Weeknote 35/2025
It’s Sunday evening and I’ve just finished watching the end of the Liverpool vs Arsenal match, after getting back from another football tournament in time to watch the second half. My daughter’s team got to the final but lost on penalties to the same team that they won on penalties against in the final another tournament earlier this summer.
Continuing with the update on my son’s next steps which I shared last week, he’s been accepted on the BSc (Hons) Sport and Exercise Science at Northumbria University. He’s waiting to hear back about his accommodation choices, but it looks like he’ll be moving out in three weeks. That will feel strange at first, and I think he’ll find it harder than he thinks, even though we’ll only be 15 miles away, but it’s nevertheless an important step to take. You don’t achieve independence and by living with your parents.
There was a Bank Holiday on Monday (on which I made a random cheesecake) so this was a shorter working week. I split my time between working with Laura on our project with Amnesty International UK and the project with Aaron with SEBI-L as our client. Skills Development Scotland has also shared dates for an online information session and in-person workshop I’ll be running with Bryan next month.
I published a couple of blog posts:
Next week, Thought Shrapnel will return from summer “low-power” mode next week. Hopefully I’ll also feel powered-up, as I STILL haven’t got a diagnosis. The lab which is testing for a pheocromocytoma has had my sample for over five weeks, and I’ve chased it a couple of times with my GP surgery, who have apologised about the wait time. If it does end up being this, the average wait time for surgery (given that it actually potentially fatal) is 18 weeks. So fingers crossed this just ends up being a 2025 thing and I can get on with my life — including getting back to running — next year!
I’ve not much else to say or report, other than that, thanks to Ben Werdmuller’s post, I’m testing Zen Browser on my Linux laptop. Like Ben, I’ve been a very happy user of Arc on my Mac Studio, but it’s never been available on Linux. Zen Browser is not only cross-platform, but is based on Firefox instead of Chromium. So I’m giving it a spin.
Next week, my wife and I celebrate our 22nd wedding anniversary, which means we have been married half of our lives! A strange thought, but given that we’ve been together almost our entire adult lives, just something that feels very natural and I can’t imagine being any other way.
Photo of the gates of Carlisle Park in Morpeth. I wondered aloud on Mastodon about the Latin inscription which means something like “I wish, but I cannot” or “I am willing, but unable.” Rosamundi helpfully replied that it’s the coat of arms and motto of the Earls of Carlisle:
The story is apparently that at the Restoration, when Norfolk was applying to get his lands and title back, Charles II asked him why he hadn’t remained faithful to Charles I. Norfolk replied he had been willing to but unable to, and Charles II said he could have everything restored on condition that the motto on the coat of arms was changed to that.
Which makes sense.