Week note — week commencing Monday 7 September 2026
What is this?
Every week I (try to) look back at the previous seven-or-so days – and forwards to the next week. Running and health, culture, home improvements, work and adjacent things. You can read none, some or all. Sharing in case it helps someone else out there.
Two in a row. Steady on.
tldr
A new post out on Monday; the slow steady crawl back to running; four nights away, mostly on my own; Saint Etienne twice in two days; Birmingham!; Freo into a preliminary final at last; Town beat the league leaders; a week of provider conversations and a delivery position finally getting simpler(ish); and a train home spent wondering what else there might be.
Health and running
Physio on Wednesday afternoon, and the verdict was: go running, every couple of days. After eight weeks of not running, that's the sentence I'd been waiting for.
So: five runs 🤪: Tuesday morning at home, then Thursday and Friday out of King's Cross. Saturday morning pottle out to Carnaby Street, where there's a mural I stopped for. Sunday morning along the Worcester and Birmingham Canal.
22.7km in total. Nothing quick — all of it between 6:12 and 6:48 a kilometre — but the left hip has held up across four consecutive days, which is the actual test.
Out and about
Monday: got first public week note in a while out as well as a write-up of the Product for the People lightning talk. The talk one had been sat in my head since Bristol, good to get it out. It's about infrastructure that was built for one thing and ended up being used for another — canals, telegraph poles, the Bristol and Bath railway path, Bournemouth's sewers, Salts Mill, the Humber Gateway wind farm. I have another version of the talk ready and waiting!
Thursday evening: dinner on my own at El Pastor in Coal Drops Yard. The ceviche tostada was great and the corn cake is delicious. El Pastor's quality has wobbled over the last few years but was a good night there. Their negroni is mighty fine. Less good: finding out that Vermuteria has gone.
Long Friday lunchtime, nipping to Belushi's near Borough Market to watch Fremantle's epic playoff game against Geelong. Luke Jackson was enormous. Freo into their first preliminary final since 2015, another long lunch on Friday to look forward to (probably from the comfort of my sofa this time, unless somewhere in Saltaire fancies putting it on).
One of the best things about London: whatever the sport, whatever the hour, whatever the country it's being played in, there is a pub somewhere in that city showing it, with other fans already in there. You don't have to organise anything. You just have to know it exists and turn up. Especially to see the salty tears of Geelong fans.
Friday evening: Saint Etienne at the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire. Stood at the back of the top tier, which turned out to be one of the best decisions of the week. Room to move, prime boogie territory.
Saturday: Train from Euston to Birmingham New Street, just as Town kicked off against Bristol Rovers. Watched it on my phone. A 2-0 win over the team top of the table, best performance of the season so far — which of course happened in the one home game I'd already decided to miss.
Then a proper Birmingham day. Not been properly for a while. What a great city centre to explore!
The Pen Museum in the Jewellery Quarter, which is brilliant and everyone should go to. It sits in an old pen factory in a city that once made most of the world's pen nibs, and it is exactly the sort of place I will not shut up about. Go!
Had a good mooch down to the Rep and the library, and a pint in three excellent pubs. The Wellington first, which has a deep and serious real ale list and the kind of pump clips you stand in front of for longer than you meant to. Then a walk further up the hill to the Old Contemptibles, where a bloke and his son took the next table outside, the son somewhere in his late twenties and unmistakably Scouse. Turns out the dad lived in Bingley for a few years and the lad was born at Airedale.
Saturday evening: a little detour to the Craven Arms, a smashing little boozer. A couple talking about problems with their orchestra. Three Scottish chaps saying "super duper" every minute. Then to the O2 Institute for Saint Etienne again, down in the stalls rather than up above it. A blokier crowd, and a different night for it — more standing, less moving. Felt like hardly anyone has listened to Saint Etienne post 1998. 🤷🏻♂️
Loved both gigs, obviously. Mostly knowing it's a final run, watching Bob, Pete, Sarah and the rest of them do it, taking the whole thing in. Twice in two days was not too much.
Sunday morning a walk up to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Wonderful building, and a fine collection of modern, Pre-Raphaelite, Joe Lycett (yes, really, and they're fun) and Cold War Steve pics. Enjoyed afternoon tea for, um, lunch.
Birmingham though. A place of reform – and even anti establishment – in ways that felt positive, not grabbed by thick white twats. Unexpected love for the second city of England. I've still not watched any Peaky Blinders though.
House, home, maintenance
I swapped around some of the shelves in the store. Does that count?
DIY day is in the diary for Sunday.
Work
A week of long days, another week of long days. Talking to people, trying to cram in analysis, looking at where things are going.
Intro conversations with two community providers in Humber and North Yorkshire, plus a lung screening programme, all trying to work out where there's something real for us in surfacing new appointments in the NHS App.
Community nursing visits keep coming up unprompted. Phlebotomy and Community Diagnostic Centres too. And improving health and service providers' onboarding to the NHS App, ahem... Help yourself to help others help themselves.
Spent a chunk of the week doing product managery paper writing. Where does this work go after this month, what kind of team does it need? The hard yards of tying together what the team has learned while thinking you won't be working on it. All wrapped up the same.
Also finalised an interaction designer interview kit.
Thinking about
The weekend was full. Lots of exploring and absorbing: a city I know well (London), a city I don't know well (Birmingham), two museums, pubs, two gigs, ambling around. Nourishing is the word. And wondering what else there might be. It's been a while since a day at work gave me something like what that weekend gave me.
What could that other thing be? Working with wood? My unintentional learning about my body through ailments the start of an interest in physio? Making coffee? Not entirely seriously, but not entirely a joke either.
The hours at work just roll past, one Jira ticket, one "sorry, was just in another call" Teams call at a time. Not the same thing as being unhappy, just noticing when the good feeling arrives from somewhere else entirely.
The other half of the same question: where has the time gone for the things that used to make me feel I was getting better at something, like learning Spanish? Somewhere along the way the week filled up with work things that always need doing and emptied out the things that... aren't work.
Coming up
No travelling this working week, other than to Assembly and back for work.
Trying to settle into a pattern for running: 5km on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 7km on Sunday, walks and the gym on the days in between. Enough to build on without giving the hip an excuse.
Friday lunch: Freo's preliminary final.
Friday evening: off to see Lloyd's work-in-progress show at the Frazer Theatre in Knaresborough.
Saturday: over to Cleethorpes for Town's home game to Crawley.
Sunday: DIY day, and the Cowboys in the evening.
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