{"version":"https://jsonfeed.org/version/1.1","title":"Barry Frost — Weeknotes","description":"Weeknotes from Barry Frost","home_page_url":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes","feed_url":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/feed.json","language":"en","authors":[{"name":"Barry Frost","url":"https://new.barryfrost.com/","avatar":"https://new.barryfrost.com/barryfrost.jpg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/253-scorching","url":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/253-scorching","title":"Week 253 - Scorching","content_html":"\n- The forecasts were sadly right: temperatures hit the mid-30s for several days in a row, resulting in poor sleep, irritability and general lethargy. Our homes and bodies just don’t function in such heat.
\n- L and the kids thankfully had air-conditioning in their classrooms during the day, as did I in my office, but tower fans weren’t enough in the evenings at home. We’re strongly considering getting AC units installed ready for future extreme summers. It’s sadly our new climate.
\n- I still went ahead with Tuesday lunch plans in London with some ex-colleagues. I’d kept reasonably cool on the train in to town, but the Underground closure at King’s Cross meant I was sweaty from walking in the fierce afternoon heat to Euston Square. A few glasses of wine sat in the mercifully cool restaurant made up for it.
\n- I was then home in time to watch England struggle through a goalless draw against Ghana in the World Cup. After Saturday’s laboured 2-0 win against Panama, we’re now through to the knockout rounds, but need to improve.
\n- As the temperature dropped a little on Sunday, I went for a lovely coffee and catch-up with Calum who had cycled up from London. We used to meet regularly to organise the London IndieWeb meet-up over ten years ago. Time flies.
\n- Back home, I took the boys down some country lanes to collect sticks and leaves for an art project at school, keeping a close eye on the horse and dog poo piles they came perilously close to touching 🤦
\n- New personal website is getting closer. Soon.
\n
\n","date_published":"2026-06-29T12:11:00.000Z"},{"id":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/252-pigeon","url":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/252-pigeon","title":"Week 252 - Pigeon","content_html":"\n- We paid for our very overgrown hedges to be cut back and shaped. It’s not cheap, but the garden instantly looks smarter. It also means I can drive onto the street without risking scratches from bush talons.
\n- I then found a pigeon chick in the back garden, just out of reach of next door’s little dogs that were barking and scrambling furiously through the chain-link fence. I moved it to safety on the other side of the garden. A nest must have been disturbed by the trimming and the chick fell out. It’s gone now, hopefully back to its mother, or more realistically, has met a grizzly end 😬
\n- Our blocked guttering was cleared by a man with a long vacuum pole. We should now be able to avoid rain waterfalls soaking the brick wall on one side when the weather turns wet again.
\n- I spent Thursday at the Oval with Andy for the second day of England’s second test against New Zealand. NZ were the better team (and won on day four). Watching cricket in the glorious sunshine is the best, although we were all sweaty messes by early afternoon. We stayed well-hydrated of course.
\n- For Father’s Day, I received a shirt, a book on Japan and some chocolate to enjoy. I took C to his cricket practice, L cooked us lunch, then we all went to a Quaker meeting house for C’s piano recital with other junior musicians. He played The Bells beautifully.
\n- It’s getting hot.
\n
\n","date_published":"2026-06-22T11:16:00.000Z"},{"id":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/251-ping-pong","url":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/251-ping-pong","title":"Week 251 - Ping-pong","content_html":"\n- The World Cup is here and I am loving the wall-to-wall football. The scheduling of the matches isn’t ideal for our timezone, but I’m enjoying waking up to video highlights. And although the politics and grubby monetisation are awful, the purity of football is rising above. Over a month still to go!
\n- I watched Apple’s fairly low-key WWDC keynote. I was pleased to see further parental controls, and approve of the bug-fixing and performance improvements, but there was little excitement. Yep, AI is now in everything.
\n- It was my mum’s birthday on Saturday, so I drove the boys over for lunch and garden sports while L recovered at home from a busy work week. A milestone was reached: it was the first time H has beaten me at table tennis. He’s pretty good. Is it time for me to start researching zimmer frames? However, I did bowl him out and hit him for repeated sixes playing cricket. My parents were both on good form, and still spritely in their mid-seventies.
\n- Back home, I went for a few evening beers with local dads in the local pub. I’ve not drunk for a while, but kept to pints and didn’t disgrace myself.
\n- In the morning, I took C to his cricket practice while H went with his mum to his end-of-season football presentation. We then had a lazy Sunday afternoon on the sofa watching Germany’s 7-1 win. A quiet end to the week.
\n
\n","date_published":"2026-06-15T16:30:00.000Z"},{"id":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/250-coffee","url":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/250-coffee","title":"Week 250 - Coffee","content_html":"\n- It’s been a less hectic week after our Disneyland holiday. The boys had an INSET day on Friday, so L drove them to her parents’ for the weekend, while I stayed behind to work (and enjoy the peace and quiet).
\n- With some time to myself, I’ve been researching our big trip to Japan next year. Claude is helping, advising that we avoid Golden Week, and suggesting a tailored itinerary before it gets too warm or busy. Lots more work to do, but the planning has begun.
\n- I streamed a couple of films while L’s been away that she wouldn’t have liked: One Battle After Another - Sean Penn is superb - and Send Help - ditto Rachel McAdams. We’re also watching plenty of TV series, all of which release their new episodes each week. At least with linear TV you knew when to watch; with streaming, release patterns are frustratingly unclear.
\n- I tried the new coffee shop in the village for the first time. A local family bought what was an old sweet shop and have brought it back to life. Decent flat white, decent pain aux raisins. Even though I have my own nice coffee at home, I now have a good option when on the way back from a lunchtime walk.
\n- As is traditional, the boys organised a family sweepstake for the upcoming World Cup. I was stitched up. They drew eight countries for me, of which no-hopers, the US, was my highest ranked team.
\n- I’m getting closer to launching my new personal website. I’m 90% done, but I’m stuck on the design. While I’ve successfully used Claude with the back-end, I’ve not liked its front-end designs. I suppose that’s fine: a personal website should be personal after all.
\n
\n","date_published":"2026-06-07T12:20:00.000Z"},{"id":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/249-rollercoaster","url":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/249-rollercoaster","title":"Week 249 - Rollercoaster","content_html":"\n- We spent a wonderful half-term week at Disneyland Paris, staying in the nearby Davy Crockett Ranch with my parents.
\n- It was blisteringly hot all week. We decided to visit as the gates opened at 8:30am each day, heading back early afternoon when the temperature hit 30C+. Our early starts meant we avoided the extreme heat and also the obnoxiously long queues for popular rides. Even so, we were sweaty and tired by the time we got back to our air-conditioned cabin to recover.
\n- We ticked off some impressive rollercoasters, several of which were in pitch black. My parents skipped the most severe, but the rest of us bravely/foolishly dived in. After the unexpected vertical drops in the Tower of Terror, an ashen-faced C reasonably declared he’d had enough of scary rides.
\n- The ranch had its own swimming pool, restaurant, bar and shop, and we spent quieter evenings away from the main park itself. The separation worked well. It was only a short drive back and then we could have a normal family holiday around the cabins.
\n- I drove our EV to Paris and back. Charging was very easy, but our journey home on Friday took over 9.5 hours because of Eurotunnel/border incompetence and typical congestion leading up to the Dartford tunnel.
\n- And then, after the euphoria of Arsenal’s Premier League win last week, came the bruising defeat on penalties to PSG in the Champions League final. As a friend put it, the pain is good preparation for England’s inevitable penalties exit at the World Cup knockout stages this summer.
\n
\n","date_published":"2026-05-31T17:00:00.000Z"},{"id":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/248-trophy","url":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/248-trophy","title":"Week 248 - Trophy","content_html":"\n- Look, this weeknote is unapologetically dominated by Arsenal winning their first Premier League in 22 years. I completely understand it if you want to skip.
\n- It actually happened!
\n- After yet another nail-biting 1-0 for Arsenal on Monday at home to Burnley, Man City could only draw at Bournemouth on Tuesday meaning Arsenal had an unassailable lead in the table and were declared champions.
\n- I was watching Man City’s draw on TV. Both of my sons had decided to go to bed, but my guttural roar at full-time brought them back downstairs for bleary-eyed celebrations.
\n- I found it hard to process. I was so relieved it was done. I could only sit dazed on the sofa, absorbing every video and post on social media of the team’s celebrations and the hundreds of thousands of fans outside the Emirates.
\n- Taking the boys to school the next morning in my Arsenal top, I received high-fives and smiling nods on the playground, from parents I now know to also be Gooners. The grandmother I chat to about Arsenal at C’s cricket was beaming this morning. The sun is shining.
\n- And now, writing this on Sunday evening (for a change), after watching the trophy being presented after the final match at Palace, it’s sinking in. Arsenal is the constant passion that I trace through my adult life, back into childhood. From my first matches at Highbury in 1989 with my uncle, to taking my own family to the Emirates as a father. I love this club.
\n
\n","date_published":"2026-05-24T00:00:00.000Z"},{"id":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/247-city","url":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/247-city","title":"Week 247 - City","content_html":"\n- I was in the City on Thursday evening for a tech event. I first had to navigate my way through the rabbit warren behind Liverpool Street station, where workers were already fully into their Thirsty Thursday drinks. I’d forgotten how like a scene out of Industry it can be, with well-lubricated/chemicaled City boys in gilets spilling out of the pubs.
\n- Numi’s conference was worth the journey. After many years of being uncomfortable when networking, I just get on with it, including chatting to some of the product and engineering team at The Economist, one of whom was an Altium user in an earlier electronics career.
\n- The panel talks were on decision-making, strategy and (inevitably) AI. From a strong panel line-up, I enjoyed Conrad Ford’s comments on reducing dependencies to scale teams, for which he later recommended me The Geek Way, which I’ve just started reading.
\n- Back in leafy Hertfordshire, H is through to the final trial for the district football team, and has also been offered a place at a new club. Just ~£1,200 fees for the season 😳, including “three Adidas kits”. I expect them to be made of gold and diamonds.
\n- L’s parents stayed over on Saturday night, meaning we could have a few post-dinner drinks in the pub while they babysat. We joined an eclectic mix of locals, including a man having a loud speakerphone conversation about the recent death of a relative, and another man who came in with his dog (normal) and cat (not normal).
\n
\n","date_published":"2026-05-18T00:00:00.000Z"},{"id":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/246-film","url":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/246-film","title":"Week 246 - Film","content_html":"\n- Monday was a bank holiday: a welcome four-day work week.
\n- I took the boys to see the Super Mario Galaxy Movie at the local independent cinema. The film was better than I’d heard, although I’m a sucker for Mario nostalgia, so was always going to love it. My two enjoyed it almost as much as the McDonalds after.
\n- I baked my best banana bread yet. The leftover bananas I used were extra mushy, which I think helped.
\n- We finished watching the new series of Beef - fun, but not quite as good as the first - and have just started on the latest The Pitt, which continues the first series’ breathless, gripping pace.
\n- H has played a lot of after-school football this week, driven across the county by his mum for trials and taster sessions at potential clubs for next season. His current team lost their last league game away to local rivals, Welwyn Garden City, on Saturday, ending a very difficult season. Onwards.
\n- Meanwhile we rode an emotional rollercoaster watching Arsenal play West Ham. Their disallowed equaliser bounced us from despair to relief, made even sweeter by rival fans’ grizzling. Two league games to go to win the Premier League, plus a Champions League final to come!
\n
\n","date_published":"2026-05-11T00:00:00.000Z"},{"id":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/245-lights","url":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/245-lights","title":"Week 245 - Lights","content_html":"\n- For L’s birthday in February I bought her outdoor string lights for the garden. This weekend her festoon poles arrived so we could experiment with hanging them along one hedge. She now wants more for the other side. This could get expensive.
\n- I’m still battling Ikea’s cheap-but-unreliable Thread devices in my office. My bulbs and smart plugs keep dropping off my home network and refuse to reconnect. Rebooting border routers makes no difference. I’m close to binning them in favour of bog-standard wifi devices.
\n- Temperatures topped 24C on Friday so we enjoyed a couple of G&Ts sitting outside in the spring sunshine. Very pleasant.
\n- With the boys needing to burn off some energy at the weekend, I drove us all to Panshanger Park for a nice, long walk around the lake in the sunshine. There was only a little bit of grizzling, so I rewarded them with caramel shortbreads and cinnamon buns.
\n- A decent away draw in the Champions League and a thumping home win in the Premier League for the Arsenal. Ticking along nicely.
\n
\n","date_published":"2026-05-04T00:00:00.000Z"},{"id":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/244-hippo","url":"https://new.barryfrost.com/weeknotes/244-hippo","title":"Week 244 - Hippo","content_html":"\n- I’ve been taking Cetirizine for several years to combat hay fever/allergies, but I was starting to doubt its effectiveness. I switched to Fexofenadine this week and, so far, I’m much less sneezy and snotty.
\n- H spent the night away with his school class at Tolmers Activity Centre. It was a big hit, even if I lost track of all the fun details, like Human Hungry Hippos, in his breathless recount. It was his first residential: another little milestone chalked off.
\n- The sunny weather returned at the weekend and so we all went outside to enjoy the sunshine in the garden. However, our neighbours decided to fire up their circular saw, while others left their dog outside to bark constantly. I retreated indoors.
\n- I did however step outside to tire out one son in the park playing football, before taking the other son to his cricket session. I spend a happy hour-and-a-quarter each week sitting on a bench at the boundary, listening to music on my AirPods while he bats, bowls and fields. I particularly enjoyed his late cut with the bat.
\n- Arsenal beat Newcastle to return top. We watched the nervy 1-0 through fingers/behind the sofa. It’s still on.
\n
\n","date_published":"2026-04-27T00:00:00.000Z"}]}