Preamble
This is my first contribution to the gathering list of weeknotes in your RSS reader. A few of my web friends have been churning out weeknotes quite consistently over the years, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said something like, “Hey it’s good to see you; I loved [anecdote] from your last weeknotes!” Then it would end up as a one-way interaction because the other person had no idea about my life: I rarely share anything online. Kinda awkward.
If I can post with even half the frequency of some of you, I’ll be pretty pleased. I often don’t have very much energy, for reasons you’ll probably read about over time, so this will be an interesting challenge for me that I’m quite looking forward to trying.
Go on then. Let’s do some notes.
These things happened this week
- My partner Emma and I went to see My Neighbour Totoro at the Barbican on Thursday evening. It was amazing! I audibly gasped several times. If it ever comes back and you have the opportunity and means to go, you really should.
- We stayed at a hotel that was really near my old work. I was hoping to pop in and say hi to some friends but I didn’t have the spoons[Jump to footnote 1]. Anyway it was nice to show Emma around my old coffee spots.
- We saw a little mouse in a church/cafe. When I see mice in London it makes me smile to imagine them thinking, “SHIIIIIIIIIIT!” as they scurry around, finding their next place to hide.
- I finally met my online friend, Elle and their dog! They were visiting the UK for a bit, from overseas. I met some lovely new people but social events usually take me 2 or 3 days to recover from, which I often forget.
- I signed up as a member of the Skiff[Jump to footnote 2] a couple of months ago and finally got around to picking up my key fob this week, and did some work there for a couple of hours. I’d been putting off going and getting a bit anxious about it. Emma walked me there like it was my first day at school, hehe. But it worked, and now I like going!
- Emma and I are watching Brooklyn Nine Nine again. I love Captain Holt the most.
- I wish you could all meet my two cats. One of them, Captain (Picard), is very cuddly and he’s sat on my lap right now. I love them both with every fibre of my being.
Overheard through the days
- “This week I counted 106 teabags”
- [Person on phone] “’Ello mate it’s [name] from [football club], have you got any referee cards in stock, yellow and red?”
Building this website
I spent a few evenings this week getting ready for these weeknotes. I didn’t want to faff about with any tech I hadn’t used before—I don’t have much energy at the best of times, so right now, learning tech is something I try to limit to work hours. I decided to use Express, and to use Prismic as a simple database of weeknotes. Let’s see how it goes. I did need to write some questionable code to automate the footnotes though: Prismic doesn’t let you do in-page links at the moment (also known as fragments, or named anchors).
In the next few weeks I’ll try to get webmentions going ☺️.
Yours,Leaf
Footnotes
- In case you don’t know it, spoon theory is a way of describing energy levels. I’ll probably be writing it here a lot. Jump to source of footnote 1
- The Skiff is an independent co-working space in Brighton, full of very friendly people. It’s a place dedicated to individuals rather than businesses. If you’re reading this and you live in the Brighton/Hove-ish area and happen to be in a marginalised group of some kind, you might be able to get a free membership. Jump to source of footnote 2