My pal V declared 2025 'The year of the blog' and I've gotta say, I am willing it to be true. I joined Bluesky in the hope of revisiting the Twitter glory days of the past, but have regrettably discovered (again, after failed forays into Threads and Mastodon) that... I have nothing to say?* Apart from, apparently, once a month, where I braindump all my doings and thoughts here with the help of these drawings. So thanks for reading, and if you have a blog, send it to me so I can read it?
(*I am going to persist with Bluesky though as lots of nice people are there and I do occasionally have something stupid I want to spit into the void)
February 1st was (as it is every year) hourly comics day, and you can see all of those here.
Perhaps because I was in the hourly comics headspace, I did a very panel-y Sunday drawing (but also I think because I was busy and did lots? Went to Quaker meeting, then travelled into central London, saw the weird Ikea popup, helped at a Samaritans event, stole lots of canapés from said event, then came home and had pizza with Spen)
I feel like Jessie may have got to the point where she is about as easy as she'll ever get to deal with day to day (that is to say, not EASY, but bearable). As long as we keep her out of other people and dogs' way on walks (sometimes easier said than done), walk her on the same familiar route, and minimise the amount of interactions she has with traffic, she can have a fairly chill time. Luckily in our park there are lots of edge-bits where not that many other people walk, so I was able to chuckle at this moment of overwhelm she had (because we were well out of the way of everything happening so there was no risk of her lunging at anyone). All at the same time, a man running strangely went past (she HATES when men run strangely, and they do it a LOT), an unusually loud plane flew overhead, a train went past sounding its horn, some men were emptying the bins loudly (how dare they), one of Jessie's 'enemy' dogs went past, and right behind her some birds were fucking about in a bush. She had a big moment of trying to figure out which she should care about the most (which reminded me of this meme)
Teaching — a blessing and a curse
I told the vet that Jessie was very anxious (and may be reactive) for her annual jabs appointment (with a view to booking an appointment at a quieter time, and ideally a longer appointment), but the lovely vet offered to drop in at our house on his way home to do the jabs. Jessie was still mad about it but did recieve many treatos, and managed not to do anything very naughty (mostly just a lot of anxious, evasive behaviour). She wore the muzzle for about 2 minutes without throwing a tantrum about it too. Good girl.
We hadn't seen our pal Vaishnavi in aaaaages (mostly because we've all been busy working and Vaishnavi has now devoted her life to K-pop which seems like a pretty full time hobby). She kindly invited us over to hers for DELICIOUS dinner (including chutneys and pickles made back home in India by her gran)
One way of knowing that my mental health is in a broadly good place is that my motivation to consistently cook elaborate new things is high! I made this banh mi and it was AMAZING (that website is truly horrible to use though, sorry) — the recipe also made so much that I had it for lunch for days, and did not get sick of it!
Did another London Loop section with Jay — it was a drizzly day and a
fairly drab section, but good to power through it. It was quite a long
section, and right on the other side of London (up past Harrow) so a
long day, and I got off the train at my local station at the end of it
feeling knackered. As I left the entrance I saw a flash out of of the
corner of my eye which I initially thought was a fox, but quickly
realised was a pure white dog, some kind of skinny german shepherd
looking guy, running freely around, with no collar, and no visible
owner. I looked around me and some other people said he'd been racing
around for quite a while, and they were worried about him running into
traffic (which he had been doing).
The people outside the station didn't seem especially motivated to do anything about the situation (in fairness to them, the dog was moving very fast). The dog seemed perfectly friendly, but extremely unwilling to be caught. I chased him down into my street (I live just a couple of minutes jog from the station, #blessed), and some other people joined the chase, including some neighbours. We eventually pinned him down in someone's garden, where he rolled over, tail wagging, and showed us his belly. I caught him with a slip lead I'd grabbed from the house, and once the immediate adrenaline rush was over, I was like 'oh, what do I do with this manic guy now' (flailing at end of lead)
So we took him home
to regroup, where he proceeded to climb over everything, get into
everything, and be entirely incapable of sitting still. He was clearly super bright, very amenable to learning, and without a
vicious bone in his body. He wolfed down some dinner and took a big
drink, shat on our floor and stubbornly refused to wee in our garden.
It was clear he was a young dog (probably around a year old, maybe younger), and still full of a lot of wiggly adolescent energy. Jessie was mad about it and gave him what for, and he did show her appropriate submission, but still proved entirely incapable of not annoying her, so we had to seperate them. Because it was a Sunday afternoon, the council dog warden was not on duty, and the local vet was closed. I'd initially been happy to keep him overnight, but after a couple of hours it became clear that if we did we would probably not sleep (and it would be unfair on Jessie), so I started calling round slightly further afield emergency vets, and eventually found one who would scan him for a chip and take him in.
I christened him 'Cheese' (because I think food
names for animals are funny), and at around 19.30, we multi-harnessed
him up (to avoid another escape) and took him to Streatham to the
emergency vet there. By the time we dropped him off we were quite sad to
say goodbye to him (though I was also extremely glad to see the back of
him, I think my partner would have kept him).
He did have a chip, and the vet said his owners did eventually come and get him. I am glad he's safe but also feel pretty judgy about owners who would walk him without a collar (and in a way that it was possible for him to get loose, that dog CLEARLY needs a harness as he's way too wiggly for a lead alone). I really hope his life improves a bit, as he was so smart and ready to learn.
(The vet told us he's actually a Swiss Shepherd, so it made me laugh that I called him Cheese — Swiss Cheese. Apparently his real name was Archie which is extremely not as good)
Bye Cheese, miss u.
Sorry, this is a horrible concept, but that's what it was! Had my smear test (a strange signifier of the passing of time, how was the last one three years ago?!) then went into Croydon to a piercing shop as I've decided to start stretching my ear lobes (not much, don't worry mum :), and needed a piercer's assistance removing the old screw earrings I'd been wearing since around 2018 (he also used a taper to insert the first stretch).
Been having more bad guts time than usual this month which sucks. Not sure if it's an IBS flare up or something related to my new and improved natural periods (now I am not on the pill they're much more... powerful)
I hate feeling ill while I'm out, especially while I am out doing something fun! (In this case, scoping out the Wellcome for a student trip later in the month)
Despite Friends House and the Wellcome Collection being basically next door to each other, I for some reasons scheduled these errands on two seperate days?! I am an idiot
My partner has been rewatching all of Red Dwarf. Growing up I thought it was kinda stupid and 'for boys' but have been enjoying it much more than I expected to.
We don't really celebrate valentines day, but nonetheless, here's a valentines day tribute to this cutie
Jessie also likes a lie in (I respect that about her), but when I sleep in especially late, she comes and puts her face right next to mine to ask for a cuddle, and it's very sweet.
I am pretty sick of this haircut but don't know what else to do! And so I persist
Over reading week, our students did a project which involved decorating one of our hallways with a lot of mirrors. Here's a silly drawing of it.
I am EXTREMELY PLEASED with this drawing (I went to a Quaker study group thing and we all had tea, here's a depiction)
Ready for winter to be over and my hands not to be fucked any more :(
Played Wilmot's Warehouse with V and friends and really liked it! (Though am curious about how much re-play potential it has)
After reading week, started teaching two brand new units to our BA UX students, and was ruined by self-doubt (is this good content?! Are the students enjoying it?! Are they learning?!) Had some light relief by teaching a guest workshop on MA Data Vis for one of my fav colleagues — despite it being my first time teaching at MA level it felt a lot lower pressure than the other stuff I was trying to do that week!
Went to a weird workshop at Pushkin House about potatoes. Felt socially awkward but had a nice time... extracting starch!?
I don't WANT to use hormones as an excuse, but damn, since coming off the pill, as well as being a lot less depressed, I am also annoyingly a lot more irritable, and not just at predictable times of the month. I hate being grumpy! But I guess it's better than being dead inside.
A fun day of introducing our students to SYSTEMS THINKING! (And trying to get them to draw systems...)
Then the next day, took students for their trip to the Wellcome collection. We were asking them to explore the permanent 'being human' exhibition, and to pick 3 – 5 artefacts that particularly interested them. Felt like it would be hypocritical not to also do the exercise myself, so here are my 5 fav artefacts from the exhibition.
After hanging out with Cheese earlier in the month I have a newfound appreciation for how much Jessie loves to snooze.
Classic freelancer pain, however...
...the truth of the matter is that all of the work I have on currently is good, and fun, and lucrative, APART FROM one piece, which is nothing but suffering — mostly because I am being asked to do work I don't know how to do, and don't have the time to learn how. I've previously politely tried to extricate myself from the job, but the client was not taking no for an answer — after several hours of trying (which I didn't feel able to bill for, because why should they put up with my learning time), I STILL couldn't figure out how to do the task at hand, and felt increasingly jittery about the backlog of other work that was buiding up behind me, so (regretably) had a little cry at the client about it. Will they ever work with me again? WHO CAN SAY!! Have I got out of doing this work? UNCLEAR! Oh well. Had a nice dinner over at Camille and Cathy's place and played a far-too-long game of Concordia to cheer myself up.
I am very much ready for spring at this point, as well as MARCH HOLIDAY ooooh (more on that next month, see u then I hope)
