Cycles: 20250925-20260112

There’s been a backlog of cycles since September of last year and like those last few festive leftovers, sometime you just have to admit defeat and let them go to waste.

So long 2025! This isn’t that post though. Maybe I’ll write it someday, maybe note.

The UK has be battered by high winds and in some regions dusted, layered even, in snow. In Lewes we saw a faint dusting and then lots of rain. Lots and lots of rain.

With the the rain came mud. The well trodden path from my back door to my garden office is now caked in the stuff. It’s not a bad commute, but somedays I am nostalgic for an hour cycle over the South Downs to bookend my day.

The location does afford a regular view and orchestra of geese flying in formation to and from their local grazing grounds. It’s become such a familiar sight and sound that I can’t imagine a life without it. While the geese pass overhead, gangs of goldfinches pluck the seeds from what remains of the thistles. According to the BirdNetPi notifications, we’ve also been visited by goldcrests. A highlight was spotting their trendier cousin, the firecrest, or at least that’s what I thought I saw. Trendier still, I managed to spot the local kingfisher in full glory rather than it’s usual flash of blues, oranges and white.

I’ve been poking at a few bits in the garden but it’s not really all that receptive. At this time of year, if I’m honest, neither am I. The pond got a few minutes of my attention. We have plenty of oxygenating plants after a full season. I’m thinking about who else in my community might need some and what biodiversity they might be able to trade in exchange.

The festive period allowed me to spend some time reflecting how I use Obsidian. While I can’t, or choose not to, tend to the natural garden, I’ve been pruning and training the words in my digital garden.

My vault has become somewhat overgrown and chaotic with nest after nest of folders to enforce some sort of structure to my notes. This decision has now been abandoned and I’ve been slowly trimming everything back to a flat structure. This, and the newly introduced bases, have made me think a lot harder about the metadata of my notes across a wider system. This has meant grafting similar or repeated notes together, improving the quality and consistency of content. I’m excited to see the rhizomes of information flow across my vault and buds of wisdom bloom over 2026.

My Christmas came early in late 2025.

I had the pleasure of working with the talented and joyful design researcher Priti Veja on a longitudinal research study. As a researcher, or any design practitioner for that matter, you’re seldom gifted an opportunity to work closely with a peer. The project has be fascinating from a research perspective but also a lot of fun. If you’re looking for a top-rate, super talented design researcher contractor from February 2026, drop her a line before someone snaps her up!

Another gift was a day’s in-person research. It’s been far too long since meeting people face-to-face and it was a great reminder of a few things; the amount of rapport building, micro observations and nuance you get from being in a room with someone, the importance of a tech fallback in case something goes wrong (yes, it did) and the energising catalyst of embodied ‘doing’ together. It was a real high to end on and something I want to make time and space for in 2026.

2025 wasn’t the year of the bike but I’ve got high hopes 2026 will be. I need to get out more. There a whole world of adventure out there!