Sausage

Thursdays are usually pretty good for me because I don't allow any meetings. I can just get on with actual work instead of having to talk to people.

One fairly minor moan - I've got a load of annual leave I need to use up by the end of August so have booked every Friday off for the next six weeks. Sounds great in theory, but the amount of work hasn't been reduced, and I already had more than I could reasonably fit into a week. It does mean that today is technically Friday though, so I'll count it as a win. @sideone

My better half is off to aldi first thing so I'll be clowning around with the kids for an hour or so. I've been really wanting to do a Big Cook this weekend. It's too warm for a roast so I think I'll make burritos instead. Still fairly involved but the oven will only be on about a quarter of the time so hopefully less swampy.

Other than that, just pottering around the house. My eldest is off on a residential trip with school in September and needs to learn how to put a duvet cover on so that's one of my regular jobs palmed off.

Oof, sounds rough. Hope you recover soon. Also, brace yourself for "self-love" injury jokes from colleagues if you turn up with any sort of wrist brace/cast.

That's tea sorted then. Remember, don't go straight from rice krispies to coco pops, you need to break it up with the mutigrain shapes.

You could go the whole hog and top it off with hundreds and thousands.

Well, it's Saturday so that means the kids are allowed nutoka (aldi nutella) on toast. The eldest is making it for them both and I'm half-heartedly trying to dissuade her from having it an inch thick.

I downloaded Hitman from game pass last night and managed to get an hour or so in. Haven't played a Hitman game in a long time so quite enjoyed it.

Otherwise it's been the usual rotation of Rimworld and Forza, but also very much looking forward to Cities Skylines 2. Not sure I've ever been this excited about roundabouts.

I can't stop playing forza. I'm not usually a completionist in any sense of the word, but for some reason open world driving games really hook me in. Burnout Paradise was the last game I played to this extent.

A good film, a spoon and some shame to bury deep, deep down beneath all that delicious cream.

I think we are on the same page. I'm not trans myself, but I've definitely noticed increasing anti-trans sentiment amongst people I talk to. I agree that a lot of that is in reaction to increased media presence, but I also think that a lot of this is the typical pushing of the "us vs them" mentality that people in power find useful, it's just the people defined as "them" has shifted.

I'm still optimistic, but we need to be aware of these things, and push back against them when they crop up, otherwise that optimism will be in vain.

I'm a middle aged man with a family, two cats and a mortgage. I don't want to be having to fight for common decency to fellow humans, but increasingly feel like I'm being pushed to it. I'm tired, and I just want to potter about in my garden with a cup of tea.

Maybe compared to a generation ago things are better, but over the past few years there has definitely been a ramp up in anti-trans rhetoric, both from the media and right wing politicians.

Bathroom bills, legislation against gender affirming care, even media and literature bans in the US. And in the UK the Tories are increasingly trying to single out trans people, (unsuccessfully) excluding them from bans on conversion therapy. Even the PM was recently recorded making anti-trans jokes.

Last year Yougov published data showing an overall decrease in support for trans people compared to 2018.

It is better than it was a long time ago, yes, but it's not better than it was more recently.

Thanks for the update. Sounds like you're having an "exciting" time. You've done a great job so far and I hope that the additional help you are receiving means that you might be able to take some time off in the near future, for your own sake.

Edit: buy Ernest a coffee for those able to contribute