Cycling Feeling pleased with this weeks efforts. No missed days. 338k done. Up and out early more often than not. Always happy to get an early ride in. Sets me up well for the day.
Work
Bit slow. Lots of people on annual leave. Finished a few bits on Friday I’d been putting off during the week.
Couple of meetings. I don’t get the way some people treat a meeting as an end in itself. Attending unprepared and with nothing to contribute. It seemed the only reason some were there was to fill a space in their calendar.
Listening Hours and hours of Soulful/Deep House DJ set playlists.
Family
No. 4 son got his GCSE results on Thursday. Mostly good or strong passes. He is the last of our boys successfully through general secondary education. I think spouse and I should get a certificate for that.
No 2. son arrived yesterday. Three of the boys are coming with us to Holland for a short break. Getting a ferry across on Monday. Harwich to Hook of Holland. About an hours drive from there to a holiday park we have stayed at four or five times before. They all have good memories of the place and wanted to visit, ‘…one last time’. Coming back on Friday. I’m happy they still want to holiday together and with with us. Two of them are adults though. It ain’t getting cheaper!
Photography Feeling more familiar with the camera (X-T4). Finding my way round the settings easier. Reconfigured the quick menu and custom settings. Left one of the custom slots clear with no tweaks. I’ve been shooting from that mostly this week and changing settings on the fly. It’s working out well. Certainly thinking more about what might work for the subject/scene. Feels like I am learning more this way.
Computer and internet I have published a new blog post every day this week. Blaugust has been a good motivator to write and think about writing more. Thinking about writing has led to reflecting on all manner of different things. Writing is helping to put some shape and form to those reflections. I’m learning lots from the practice.
Spent some time on the CSS and associated files to change up the look of this site. I have little interest and even less inclination to spend time learning all the ins and outs of how to do this myself. Been there done that kind of thing. These days I get an LLM to do all that grunt work. I prompt the LLM to, “comment the code according to best practice to help me learn and understand”. It’s a laudable aim but in all honestly mostly redundant.
I’ve been reading lots of other blogs. I’m drawn towards bloggers that share reflective posts and personal accounts of their day to day life. I manage feeds with NewsBlur. I like the homespun feel it has. Using a free account for now to limit myself to 64 sites. Doing so encourages me to curate and read rather than hoard and ignore.
Any Other Business So I tried fasting last weekend. It felt good to exercise more control over my eating. I had another go this week. It never went to plan on Tuesday. I adapted. Instead of complete fasting I followed the 16/8 method. Only eating between 1.00 pm and 9.00 pm. That went well so have been doing it each day since.
There’s a couple of ancient Greek words that chime with me. Akrasia and Enkrateia.
Akrasia is a philosophical concept from Ancient Greek meaning “lack of self-control” or “weakness of will.” It describes the state of acting against one’s better judgment: when someone does something they know isn’t the best course of action, typically succumbing to impulses or desires that override their considered intentions or long-term goals.
Enkrateia is the opposite term. Also from Ancient Greek, it means “self-control” or “being in power over oneself.” It describes the state of exercising mastery over one’s desires and actions, consistently acting in accordance with one’s better judgment and long-term intentions rather than being swayed by immediate temptation or impulses.
The 16:8 method of fasting has this week helped move more towards enkrateia. Not just with eating but in other areas of my life too. An example is getting up and out of bed for the early morning rides. The change in eating habits have been a shock to my system. I have at times been a bit more grumpy with things as the morning has progressed. I think my body is getting more used to it now. On a base level I am appreciating eating more than I ever did before.
Also on the food front - I spent a bit of time weeding and cropping the patch of callaloo I’ve grown at the bottom of our garden. First year I have tried. It’s done really well. Much better than any spinach I’ve tried to grow. You can use callallo wherever you might want to use spinach. Spinach is a favourite of mine. I use it for smoothies and in hot dishes with mushrooms and/or spuds.