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In the mirror, Sunday

Windswept, white tips splay forth, like piercing sunbeams, their roots merging into a medium-brown part just left of centre. A blonde wave gathers fine glossy strands upward and across, eventually disappearing from sight into a messy tuck at the back of the head. The hairline cascades, as if a curtain pulled back by ties, not once, but twice. Wispy soft tufts gather delicately before small, pinned ears ending in rounded lobes, each displaying a bright gem encircled in gold – a rare gift from her father.

An exercise in paying attention, after Anne Lamott.

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Pandemic policy update

National pandemic policy, effective from 23 January

Status: Strict lockdown with a curfew

• no-one is permitted to be outdoors between 21.00 and 4.30 without an official curfew exemption *
• no more than 1 person aged 13 or over at your home per day *
• visit no more than 1 other household per day *
• work from home. Only people whose presence is essential to operational processes can go to work *
• do not travel abroad and do not book trips abroad until 31 March *
• masks to be worn in indoor spaces
• public transport should be used for essential travel only
• no more than 2 people can form a group outside the home
• food and drinks establishments are closed, takeaways excepted
• all retail stores, museums, zoos, cinemas, amusement parks and other public spaces are closed
• no alcohol sold after 8pm

*revised from the previous policy update

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The shape of success

Earlier in the week I stumbled across an old personal note which triggered an everyday epiphany. The note was written in a very pragmatic Q and A format around 2018, after some years of disappointing freelance work. One question in particular caught my eye, it read What does success [in my work] look like to me?. I’d outlined five simple fundamentals:

  • autonomy over my work
  • feeling intellectually challenged
  • cooperative working relationships
  • being able to pass on knowledge through mentoring
  • being relatively financially comfortable

Returning to these fundamentals, so explicitly articulated, it dawned on me that I can count myself successful.

I never imagined that I would work anywhere other than small, boutique design studios, but sometimes, often, our abstract projection of success is incongruent with our granular definition of it.

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Pandemic policy update

National pandemic policy, effective from 15 December

Status: Strict Lockdown

• public transport should be used for essential travel only *
• no more than 1 group of up to 2 visitors to your home in one day *
• no more than 2 people can form a group outside the home *
• all retail stores, museums, zoos, cinemas, amusement parks and other public spaces are closed *
• do not travel abroad and do not book trips abroad until mid-March *
• work from home, unless that is not possible
• masks to be worn in indoor spaces
• no alcohol sold after 8pm
• food and drinks establishments are closed, takeaways excepted

*revised from the previous policy update

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Pandemic policy update

National pandemic policy, in place from 17 November:

Status: Loosened Partial Lockdown

• travel as little as possible *
• maximum of 3 visitors to your home in one day *
• no more than 4 people can form a group outside the home *
• all food and drinks establishments are closed, takeaways excepted
• museums, zoos, amusement parks by staggered appointment *
• work from home, unless that is not possible
• masks to be worn in indoor spaces
• retail stores closed by 8pm
• no alcohol sold after 8pm

*revised from the previous policy update

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All eyes on the presidency

Over the last four days I’ve been unusually attached to my phone, regularly refreshing The New York Times to note leads, margins and the percentage of reported votes.

First stats showed strong support for Trump – at face value looking as though the polls had got it all wrong. Again. Cue flashbacks to the 2015 EU referendum and the 2016 US and 2019 UK elections. But pandemic disruption in 2020 has impacted voting methods too, with an unprecedented proportion of ballots being lodged by mail. Those inclined to vote by mail for reasons of social distancing tend to be science-led and Democratic-leaning, located in more densely populated counties which take longer to tally. Hence, the widespread approach of counting in-person votes first and mail-in votes second created a false sense of ‘count manipulation’, or as Trump would call it ‘voter fraud’, as Arizona and Nevada, and more critically Pennsylvania and Georgia slowly turned blue.

Read more

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Pandemic policy update

National pandemic policy, in place from 4 November

Status: Tightened Partial Lockdown

• travel as little as possible. Travel by bicycle or on foot for short journeys if possible *
• have as few visitors to your home as possible, maximum of 2 per day maintaining 1.5m of distance from each other *
• no more than 2 people or 1 household can go somewhere or do something together, not counting children under 13 *
• all public locations must remain closed. This includes: restaurants, cafés, bars, cannabis cafés, libraries, cinemas, concert halls, all kinds of music venues, theatres and similar cultural venues, museums, presentation venues, heritage sites, zoos, amusements parks, casinos, amusement arcades, swimming pools, tour boats and sex establishments *
• masks to be worn in indoor spaces
• work from home if possible
• retail stores closed by 8pm
• no alcohol sold after 8pm
• all food and drinks establishments are closed, takeaways excepted

*revised from the previous policy update

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Follow the river

Today we followed the Kromme Rijn out of Utrecht for a short distance, returning via Erasmaslaan and the Rietveld Schröderhuis before heading into the neighbourhood of Schildersbuurt (which got me checking house prices on Funda). We were very happy to stumble across Olijfje, a very well-stocked organic grocery store which will probably become our go-to when we move to Adriaen van Ostadelaan on the 1st of December.

On a good day it would be nice to follow the river much further to Wijk bij Duurstede, a 29km walk southeast. Two more routes: the 5km Rietveld route, and the Singel Park 360° which loops Leiden’s old city.