After an extremely sunny weekend visiting my favourite bakery Cookies and Scream and having a go at my first cycling time trial I arrived in on Monday and made the last few changes to my note that had come out of the internal review. I also (maybe a bit late?) wrote my summary for the website: which you can read here. Parliament have a group called ParliAble which aims to increase awareness and appreciation of disability issues on the Parliamentary estate. I attended one of their British Sign Language workshops at lunchtime which was great! I now feel I could at least begin a conversation using BSL, although I'm not sure how fast the conversation would flow...
Tues
Today I did some sorting out: adding my contacts to the POST database and making sure the correct files were loaded into the right places on the shared drive. I also looked at who I had spoken to and thought about who best to send my note to for external review. It's important that any business who is mentioned explicitly can view the note before it goes out, and also that people from government and the third sector are also involved.
Wed
This morning I had to spend some time editing a paper relating to my PhD - it felt like looking back at a different world. I think it's going to take some time to adjust back from Big Data to Chemistry when I go back! By the afternoon, Lydia had had a chance to look over the changes I'd made after the external review and we spent the afternoon discussing the details around wording, and the effect of some of the re-structuring.
The evening was fun - my Dad used to run for Thames Hare and Hounds running club, and realised a few weeks ago that while I'm here I live near where they train and so forwarded me some of their newsletters. They were organising an event called the Parkland relays - an opportunity for teams of 3 women or 4 men from local clubs to compete over 5k laps. I was welcomed as a member of a THH team, and we went on to win the women's race - I also came 10th out of the 101 women! They also have a spare number for the BUPA London 10k this weekend, so that's my Sunday sorted! I was really pleased, as I managed to speak to someone who was captain of the club when my Dad was there, and winning under my Dad's 'colours' felt pretty good. The photo below shows the winning team and one of my Dad's old running partners.
Thurs
I spent today making the changes Lydia and I had discussed yesterday before heading off early to give blood.
Fri
Back with another iteration this morning, I made what I hoped to be the last changes before sending it off the external review. I drafted all the e-mails to reviewers and the board, as most of them needed to be individually personalised. After one final check over the changes with Lydia, I sent off the note to external review! Big sighs of relief all round and a perfect start to the bank holiday weekend.
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