Happily Imperfect

Sophie Woods completes Via Alpina endurance challenge in record 29 days – BBC Sport — Another gruelling world record smashed by a woman. More proof they are NOT the weaker sex. From the front of the choir: What else can your singers do without you? — I like posts like this which feature life lessons from a specific practice, that we can all benefit from. Two Minutes and 42 Seconds in Heaven — “I listened to it and said, in my rich and sonorous timbre, in my typically concise and…

Our week in Nethybridge is at an end, Jack has had an amazing time, and I’ve enjoyed the change of scenery even though I’ve had to work through the week. The immediacy of quiet roads and trails made nipping out on a bike a real pleasure. And the countryside is beautiful too, which makes the still smouldering wildfires all the sadder. Every time we come up here it brings such a welcome change of pace and, whilst we wouldn’t uproot our lives with Jack as he starts school next week, I can see it…

“Dignity” by Deacon Blue Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. What’s a song you associate with your hometown? The town I grew up in, like many a small provincial town, is slowly morphing into yet another satellite town. The pubs are closing, the high street is being dismantled, and soon enough it’ll just be retail parks and houses. The town I grew up in still had some industry, a large bottling plant and whisky brewery dominated one end of the high street. The…

I’m pondering removing badge notifications —those little red numbers if you use iPhone— from all my apps. I already keep my phone on silent and only allow a few core apps to display a notification. I think removing the badges is the next step. I’m try to get to a state of only picking up my phone and checking an app when I choose to, rather than remaining at the behest of apps. I have a fear I’ll miss out on something but my life is very routine and predictable so I think I’ll be ok. Wish me…

“It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by Andy Williams Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Tell us about your very favorite holiday / Christmas song. But it’s August! I guess if you buy into it, Christmas can seem like the most wonderful time of the year, and if it’s beginning to look a lot like that time of year, then it’s usually when the same raft of songs appear on the radio. Runner up: Marshmallow World because it’s magical and fun! I think for most…

“I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (Live)” by U2 Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Share a song that feels like a prayer. That isn’t by Madonna? Hmmm (I mean like a prayer sure does feel uplifting, right? What a song!) In that case I’ll take a specific version of a song that always makes me feel uplifted and joyous —I don’t pray, is that what it feels like for believers? The original version of this lives on a classic album, a top 20 of all time…

“California Dreamin' (Single)” by The Mamas & The Papas Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. What song makes you think of your parents? My Dad loved folk music, my Mum loved pop. They had a lot more depth to their musical tastes of course —both enjoyed classical music and sang in choirs— but those are the genres I associate with both. This song instantly takes me to our family home, the tape deck in the kitchen is on, it’s summer and the windows are open. As…

AI continues to be a hot topic. Be it the OpenAI/Apple spat, or the latest (clever) anti-AI pushback, or how it won’t ever attain consciousness, or how it feels to have people think your art was generated by AI when it clearly wasn’t. Elsewhere I find myself experimenting with some apps for my Mac. A window switcher, or a window switcher that does lots more clever stuff I may not need, as an alternative to AltTab. Training myself to use DropOver more. Pondering DockFlow (a dock switcher for…

The heavens have opened, thunderstorms are threatened, and yet the wildfires still burn —the rain is useful but gets caught in the pine forest canopy and not enough of it falls onto the still burning peat below. It was sunny this morning though, and so I took my new shiny gorgeous mountain bike out for a proper trail ride. I had planned for 30-40 mins as I only had about 90mins free in my day over my lunch hour. 1hr and 13mins later… I guess I was having too much fun bobbling along trails,…

My son turns 5 in October. He starts school in a couple of weeks. He has a tablet — Amazon Fire for Kids — and knows how to flick around the Photos app on my phone. Yet I’m already thinking about what the internet will look like when he’s old enough to be online without me hovering nearby. Will it be a place he can explore, or a place locked away behind layers of verification and proof? He is growing up with technology that, at times, still feels fantastically magical to me. I remember having…

My son turns 5 in October. He starts school in a couple of weeks. He has a tablet — Amazon Fire for Kids — and knows how to flick around the Photos app on my phone. Yet I’m already thinking about what the internet will look like when he’s old enough to be online without me hovering nearby. Will it be a place he can explore, or a place locked away behind layers of verification and proof? He is growing up with technology that, at times, still feels fantastically magical to me. I remember having…

This is a good thing. A very good thing right now. When we arrived in Nethybridge you could see the low hanging smoke that was still rising from the remnants of the wildfires here, one area reignited yesterday too, this is far from over. But through the night and, as I type at 9:11am, it’s been raining steadily. This is the forecast for the day and it’s very very welcomed here. There is an area still closed, local businesses are suffering into their third week of closed doors and lost revenue.…

I may — and I retain the right to reverse this decision — be stopping my week notes posts.I find them useful in terms of looking back over the past week to reflect on moments from my life, the media I’ve consumed etc, but by and large they are starting to feel a little performative. I’m posting them because I feel like I should because it’s part of the cadence of my website. Except, it isn’t really. I only started them recently and whilst I’ve done recap style posts in the past, they didn’t…

Life Notes Very busy at work, lots going on so been struggling to find time for any other activities, not read much, not commented on many blogs, just keeping ticking along with my ‘move every day’ target, which has spread to other habits including a daily journal, and Crucial Tracks entry every day too. Jack has finished Nursery. Time flies. In two weeks he starts school. SCHOOL! Alas I couldn’t be there for that — I had to travel to Blairgowrie for my monthly visit to the office — but he and…

From my brother-in-laws house you can see the smouldering landscape, a thick white smog sitting on the surface of the hills. In the village, fire engines and emergency services remain, whilst life continues around them. We are here for the week —alas I still need to work— and it’s always so quiet and peaceful, from the moment we arrive I can feel my shoulders drop. Hoping to fit in some rides when I’m here (a short one the evening I arrived done already) as the roads and surrounding area are…

I’ve got a lot going on at the moment which means I’ve not been posting here. Big whoop, right. Yeah, work is busy. At home we are in the last week of Jack attending nursery (his last day tomorrow!) and we are spending next week in Nethybridge —yes the one that was evacuated last week cos of the wildfire in the Cairngorms. I’ll still be working but at least it’s a different location, different (quieter) roads to ride on my bike. As ever this blog is the place that gets dropped, but that’s only…

“Patience, my young Padawan” is not actually a line used in any Star Wars movie. It is, however, something that seems to be in dwindling supply online. The prevailing culture is one of everything now. The technology train is leaving for productivity town, so hop aboard for the next update, the next feature, the next boost, the next small miracle that will make us better, faster, calmer, more organised and whole. It is, of course, big tech to blame for this impatience and —with every keynote,…

Life Notes A two hour cycle (a very long lunch) on Wednesday, ostensibly to go and pick up our dog’s medication from the vet, but also an excuse to get out on my bike in the sunshine. Zwift (indoor) is fine but nothing beats moving! Dropped car off at the garage on Thursday morning to get a ‘clunk’ fixed. They replaced a corroded plate but they are baffled. It’s not affecting the driving, and they’ve said it’s safe so, we wait and see what happens. The Cairngorm wildfire still burns, two weeks…

Titles are not posts! (See what I did there?) / rant My RSS feeds are increasingly full of posts that are just titles. Some titles are just posts. No additional words, no explanation, no other thought, no verbiage, nothing. A statement given in the title is repeated as the post content. That’s it. Worse is those RSS feeds that only give the title, necessitating a click to see, the same words repeated as the post. What a waste of time. I’m all for people’s blogs being just for them but I can’t…

They’ve been burning for over a week, mostly in a remote area, but the fire still needs dealt with. The wind changed yesterday and so did the fire, and the town of Nethybridge was evacuated last night. The town where my brother-in-law, his pregnant partner, and their 1.5yr old son live, and where my in-laws are staying for a few weeks too. They are all safe in Aviemore and, early reports suggest, the wind has moved again and could be pushing the fire away from the town. That said, it’s hard to…

Busy at work, little time to collate any cohesive thoughts into a post. The Commonwealth Games has started in Glasgow. I volunteered in 2018 and had a wonderful time, but the lack of free-to-air TV coverage, and the curtailed list of sports has made it a quiet kickoff. Jack and I might head up tomorrow and see what is going on, see how much of a buzz there is? Tempted to get Jack to the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome so he can see how fast they go!! Tour de France continues, as does Pogacar’s…

When I focus on my words I take care with them, I choose them deliberately, sometimes to soften things, sometimes to provoke, but it’s rarely by accident. Since I started being a bit more considered with the things I posted here, in particular the longer Musings, it’s been part of the joy of writing. Trying to process my own thoughts. Trying to capture them in a way that others might understand. It’s helped me figure out things about myself. It’s helped me figure out things about the wider…

Bring back the silly.The quick and easy.The nonsense.Make procrastination a reason. Note: this post is for me, it will bore you, it’s about this blog, which is really only of any interest to me as a whole. Perhaps you are interested in a post here and there, but it’s different for me. This is me. I overthink.I revisit and question.I write.I publish.I muse.I note. It’s all the same thing really just the intent that differs, and with that intent a level of motivation, a desire to write like this,…

Every now and then Becca will shrug her shoulders and say, “We like who we like.” It usually comes up in the middle of some completely ordinary conversation and, almost as quickly as it’s said, we move on. It’s never intended as a grand statement, but the more I’ve thought about it over the years, the more I think it perfectly sums up how I see the world. I’ve not written much about sexuality or gender here, and I am aware this is something I probably should’ve written about publicly a long…

This time it’ll be different, they say. This time it’ll be about the people, they say. This time it’ll be a change for the better, they say. This time the system won’t win, they say. Colour me apathetic. Another PM we didn’t vote for —I know, we vote for the party not the person— in a system that feels increasingly broken. But what choice do we have? It’s this or the right wing. Right? Thanks for reading and keeping RSS alive. Visit my site for more.

Life Notes Wednesday morning I took Jack to his swimming lesson. We enrolled him in a week-long course, and Becca has taken him so far, so it was wonderful to watch him actually listening and learning. He loves being active, loves being in the water, and he will need to be able to swim for next year as I have grand plans to get a kayak for us (and a paddle board for Becca). A visit to the dentist to get a filling repaired went fine, I mean it’s never fun, but needs must. She updated my x-rays…

A lovely quiet day. Car washed. Front and back grass cut. A picnic blanket in the shade for a snacky lunch. Some games with Jack. Glorious. The type of day I’ll try and etch in my memory, the softer moments of life are so welcomed and deeply held. It’s how I keep going. For Jack, for Becca, just hanging out with my besties. Such simple pleasures. Thanks for reading and keeping RSS alive. Visit my site for more.

I’ve signed up. On Sunday 9 May 2027, I’ll be taking on the shortest route: 40 miles (65 km) with 2,823 ft (860 m) of climbing. I’ve ridden it before, although the 2021 edition ran in the opposite direction after the original event was postponed because of COVID. The later date coincided with the potato harvest, so the route was reversed to reduce disruption to local farmers. So this will be my first time doing it in the “proper” direction. I’m hoping I can stay injury-free in the lead up. I’ve…

Ahh those heady days of the internet, blogs were everywhere, some were about to get book deals and TV series, and there I was on the periphery (as always) quietly commenting on the sites of many of those who were making waves. It was a different time, and the UK blog scene was in a boom. As was the TV reality show Big Brother. You know the one, a mish-mash of people thrown into a ‘house’ and monitored 24/7. I can remember the first airing of this format back in 2000 when it was genuinely…

Matt creates and designs some great apps, they are thoughtful, and considerate of the user. The fact his latest Micro app is called ‘That Guy’ suggests, with a subtle wink and a nod, some knowing on his part about what he has created and, whilst I laud the thinking behind it, I can’t help my gut reaction being JUST WATCH THE MOVIE! The suspension of disbelief, the ability to lose oneself once you enter the hallowed space of a movie theatre, committing to the art and skill that you’ve paid good…