Eventful weekend at the Cookham Dean gravity race. Held off posting until we knew everyone was out of hospital and ok. Started well. Had an early run number and dry weather window. Hoped to improve on last years 3rd place. (The child was not driving in the race!)

Two excellent approaches on LinkedIn, for ‘people like me’. Wealth management… lol… 80% of my career is in the public sector. Tailor made suit jackets. Do you do denim?

This was me. Had to get new school uniform, shoes and trainers for all three children.

Absolute scenes in the school WhatsApp group after the PE schedule has been released - clearly stating Y3 need to come to school in kit on Tuesdays and Fridays. Kids go back this Friday. Parents in WhatsApp “so do they wear PE kit this week?”

Having had bikes stolen, I’d add a bit more to this guardian article on bike locks www.theguardian.com/thefilter/20... Less than gold rated lock will be no barrier to thieves in London. Even then, if your bike is worth £1k+ it won’t stop them - spend £250+ on the angle grinder resistant one.

Fun afternoon skating with the kids. The boy has gone from awkward to steezy in the blink of an eye.

My partner’s 80 year old parents did their first parkrun this morning ❤️

More sending it off things while walking with the family. Rude to walk past a perfect spot like this.

Taught the kids about water safety today. Check for depth before yeeting from tree.

Couple of weeks in the mountains now. Glorious stuff.

Where do you get dinner for fussy kids halfway through France on the way to the alps? 🇸🇪

This thing is garbage. Bring back the Biscoff McFlurry.

I did a fun Q&A with @danneidle.bsky.social for FT Alphaville. on.ft.com/3H7w57N

Last week in my current role - have managed to get a trip to the opticians, dentist and physio all squeezed in before I lose my health benefits plan 😅

📝 I am proposing 12 new holidays to help manage our digital lives. daverupert.com/2025/08/digi...

That the default position is citizens have to pay a private software company to pay their taxes is, frankly, bonkers.

Love to know how real this is. Get a sense they’re also burning through the massive piles of cash they’ve been hoarding for the last 10yrs - is the model sustainable with the huge capital investment required to buy all those GPUs?

A small, but important part of local gov reorganisation is building great websites for the new councils. Post on some of things I did back in 2020 and what I think you should do now benunsworth.co.uk/2025/07/30/L... Stacks that I have left out, including building a bonus jobs site. Happy to chat!

AI watercolours of the property, exactly what I need to help with this house hunt.

Back to writing things down on the internet again. Starting gently with some weeknotes after many hours fiddling around with Jekyll and Github pages benunsworth.co.uk/2025/07/27/w...

Surprised the article doesn't include pictures of the gardening tools. I have attached to this post. FWIW, I am pleased the police stop people who are carrying things like this on their belt in public www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Partner having an awful day with the kids at Wendover Woods. Off lead dogs with no recall and our 5 year old who’s terrified of dogs. Not just out on the trails, but in the kids play areas too. If your dog has a tendency to run up to people and doesn’t have perfect recall, it need to be on a lead.

Put some fake grass under the monkey bars. Local feline territorial war was being fought through aggressively shitting in the playbark / chippings previously there. Look forward to the morning and seeing if territorial shittings (a Nirvana bootleg) extends to Astro turf,

www.theguardian.com/money/2025/j... Yes.

If you're out for a walk on this gorgeous Sunday, please look out for any memorial benches. Snap a photo of the inscription and upload to openbenches.org You'll need to make sure "location" is enabled on your camera. THANKS GANG!

BlueSky verified my age as quickly as the Sainsburys cashier who feels the weight of my ennui and hits ‘visibly over 25’ without as much as a sideways glance.

So I feel very strongly that there aren’t enough good resources to tell people what mobile games are actually fun and not just a Delaware corporation lunging for your wallet and I’m going to start a thread. Sam’s IOS Game Thread START:

Just imagine a world in which streets were cleaner, high streets better maintained, crime was a bit lower, there were more good jobs, public transport was a bit more frequent, council tax bills didn't go up 5% every year, some new libraries and leisure centres open. These are things people notice.

It’s absurd that there isn’t something in the curriculum about investing. It took me well into my 30’s to figure this stuff out… by which time I’d missed 15 years of potentially compounding investment (in low risk trackers of course)

Honestly, can none of you read? You can still use BSky without going through adult verification. > For people who are under 18 or don’t want to go through this process, we’ll make adult-appropriate content inaccessible, and we’ll disable features like direct messaging. bsky.social/about/blog/0...

Having had an absurd number of organs removed from her abdomen as preventative cancer treatment, my mother has been discharged from intensive care to her own room. She will be taking refreshments on her private balcony while England play India 🏏.

Quinn Simmonds, looking like he should be at NASCAR, is the best styled rider of this year’s Tour de France. That 🇺🇸 national champs jersey is exceptional, as is the Mississippi mud flap / handlebar tache / wrap around shades combo.

Decide to de-stress with some morning lifting 🏋️… but have to tidy everyone else’s shit away before I can start. After a weekend of doing this at home, I can see how people have very public breakdowns 😡

My mum’s just had a 10 hour surgery to deal with a rare and aggressive cancer. The small silver lining in this ordeal is that if she gets out of the ICU quickly enough, her private room has a banging view of the test match at Lords.

The Village Shop got air con installed. It’s averaged 16 degrees today… I’m on my third visit.

Hawking our wares at the village fete. First dip of a toe into selling some crafted stuff.

Brilliant show by Stephen Wilson Jr. last night in Bristol. He’s playing Glastonbury if you’re lucky enough to be there

Getting there with Steve’s Lava Chicken. Price of gold means gilding this is going to set me back a tenner ⭐️

Village fete next week and it seems we’ve volunteered to sell some craft things. Getting some reverse glass bits finished.

The parish council has voted to disband our working group looking at new community facilities. Looks like the skatepark won’t be happening after all. It’s like living in an episode of the Archers. We’ve clearly upset the wrong people. The parish councillors will now decide what’s best.

This is on my all time top 5 TV series.

A pretty remarkable few weeks with a new client in government. A timely reminder of how fast and far you can go with empowered teams. Infrastructure as code, reusable components, reform-minded civil servants and iterative development with users.

Cantankerous vibes in here today, guessing it’s the weather 🥵. Treat yourselves to an ice lolly 🍭

Do people at David Lloyd put the weights away after they’ve used them? I would switch my £23 a month membership for £300 per month if there a guarantee that people tidy up after themselves

Village Fete.

Gary Rhodes sneezed on me on an escalator.

Really interesting and I think very insightful thread on Mumsnet about just how entirely different the intergenerational financial experience has been:

This is me 😅. Will be relying on the local gov pension I built up to pay my mortgage into my 70’s

@localgovdrupal.bsky.social does bins www.drupal.org/project/loca... Very cool module for integrating with your waste collection data and letting residents know when it's bin day. Don't just look out the window and see what your neighbours are doing - be the neighbour they look to.

Great interview with Prisons Minister James Timpson on.ft.com/3H9BkDy