After a long hiatus I’m going to give the week notes another go, it’s been nagging at me that I let it drop.

This week has been ll about getting back into the rhythm of life in London after two months away. Frankly it has been a bit of a struggle, I miss the simplicity and pace (and much bigger flat) of Berlin. On the other hand though it’s been good to no longer be living out of a suitcase. I hadn’t realized it until I was away but I really enjoy the familiarity of my stuff. I have very few things, over the last few years I’ve tended much more towards a have few, very good things philosophy. Especially when it comes to cooking it is significantly less enjoyable when you don’t have good knives or pots and pans.

Anyway, this week was all about:

• My son started school, reception as it’s known here in the UK. This wasn’t that big of a transition for him as it’s the same school he’s been attending for nursery, so it went very smoothly. Nevertheless it felt like a bit of a milestone. We’re now hunting for someone who can pick him up after school two or three days a week. If that’s you, ping me. One dilemma that cropped up is that he now gets “homework” in the form of little stories we’re supposed to read with him, sounding out the words and such. I read with my son most nights, so no problem there, the problem comes that of course the stories are in English, and with my son I speak only German. I’m still not sure what the best course is to take on that and am doing some research on the best practice for bilingual reading education. Anyone who has tips should fire them my way.

• My 11 month old daughter has started at a new nursery. She is a total champion and seems never to get flustered by new people or situations, it all went excellently. One downside of the “settling in” process though is that it’s very drawn out, a few hours on one day, a few more the next, etc, so my schedule has been utterly chaotic this week. I’m really curious to see if she remains so relaxed as she gets older, it is fantastic.

• I spent a bit of time working out my schedule from now until Christmas, booked some trips to Bilbao (Lokku board meeting), Barcelona, and Berlin (wherecamp.de).

• On Tuesday we had the Lokku team summer event, which my colleague Alex did a great job documenting over on the Nestoria dev blog. The highlight for me was that it was the first team event I played no part at all in organizing, the activities were a total surprise to me. It was a good time, not least as we had great weather while scaling the O2. A good chance for the team to reflect on where we are with Nestoria and Lokku. On the one hand we’re a solid business with a global footprint, loyal customers and a motivated team. On the other we face the ongoing task of adapting to a changes in the market, renewing the team, and expanding globally. Our Indian product manager will soon head back to Bangalore to set up our office there, a big milestone for us, but also a big challenge for the team to manage. In short, much to be proud of, much still to do.

Other work related points of note:

• had a good meeting with the team from Inkling, one of the start-ups we’re invested in. Very refreshing to think about totally different problems.  They’ll have some news to announce shortly. Relatedly we’re in the final stretch of closing another new investment.

• our interview series over on the Open Cage blog is slowly but surely picking up momentum.

Outside of work the one area I’m really struggling with is finding the time to exercise. Since coming back to London I’ve managed to swim a few times, but do to the chaotic schedule I haven’t yet found any kind of rhythm.

That’s it, I’m running out of time. For the coming week the focus is: find childcare, exercise more, and try to find a repeatable schedule. I’m looking forward to all the events this week, but particularly #geomob on Tuesday eve.