2022- Replenish.

Yearnotes

I’m finishing work for the year today, and looking forward to a break with family over the Xmas period. I started the year choosing a word for the year — replenish (inspired by Brigette Metzler — thankyou). Doing that has stood me in good stead all year, by providing a north star against which I thought about my decisions and choices, large and small. I didn’t always get it right — because old habits are very hard to break, but the important thing is I tried, and it made a difference. I managed 27 weeknotes this year (so clearly not every week!), but it’s a reflective habit I’m pleased I have.

I made a commitment to be more active — including raising my step count which had plummeted during the pandemic — I’m now at a 11,000 day average for the year which I’m pretty proud of. And I’m cycling more.

I am also writing these yearnotes acutely aware of the privilege that allows me to make these choices and how lucky I am to be able to make them. And I am eternally grateful to all the wonderful friends and family in my life. You know who you are.

Winter

I really dislike winter. I’m not a fan of cold, and snow and dark. Winter of 2021/22 felt particularly hard — we were emerging from the pandemic and the cyber attack, and I was tired and anxious. In January I caught covid for the first time, which was unpleasant, and it also forced me to slow down. In February I had to have an operation on my wrist* which again, made me slow down.

I also made a big decision to leave Hackney and join Public Digital. To be brutally honest I couldn’t actually believe Public Digital would want to hire me and I said yes before they could change their minds. It turns out that (unsurprisingly) of course they know what they’re doing.

Leaving my colleagues at Hackney was hard though, and sad. I’m incredibly proud of the work we did in the 4 years I was there, and that they’re continuing to do there.

Spring

As the days got lighter I prepared to leave Hackney, and also finally got to see my family in Australia, after 4 long years. (Apologies for all the gorgeous beach photos on social media). Having family far away is always hard, not being allowed to see them is even harder.

I also took a bit of time off between jobs. I’ve never done that before. I needed it. I swam, I walked, I read, I went on a yoga retreat with a friend and I thought about my word for the year, replenish.

Summer

I started at Public Digital and then immediately went on holiday with my family. Herding two adult children into agreeing dates for a family vacation meant I’d organised and committed to that break waaay in advance.

And then I got stuck into the work, with my exceptionally lovely, brilliant, welcoming colleagues. The onboarding was superb, the honesty, kindness, support from everyone and the work itself is great. I felt (and still feel) very lucky.

I kept swimming (there’s a theme here), walking and deliberately designing my day, every day. Forming new habits, practising them.

Autumn

Started to feel a bit more confident at work — getting some solid delivery under my belt felt great, as did talking to people about thinking about prospective new work.

I also got to spend some time in the Netherlands, signed up for an intermediate Dutch course at UCL and generally worked pretty hard. Kept swimming and found a new swimming buddy at work. We now have a regular early Friday morning swim and work catch up which is BRILLIANT.

Winter

Hmm, we’re back again in the dark cold days. I’m still swimming at the Lido (today was 1 degree in the water so I wouldn’t call it a swim as such, more a very quick dip accompanied by shrieking at how cold it is). It’s the getting in that’s important. So you know what winter — that’s me running towards you. . .

The work continues to be brilliant, interesting and worthwhile — on top of which I’ve done more public speaking this year than ever before (still makes me nervous every time), and it turns out I particularly love facilitating board sessions.

I don’t know what my word for 2023 is yet — I’ll be thinking about it whilst I take a break . . .

• top tip, don’t ignore fingers that go numb. I mean it’s obvious right, don’t do that.