seems a little bit more comfortable with it every day. He cried when I dunked his head underwater – four times – at Little Dippers, the only one of the babies that did.

I’m reading London Calling by Barry Miles. Enjoying it. I’m walking around Soho now thinking, ‘ah, that’s where the Colony Rooms were’, so that’s the pub that used to be The Highlander’.

smithylad’s Charts – week ending 270311