• Now that Chris is writing weeknotes and that I read Alice’s weeknotes. One day, will all my favourite friends write weeknotes? I’ll just spend all my weekend reading lovely notes from my friends about their lovely lives? I can’t wait. Write weeknotes.
• Even with the golaith-level rain of the north, Granny J heroically took the older kids to the Peak District wildlife park to see the capybara’s and polar bears. All of whom were wet. Very wet. Polar bears take on some of the colour of their surroundings due to their fur being translucent. I can imagine the northern mud and squish reflecting majestically through the 100% wet fur.
• Danny & I bundled toward the back room of a peak district village pub to watch Macclesfield play Brentford at home. The 52” TV balanced on a windowsill was very high definition and didn’t quite fit in next to the stone-walls and local farming antiques. The football was supplied through a shared TNT sports account; every complaint about the patchy connection, slow speed or pixelated image was channeled through a pub-wide whatsapp group directly at the poor owner of the account. Macclesfield should have won having not conceded a goal, but an unfortunate own goal lost them the chance of another incredible upset. We didn’t see any of this action as the last 15 mins was just 20 people watching a loading spinner with increasing frustration while others called out the action from their own devices. Still, the pub provided a full delicious buffet for which people paid by putting cash in a half pint pot that was passed around afterwards.
• Went running in the peak district around my old haunts which was 273m more elevation than I usually have to deal with and the rest of the week my quads were so rough I couldn’t descend the stairs at work.
• I suffered a whooping cold with coughs so loud I woke myself up. I had to trail to the kitchen in the middle of the night so as not to wake up everyone else in the house. My mums floors unfortunately so creaky that I woke everyone just by moving downstairs
• Do modern Pepperami’s smell much less than the 1990’s Pepperamis? I’m sure there used to be an overwhelming whiff of spicy sausage that fully drenched any room they were opened in. But the middle kid (a pepperami obsessive) managed to open one on the train without any other passengers gagging or moving carriage.
• Obviously half term is when our whole company strategy changes and we’re needed to be fully attentive and aware while everyone with kids is balancing snack-time, playdates and kid illnesses. Absolute carnage.
• The new house is looking great, with a lot of progress in the last few weeks and some major decisions made. Sometimes when doing work it’s surprising how easy some changes are, even when they seem like big jobs. The top of the new window openings didn’t line up with the top of the existing windows, we talked it over with the builder and he thought it would be quite a big job. But when we returned after a few days it was done. New lintels, new brickwork (re-using the old bricks) and now bigger window openings and crisper lines.