Day: 21 December 2025

Weeknotes #152: lights, pies, and platforms

Festive routines, thoughtful volunteering, good food, trains, lights, gentle cheer.

Week commencing Monday, 15 December 2025

A close-up of a frosted window platform divider at Victoria Station. Bold black text reads "Celebrating 200 years of the railway." To the right, a stylised red logo displays the number 200, with the British Rail double-arrow symbol integrated into the design. The words "Pullman" are visible on the dark coach work above the window, and people are faintly reflected in the glass
The Pullman dining experience on a platform next to The Inspiration Train

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 7/7. (81%). Morning walks: 0/3 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 2/5. Total steps: 64,664

Life

  • I started the week by chopping veg for a beef casserole and setting it going in the slow cooker. I was keen to make something that felt at least marginally healthier than the previous evening’s dinner, so I stacked it with extra vegetables and kept the meat ratio relatively low. It looked promising for most of the day, but when I checked it later, it had turned a bit watery. I thickened it up and added some mushrooms in the final hour, which rescued it nicely. In the end, it was lovely.
  • We eventually decorated the Christmas tree, but went for more lights and fewer baubles than usual. I really like it, although I am glad we did add some decorations, as it looked a bit sad in the daylight.
  • Tuesday’s technology team meeting was accompanied by coffee and mince pies. My colleagues didn’t win, even though they were nominated.
  • Related, we don’t know what they were nominated for, so we don’t know which award they lost out on. But it was nice that they were recognised for something.
  • Wednesday, I took a volunteering day, where I helped out at the Merton Memory Hub’s Christmas party. Four of us from work were there to help set up and serve snacks. There was a choir, and we sang Christmas songs together. Everyone was lovely, and it felt good to be involved in something genuinely worthwhile.
  • Thursday, the usual bar was closed for a private event. So we found somewhere else, and my round was still nearly £30.
  • Friday, I thought the Post Office would be rammed, but I was helped really quickly, and the package was, indeed, delivered on Saturday. After last week’s frustrations, perhaps my faith in Royal Mail has been restored.
  • That evening, to Soho, where the Christmas lights are based on drawings by a local primary school. I think they’re charming. Apparently, only six designs were chosen from more than a hundred entries, making them feel even more special.
  • Saturday, I took a regular commuter train to London’s Victoria Station. But there were three special trains in the station that morning. I was there for the Railway 200 Inspiration Train, which was on a platform right next to the British Pullman dining train, where guests were being serenaded off on their voyage.
  • And sensibly, a few platforms away, Santa’s Steam Express was being readied by the elves. If there hadn’t been adequate platform separation, there might have been a clash of Santas.
  • After Saturday afternoon’s Christmas lunch with friends, we tried to find somewhere nearby for a drink, but most Wimbledon pubs were already full. Eventually, we found a table at The Alexandra that was free for an hour before a booking was due to arrive, which was enough time for a drink before we all went our separate ways.

Media

  • We watched Spirited again, the 2022 Christmas musical comedy loosely based on A Christmas Carol. Obviously, the Good Afternoon song was still funny.
  • A bit more Stranger Things. I’m starting to enjoy it.

Insta Rewind: 2010-2013

Christmas, a Royal wedding, the Olympics and Nico Rosberg in a single blog post. Really.

Last week I noted that it’s 10 years since I first posted in Instagram and that I was going to spend a little time to find one picture form each year that invoked a memory. Here goes:

Friday, 24th December 2010

2010 was a year of change. I moved jobs and had gone from a company with thousands of employees in the UK based in Victoria to one where there were 2 of us working in Britain for a US adtech start-up. We based ourselves in a small serviced office just-off Tottenham Court Road. We put up some magic whiteboard so we could scrawl on the walls without damaging them. We didn’t hang Christmas decorations because they would also damage a wall we couldn’t afford to pay to fix, so, as PY & I were spending Christmas in London and I worked Christmas Eve in the office alone, I drew a Christmas tree to make it feel more festive.

Thursday, 28 April 2011

The wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton was to take place the next day at Westminster Abbey. Wedding Day, the Friday, was declared a UK holiday and we’d all have the day off, which made for a nice long bank holiday weekend. While my Dad was working away, we invited my Mum to come to London and be a little closer to the action. She arrived just after 2pm on Thursday afternoon and, after I met her at Euston, we strolled through the city to soak up the pre-wedding atmosphere. I recall walking through Green Park to Buckingham Palace and seeing worldwide TV crews preparing to cover the main event. We walked along The Mall chatting to the crowds already camping out for a front-row view. There were people from all over the world and some of them had Royal family masks. I recall it was a lovely, party-like, atmosphere.

Tuesday, 19 June 2012

I have so many pictures of 2012. The Olympics came to the city and for two months there was an incredible buzz everywhere in London. When reviewing my feed I thought it might be hardest to select an image from 2012 but this jumped out. As 2012 progressed, I’d taken a few pictures of the Trafalgar Square countdown but every time I saw that clock the Olympic events still felt a long way from happening. My morning commute was a train to Waterloo and walk across the Thames, up Charing Cross Road to the office. This was the morning I saw the first of the signs that would guide visitors to Olympic events: they’d put it up at Waterloo and on my way to work I snapped a picture. And it was the first time I’d really seen the Olympic pink in such a huge block. Suddenly it all started to feel quite real and, therefore, exciting. In many ways this was the beginning of the amazing summer.

Friday, 28 June 2013

Every year, for about ten years, I went to Silverstone for the British Grand Prix. Each year, bar the year I only went for the day, I was on a campsite opposite the circuit. Except, for 2013, when we paid a stupid amount of money to stay in a Snoozebox (a kind of prefabricated, portable hotel) that was erected – almost on the circuit – for the event weekend. That year we were grateful for the shower, power and shelter at this point of the weekend when it was still very wet (I recall the race itself was dry). Seeing F1 live is different to watching on television: the smell of rubber at the start and the noise of the engines which can not be conveyed in a broadcast. First practice, on the Friday morning, is always one of the best experiences for the pure joy of seeing – and hearing – the cars on the track for the first time. I spent years trying to perfect a picture of an F1 car at speed. I am not sure I ever succeeded but on a wet Friday morning, a Mercedes turns the corner at Luffield, and I thought the picture worth posting. Nico Rosberg went on to win (I think this is Nico but the picture is a little blurry).

So, my ten year review is taking longer than I imagined, the next three will be tomorrow (I hope).