Weeknotes #15

The midweek day off one

May 16, 2025

Weeknotes

I took a day off on Wednesday. It was warm and sunny in London, a little pocket of early summer. I had my hair cut and coloured, quite literally a weight off, before hopping on a humid tube to Borough Market. My bouncy blow-dry was already wilting by the time I grabbed a table outside at Café Francois for a chicken caesar salad with fries and a cold glass of Coke, ice and a slice. Up there with a fillet steak with fries and peppercorn sauce as one of my favourite meals.

Groups gathered with salad boxes and toasted sandwiches, perching on hot concrete in the absence of free space on the benches. People drifted past clutching tubs of the TikTok-viral overpriced strawberries drowned in melted chocolate.

Behind me, a table of sales guys were deep in conversation, posturing about their approach and confidently discouraging a client from going out to tender. I rolled my eyes behind my sunglasses and paid my bill.

The promise of something cool drew me to 3Bis for a hazelnut and stracciatella gelato with melted chocolate and a wafer.

I wandered the market, stocking up on my favourite peppermill blend from Spice Mountain, picking up a bunch of peonies from The Gated Garden, and grabbing a cinnamon bun from Bread Ahead to bring home for my husband.

The market has changed over the years, some of my usual traders have moved on, but it’s still one of my favourite places to be.

Safe to say, back at work behind a desk the next day, my tupperware lunch was quite the fall from grace.

Other notes;

The art of enabling discussion to diverge<>converge before steering on priority
Starting a new Community of Practice
Two sprints in a row with work only relating to one epic in them 👀 🎉
When a process to debrief on an incident takes longer than solving the issue itself
“Here is a solution, now find a problem to solve with it”
Lessons still unlearnt on Inviting vs Inflicting change
Documenting a change curve in real time