It’s been a great week, people have been in touch, commenting how my week-notes were useful and clearer which will do me.

Leading meetings, design work and being in the thick of things have brought back my design-mojo, and mentoring again is such a fulfilling thing that I must insist we all do it, whatever level, whatever job - always pass it on.
We also had a midweek stop off in Manchester for some cocktails, pies and friends - yes please.

Also, check out this week’s podcast recommendation - it’s a good’un!

What did I enjoy:

Catching up with past directs (people I line-managed in the past) was a great highlight, being asked for advice still feels great and knowing I can provide this from experience feels like my worry of losing and missing line-management duties is a thing of the past.
Was asked to plan an ideation session, which, as a refresher allowed me to re-read past case studies and this one in imparticular around running discovery for the DWP design system (I will be re-writing this case study as my tone of voice doesn’t sit right with me!)

Met my dearest friends that I use to knock around with in California all those years ago in Manchester as they do a tour of England, Evelyn and Jonathan. Was so much fun, we went to The Washhouse in Manchester, it was cocktail mad (I was the driver so thankful they had a wicked selection of booze-free), what was brilliant was Emma booking the table for 2 hours thinking it did food… but we treated the lovely American’s to Pie Minister - the pies of champions. Let us not leave it so soon to catch up with each other next time eh!

Still waiting for the sign and sealed contract for the extension.. will keep you posted.

What challenged me:
Knowing my time working with a wicked content designer (Richard) is coming to an end this week is always sad, we have made some great strides together and have had a great relationship of challenge, support and growth - pushing each other on and being each others cheerleader when the workload has grown. Jasper’s sleeping habits.. this little angel child is 2, and still hasn’t quite grasped how sleeping works, I on the other hand am 40 - I know how sleep works and how much I’m not getting!

Another thing that made me feel a little shaken, was knowing a friend who had a contract (his first) lined up for weeks, suddenly got pulled last minute, I posted it on Linkedin - If you know anyone who needs a Developer, get in touch with Bernard!

What am I looking forward to next week?
We have Mans Market on Sunday to celebrate Mother’s day, which I can already feel hunger levels for.

The impending arrival of a Mega Drive, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo GameCube and the original Nintendo NES are all coming pretty soon. All of a sudden my office is going to look packed!

A warning - the links below are football heavy.. but hardly any football is discussed!

Youtube of the week:
Certainly worth a watch is the interview with Kevin Ball on the podcast Under the Cosh (youtube link), I remember this guy to be a tough player who played hard on the field, but what a great speaker and knowledge of people within the team environment.

Podcast of the week:
This one is the recommendation this week, I demand you listen to The High Performance Podcast with Ryan Mason(Spotify link), who, now an ex-footballer who left it all due to a very bad injury to become the youngest manager in the Premier League, a shared experience of ups and downs and incredible drive to succeed in trying circumstances.

Tune of the week:
Last week I recommended tracks that were easy listening, this week I’m going all in, volume 11 screamo, get your ears ready:
The Ghost Inside - The Outcast (Spotify link).

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