Goof Off

Having smashed through my to do list I found myself with a pair of thumbs to twiddle. This is rare for me but I found myself in a position to 'save my energy' with is the perfect euphemism for 'goof off'. For about an hour I just stood up, shuffled some bits around the office to help with the pack down and then enjoyed some time off my screen. Until people eventually got back to my emails that is, then I was jumping back into action. 

Our production team enjoyed our last meal together at an upmarket Italian place which was certified delicious. It was swell to buy a bottle of wine for the table and enjoy it in the company of the team and we reflected on the victory lap. Best of all, because we're all so quiet there was virtually no talking shop. 

I'm also delighted to report that my efforts to give up Margaritas for Lent are still going strong. 

Closing Ceremony

Caught up with my work after the first hour of the day, after that I was just treading water and watching the Winter Olympic closing ceremony. The wrap has been smooth so far, we're uploading all our documents in a gradual manner while I continue to plug away at the rest of the logging. The WiFi set up and a bunch of Luton vans went back today too, the list of kit I'm responsible for is ever diminishing. I left earlyish so I had the chance to get the house ready for Jamie who was coming over to visit. He's staying the night so we had a chance to catch up and hang out into the small hours. He's almost done with his PhD now and working in different Uni's around the country, but for now he's sleeping in our house and taking it easy.

Bristol Light Festival 2026

Only had a little over an hour to hoover the whole house in anticipation to have Mum and Dad over for a day of Bristol sightseeing. Two things on the agenda: 1. A nice Korean lunch. 2. The Light Festival. I do feel a little bad because in previous years the Bristol Light Festival has always been pretty underwhelming, but we wanted to give it a fair shake this year so we tried to see everything. Turns out, Bristol is quite a big city and the sheer step count required to see it all was no small order, what deflated our spirits further was just how hit or miss some of the exhibits were. I can charitably bumb up my evaluation of the even to 'almost good'. The ballerina shadow casting trail was easily the best thing, but most of the other stuff failed to say anything interesting beyond 'pretty colours'. 

The real highlight was being able to spend time with my parents however and doing something a little different with them. I never thought in a million years we'd be eating corn dogs in Cabot Circus. 

Margarita-ville

I tried to do my Blog last night but my fingers wouldn't let me. That was on account of the no less than 8 margaritas I had after a cute meal out with the Accounts team turned into a bit of a session. It was a rollicking good time but I spent all of today paying for it. Anytime I stood up my stomach contents threatened to jump out my mouth so I spent the day in bed, in the fetal position. Rebecca's grace was saint like, fetching me water and buttered toast on request. I still don't feel normal but hopefully tomorrow I'll be right as rain.

It goes without saying, for Lent I think I'll be giving up margaritas. 

Drag and Drop Everything

Went to sleep last night dreaming of my game plan for today, how I'd grind my to-do list under my heel. My ducks were in a row, all I had to do was make the magic happen. Instead, I'm hit with a nasty old curve ball from one of our departments, a classic one I should have seen from miles away... I had to back up all the photos off their iPads. A couple would have been pretty easy of course, but 50,000 of them was a little hard to fathom in the moment. That's a figure so great that the file copying process started to kick up a hissy fit, insisting I chunk it down into manageable pieces of a thousand photos at a time. Constantly tending to this becamey full time job for the day, the sticky tar of responsibility that dragged down all my other efforts. Even before bed right now I'm slowly watching a little progress bar full the screen so I can drag a set of files and do the whole thing over again.

Lock in and Pack Up

The paperwork wrangling continues, this time though there's a big ol' checklist to work against now. The team and I are chunking through it, while I independently finish up all of our sustainability reporting. It feels like there's a mountain to do still, but by this time tomorrow it's going to feel like it's all in hand. Everything is slowly winding down now and we're slowly packing things into storage crates now. Little by little, every trace of us will be scrubbed from our hired production office. But if you squint, you'll see our finger prints and our shadows lingering in the doorways.

Pancake Day 2026

Today marks a first for me, a work anniversary! It's almost unheard of to stick around on a film and TV job for an entire year but I've been blessed with a long haul job with a good gang of people so I feel incredibly lucky. It also happened to be pancake day at work (again) so we set up a little pancake station with fruits, syrups, lemon, sugar - you name it, we had it. As a bonus, I made some crepes for Rebecca and myself this evening which came out amazingly well. I am beyond stuffed now though, I'd be turning into a pancake if I had one more bite...