write.as/jonbeckett

After a slow start yesterday morning we set off to walk the coast path towards a nearby fishing village together – with the promise of lunch in a pub dangling like a carrot ahead of us.

Along the way we were treated to several pairs of Peregrine Falcons sweeping along the cliff edges at speed – screeching and stooping over the rugged rocks and scrub below.

Throughout the day I was surprised by the resilience of our younger children, and the emergence of our eldest. She suffers from anxiety and had a massive wobble the day before we came away. She had a very, very good day.

Even when rain began to fall during lunch, the children's spirits weren't dampened.

After retracing our steps on weary legs late in the afternoon we eventually arrived home, skipped dinner, and collapsed into sofas and beds around the house.

I think today may be a quiet day. Of course if past history is anything to go by, we'll find ourselves setting out on an adventure by mid-afternoon.

I started writing this post yesterday, while packing bags ready to travel – and then realised I had nothing to write about that hadn't happened the day before. That has happened a lot since I started working from home. Today was more interesting – I promise.

After scraping myself out of bed at about 8am, jumping in the shower, and downing a coffee, I ran around the house like a headless chicken – picking up the last few bits and pieces strewn around the house so the lady looking after our cats might not think TOO badly of us in our absence.

By ten in the morning the bags were in the roof box on top of the car, we had asked the kids repeatedly if they had packed wash kit, phone chargers, and whatever else, and we set off. It turns out we should have asked our youngest if she had packed both of her shoes, but we didn't find that one out until six hours and two hundred and fifty miles later.

The journey to the coast was almost pleasant – or at least as pleasant as spending several hours confined to a car with your family can be. After running out of half-decent radio stations we played eye-spy, stopped for something to eat, and then finally knuckled down to the last two hours into the back of beyond.

My parents live quite some way from anywhere. Which is lovely. And a bit of a nightmare sometimes.

After arriving, making a very English cup of tea, and unpacking most of our bags, we walked off in search of the ocean. The path to the sea falls downhill for about a mile from my parents home – past farms, remote holiday cottages, and endless fields filled with sheep and bordered by bramble bushes.

After perhaps half an hour walking and after drinking a cider from the beach cafe, we stood ankle deep in the ocean for the first time in quite some time. We appeared to have timed it just about right – missing the hordes that would have inhabited the beach earlier in the day.

A little later we began the climb back up the hill, and I accompanied my Dad to the local fish and chip shop – which would normally be fine – except my other half is vegetarian, and two of the kids are gluten free – which immediately removed 95% of the menu for them. I ended up ordering a random assortment of cheesy chips, beans, mushy peas, and a veggie burger. The burger turned out to be a fishcake.

After dinner, the children retreated to their rooms, and fell fast asleep – it's funny how the sea air does that. I suppose tomorrow might be a somewhat slow start – after which we'll buy groceries, and start making plans to fill the days ahead.

Fingers crossed the weather is kind to us.

The day began with a shower, a shave, washing up, tidying up, and a valiant attempt to pick a few things up in the living room. I'm not quite sure why I bothered, because the kitchen, lounge, and hallway in our house always looks like either an earthquake just happened, or our house was searched by gangsters while we were out. Suffice to say, it now looks the same as it did before I started.

After a shower, a shave, and a coffee, I set off to a nearby town with my eldest and youngest daughter in search of holiday clothes. This entailed standing in a department store for quite some time. I joined their wifi network while a security guard started to take notice of me, and grinned at idiotic videos on reddit to pass the time.

After leaving the department store we went off in search of something to eat. Given that my eldest daughter is coeliac (gluten free), our options are always tremendously limited while eating out – we looked at several menus outside cafes and eventually gave up – buying food from the food hall of a department store, and walking back through town to find a park to sit in.

This evening has been altogether quieter – apart from climbing into the loft to find luggage cases ready to travel. Our eldest daughter still isn't sure she's coming with us. Anxiety seems to be getting the better of her at the moment. She has flashes of bravery, but they are fleeting.

I'm looking forward to going away, but not looking forward to the journey. Five or six hours in the car is never fun. The last time I visited – back in the spring when my Dad was ill – I took the train and was there inside four hours. Unfortunately while the train is cheaper for one person travelling, when you multiply it by five it becomes unaffordably expensive.

So.

One more day here, then we head off for a week. Possibly one down in numbers. We'll see. A week of beaches, rockpools, sunshine, walks, street food, wine, seaweed, sand, and sunburn. And a few tattered paperback books, if I remember to pack them.

Talking of packing, I should start putting clothes to one side, ready to go in the case.

Two weeks to think about as little as possible.

Most people would be pouring a drink out this evening. I'm on my third (or fourth) pint of water today. I've lost count. I drank two cans of cider after work last night, and have paid for it all day with a banging headache. I'm rubbish at drinking these days – so much so that I've been wondering about stopping entirely.

I know a few people that have given up alcohol entirely, and admire their decision tremendously. While I'll probably “never say never”, the old saying “just the one” will probably become my mantra. In truth, I hate the wasted half-a-day that having one more drink brings about – I would rather have been doing something interesting, no matter how useless that thing might have been.

Anyway.

I'm planning on doing as little as possible this weekend. A proper rest. Don't be surprised if you start to see blog posts every day during my time off work.

In other news, I've been tinkering with note-taking apps over the past week – looking at Notion once again, Obsidian, and my old bullet journal. While the bullet journal appeals to my eccentric side, it doesn't fit well with work because it's not searchable. Obsidian may well win that battle. Outside work though? I wonder if I really need anything at all. Google Drive has become an unlikely trusted store for anything and everything worth keeping. Notion just becomes an enormous tinkerers rabbit hole, where you spend all day re-arranging your cheese.

Maybe I should just keep going with the paper bullet journal. It doesn't require batteries, and if not for it I would probably have forgotten how to write by now.

Late last night I wandered into the living room, looking at my phone, and interrupted my other half who has been binge-watching “The Mentalist” for the last few weeks.

“Olivia Newton-John has died”.

She looked up, suddenly filled with sorrow – “Oh no!”.

It's a strange feeling – knowing that somebody that has been there throughout your life is no more. A voice on the radio, a face on the cinema screen, and the lines of her scenes etched into the collective memory of your generation.

I never saw Grease at the cinema – I was too young. My other half is a little older than me – she queued up around the block to watch it with her friends. We borrowed a video tape of it from my Aunt a couple of years later – when video cassette recorders were “the new thing”. We played the movie to destruction that summer.

Years later I saw Xanadu, and fell head-long into it's world of escapist nonsense. If ever a movie was more than the sum of it's parts, Xanadu was. This morning I re-watched the final scenes with Gene Kelly leading the roller-skating pack around the discotheque, and became unexpectedly emotional when Olivia made her entrance.

She's always been there, and now she is not.

It doesn't help that I have a close friend in Australia that reminds me tremendously of her. I'm guessing it's going to take some time to stop seeing Olivia's smile, voice, and laughter in hers. Perhaps it's the other way around – perhaps I'll see my friend in Olivia whenever Grease or Xanadu is playing, and I'll smile.

I woke early this morning, moments after a radio station filled the bedroom with music from decades past. After spending several minutes watching light patterns dance across the wall, and listening to birds singing in the trees outside, I fell back asleep.

The next hour conjured the strangest dream I have experienced in quite some time.

I was in the house I grew up in, and a car pulled onto the drive. Lots of people climbed from the car, singing some sort of happy-clappy religious song – led by the late husband of an old work colleague. They opened the front door, and flooded into the house – singing as they began filing into the various rooms.

I confronted the leader, and asked him to please leave. He ignored me, and began singing louder.

Giving up on reasoning, I grabbed the sides of his body, and lifted him into the air. As I carried him through the house, his body seemed strangely rigid and light – as if he were a mannequin. I threw him back through the front-door as one might a sack of mail – and began turning, picking up, and throwing each of the nearest of his followers – who were still singing.

And then I woke up.

I've been thinking about the dream all morning. While picking the people up, I questioned to their face why they had no mind of their own – why the were blindly following others.

They just kept singing.

I'm having the quietest of quiet days today, and counting down the days until I stop work for two weeks. In-between all the usual household chores, we will escape to the coast for a few days to visit my parents. There's something about the air at the coast – it feels different than at home. I'm guessing it has something to do with the sea breeze.

One more week to go, then we start filling bags with clothes. At least now the children are older we don't have to take a world of toys and games with us – all they appear to need these days is a mobile phone.

We had builders in this week at home. A couple of years ago we had a leak in the kitchen – or rather in the bathroom above the kitchen – that destroyed the plaster around the kitchen doorway. Ever since fixing the leak we have been “going to get around to” getting the walls fixed. Now they are, of course we're having to think about re-painting the kitchen.

While making a coffee I watched the plasterer re-skim the walls on Friday morning. There's something about watching a skilled tradesman practice their craft – it's like a magic trick – the result of thousands of hours or practice, skill, and experience.

Of course the builders blew a hole in our bank account that I'm once again trying to re-fill. I may well be hitting YouTube over the coming days with more pretend aeroplane escapades. An unlikely source of income that comes in handy from time to time.

Today has been a difficult day. A work project suffered a setback, and while nobody in particular did anything “wrong”, you can't help wondering if there was something you could have done that might have resulted in a different outcome. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I don't typically write about work, so I'll leave it there.

In other news, I started watching season 4 of “Westworld” last night. Somehow it's production completely passed me by. I'm two episodes in, and wow. Just wow. One of the most intricate, clever plots I have seen in a TV show – it keeps the cogs turning throughout.

I'm writing this during a quick break from work – I didn't really stop at lunchtime.

I'm making spaghetti bolognese for dinner tonight. Before that can happen I have to ask the kids to fold the clothes that are stacked across the dining room table. I wonder how much encouragement will be required to make that happen?

Anyway. Better get on.

The greater part of my family travelled to Wembley Stadium today, and witnessed England win the European cup. While the game was going on I checked in on the score from time to time, and convinced myself that my life-long hoodoo about causing anything I root for to lose was still in effect.

I saw perhaps a third of the game in total, and cannot imagine the stress my other half and younger children were going through, among the nearly ninety thousand fans packing the stadium.

Ever since the final whistle, all manner of thoughts have been trying to organise themselves in my head. The commentary team on the BBC did a wonderful job in expressing many of them – touching on the generations of corruption, bias, sexism, and misogyny that have dissuaded generations of girls from playing at all.

Those of you living outside the UK might look at football as our “national sport”, and imagine a well oiled machine that operates from youth level all the way through to the professional and national teams.

The truth is somewhat depressing and more complicated than most imagine.

Most towns have any number of youth football teams. They are rarely connected at all with the larger teams in the area, and very rarely allowed to use any of their facilities or resources. Even when local clubs do integrate, the subscription fees gathered from the youth level rarely percolate back into anything for them.

When you then add in the prospect of a female team, the obstacles and hurdles grow taller still. All three of our daughters played for town teams at one time or another during their youth. I lost count of the weekends we spent trying to find a “last resort” football ground in the middle of nowhere because it was the only place the girls team could find to be allowed to play a game. I remember one CUP FINAL game in particular where the grass had not been cut for some time, and the ground beneath it more closely resembled a ploughed field than a football pitch.

In the middle of all of this, the miraculous thing is that you still find parents and coaches that fight to provide their children with a team to play with, and consistently go the extra mile – sourcing sponsorship, kit, footballs, goals, and so on.

And then of course you look at the men's game, and the “elite” level – where talented teenagers are pulled from school, have more money invested in them than they can possibly imagine, and who then attract the romantic pursuit off attention seeking social media influencers who aim above all else to become famous for being famous.

On top of all that nonsense you find professional players not wanting to play for the national team because they won't earn as much as they might playing for their clubs.

You can't make it up.

One of the commentary team this evening said something interesting – that the England women's football team won the European Championships not because of the system, but in spite of the system. I couldn't agree more.

The week is finally slowing down – affording me the chance to write a few words.

I'm heading into a quiet weekend – most of the family are going to the Commonwealth Games on Saturday to watch the rugby, and then the European football cup final on Sunday at Wembley Stadium.

I'll be hanging out at home with our eldest daughter. I predict horror movies, and all the movie snacks.

I have an admission to make. I stopped using my bullet journal a couple of months ago. While the routine of writing in a paper notebook does help me remember things, you cannot search it's contents – which has become the primary use-case in my world.

After ditching the bullet journal, I went all-in on Microsoft OneNote – mainly because it kept all my work stuff under the work roof – locked away in their Microsoft 365 platform. I have to say though – OneNote is garbage. It's kind of Microsoft's un-loved child, that is going to be replaced soon with “something else” (that will take several versions until it becomes useable).

With that in mind, I started to switch over to “Notion” this week. I've played with it in the past. It's kind of a clever mix between a notebook, and a database. I won't mansplain it – if you're interested in a free note taking app, go check it out – all manner of “influencers” found out about it last year, and started waxing lyrical about it.

Anyway. Enough geekery.

I've just been talking to my cousin in California – her kids are keen on playing Minecraft with ours, so I imagine I'm going to be teaching their Mom how Minecraft works, and getting everybody into a “Realm” soon. I have to admit – it's going to be fun. I guess I should re-install Minecraft then...