Last week I was away, I still thought about what I do and who I’m supporting and the outcomes we’re driving towards and the context in which we work. It popped up at all sort of different times in all sorts of different ways, I can’t just look at country side – I see the farms and old hedgerow lines and ponder about the shape of things to come. I see people in groups doing people things. But more than anything now I tend just to acknowledge it let it pass like a wave. I have great ideas and I let them go too. This is what being away is for me, I am slowly getting better at it.
Before I went away I knew this week was going to be one of those. I have one a month it seems we’re things all come together at once.
On Monday Eloise was also of school, so I was doing things with her in amongst doing the things I need to do. I attend SMG and talked briefly about Firebreaks – I (we) have more work to do to flesh out the initial presentation, but it was a good chat, we’re going to try and get into an annual cycle.
I also managed to do and write up three more user research sessions on empowerment ahead of our research synthesis session. Lots more to do and think about. The first step is to take them to SMG which Charles and Mark are doing tomorrow (Thursday).
I did an All Hands session, before hand I was nervous but felt a lot more organised than at the SMG session on Monday where I had forgotten to look back over the survey results. We did a This is Me exercise — I shared my This is Me that I did on April 14 when I started planning and didn't have connection to work. Lynne was fantastic as ever and shared her’s after the exercise -we then did a Start, Stop, Continue exercise for all things FFCP People — which Fiona has kindly offered to get into shape to help build a plan.
From that I bounced into a having good conversations session with Mirren and Sarah from the Defra Group EDI team at the 25 Year Environment Strategy Directorate People Day.
I’m a little woozy, I have sent at least two emails where I should have looked before I leapt today (that I know off) and I’m sure there are more. It’s the result of having my 2nd Covid jab yesterday and I also got stung by a bubble bee when picking up Eloise from school. I didn’t quite get to everything I thought I would today but I did have three lovely conversations… I’m not sure quite what I said — I will pick up the pieces next week.
Memory Jar
Digging holes in Weymouth beach with Eloise.
