Open Thinkering

Weeknote 40/2025

• Weeknotes, weeknote, work
A mosaic of a toucan drinking Guinness

Imagine the situation. I’m in our bathroom, clippers in hand. As I’ve done hundreds of times now since the first pandemic lockdown, I’m cutting my hair, and I’ve become pretty good at it.

I’m almost done. Oh, but there’s one bit just there that needs trimming a bit. Right, that’s go… Ah. Yep, I forgot to put the guard back on and shaved a big chunk of hair out of the top of my head.

So obviously the whole lot had to come off and I’m back to looking like I did while I was teaching — except greyer. It doesn’t even look that bad. I might even keep it like this.

This weeknote is already late, so I’m just going to quickly bullet point the rest. This week, I’ve been…

  • Travelling to Glasgow, where I met up with Bryan Mathers for a drink. I really appreciate his guidance in life.
  • Running a workshop for Skills Development Scotland (SDS) on digital badges and their learner profile project. There were representatives there from most of the statutory bodies and relevant organisations in Scotland. It looks like the project might have legs. One person said it was the best workshop they’d ever attended. Which was nice.
  • Co-working with Laura on the Amnesty International UK (AIUK) community platform project. She’s away for the next couple of weeks, so I’m taking over meetings, etc.
  • Catching up with Will Bentinck, Abi Handley, and Julie Keane. There is a ridiculous amount of spare capacity with very talented people at the moment.
  • Getting my flu jab. I’ll try and get a Covid jab too, although I think I’ll have to pay.
  • Going to the GP who examined me as I’ve had issues not being able to lie on my left-hand side. She’s requested an ultrasound of the affected area, in addition to the tilt table test scheduled later this month, which is to check for PoTS. Although she’s is treating the discomfort in my side and my exercise intolerance as two separate things, I strongly suspect they’re linked.
  • Talking to my therapist. I had a session in the summer and a session on Thursday. I’m keeping them ad-hoc at the moment, but it’s interesting that what I went in thinking I’d talk about, and what we ended up discussing were two different things.
  • Convening a meeting for those interesting in potentially collaborating to respond to the CivTech Challenge 11.9. We’re meeting this coming Wednesday.
  • Running the line for my daughter’s team for their match down in Doncaster. They drew 1-1, and one player from each team was sent off (not Grace!) after a fist-fight on the pitch. Then it started hailstorming and I was soaked travelling back!
  • Appreciating my son, Ben, being home from university for a night. A perk of him only being 15 miles away in Newcastle, I guess. He wasn’t well last week as he caught Freshers’ flu.

Next week, which is actually this week as I’m publishing this on Monday, I’m writing up the SDS workshop, working on the AIUK project, doing some bizdev, and catching up with some people. After listening to this episode of the Adventure podcast I’m probably going to take Friday off and go walking.

Photo of a mosaic in Waxy O’Connor’s in Glasgow.