#33 London, Memories and an Augmented Brain
Week of Monday 2nd – 8th March 2026
This week has been rich with connections. People, memories, the places in between. Chatting with strangers in waiting rooms. Sketching while Dad had his scans. Building an itinerary on the go with AI. Delivering a heartfelt letter.
Dot and Dash
Client calls this week for a potential Lego®️ Serious Play ®️team building day. I was looking forward to finding out more about the organisation and what their needs were for bringing together a hybrid team. Will find out the end of the week if they progress ahead.
Bristol Bound (with Terrible Wifi)
The week kicked off with a trip down to Bristol after work. I had big plans for that train journey (travel is my hyper-focus time) but the Wi-Fi had other ideas. I did not get nearly as much done as I hoped, but honestly, a terrible signal is the universe’s way of telling you to put the headphones in. So I did. Audible book listening time. There is something I genuinely love about train journeys for catching up on books. Looking out of a window, listening to words.
It Was My Turn
A couple of days this week were set aside to take Dad down to London for his brain scans. It was my turn, and I wanted to make it more than just a hospital run.
Early start, which meant we had time to do something meaningful and hopefully memorable beforehand. His investigations are looking at cognitive changes and precursors to dementia, and I had this idea that visiting the Museum of Brands might be a gentle way to activate longer-term memories. Brands he grew up with, packaging he would recognise, things that would spark something. For him, it was about reconnecting with familiar things. For me, I was completely absorbed watching how artwork, lettering, and design have developed across the decades. The way visual communication has shifted over time is something I find endlessly fascinating. We both enjoyed it for different reasons. What I loved was his stories he told me about different brands he grew up with in his youth on the other side of the world, and when he came to the UK, the brands he adopted.
I took lots of pictures throughout. A place like that is brilliant for tapping into your creative brain when you need a fresh perspective. It was an artist's date! Thanks to Julia Cameron for introducing me to such things and even better to share time with pops.
The Design Museum and the Museum of Brands
Joe 90 and the Gerry Anderson Exhibition
What a bonus. The Gerry Anderson exhibition was on — Thunderbirds, Space 1999, the lot. I loved those programmes as a kid and, if I am honest, Joe 90 was always the one that fascinated me most.
For those who don’t know, Joe 90 was a Gerry Anderson Supermarionation series from 1968. A nine-year-old boy has his brainwaves overwritten with the skills of experts — pilots, surgeons, spies — so he can go on missions. The puppetry was this beautiful, slightly eerie style with highly detailed marionettes and that distinctive jerky movement that somehow made them more interesting and interactive as puppets, with little mannerisms.
The idea of being able to rewire your brain to become proficient in something almost instantly. As a kid, I thought that would be the most incredible superpower. Funny how that still feels relevant.
Dad loved it too. Exactly the memory activation I had hoped for. Plus we saw herons just chilling and not giving a damn about traffic in the middle of London.
AI as an Augmented Brain
While we were on the train between stops, I introduced Dad to what I think of as my augmented brain. I have been on a journey with AI tools — Jasper, then ChatGPT, and now back to Claude. The different modes available drew me back in and I wanted to properly explore what it could do.
During our coach trip, we were co-designing what we would do for the next few days in London; I was prompting on the go: appointment times, places to eat, travel times, things to do. Dad would say what he fancied, and I would update the itinerary in real time. For someone with ADHD and dyslexia, having something handle that kind of logistics thinking alongside me is genuinely useful. So much cognitive load goes into holding all the variables at once. The bonus was that because it took him a while to transition to new tasks I could adjust all the timings if we missed a bus because he misplaced his hearing aid (yet again), I could plug in the new times, it would recalculate out the agenda see if we had to drop anything.
The Scans
A full afternoon at the hospital. As part of the imaging process, doctors injected Dad with a small amount of radioactive material. While he was in there, I sketched and sketched for hours. Some scans took about 4 hours. There is something grounding about putting pen to paper when you are sitting with a lot of feelings. I ended up chatting to other patients too, some nearing the end of their investigations, hearing about how dementia has affected their lives, those around them, and why they were taking part in the study. Some of those conversations will stay with me forever.
His images came out clearer than before, which is something he had been hoping for. The dementia markers are still there. So now starts the clinical drug trial; we don't know what the next year will bring. Hopefully, when we go back for more scans, I will have some plans in place for new places he wants to visit.
IAF Conference and Community
The IAF conference team is taking on different roles, and it's making the complete event planning feel much more manageable. We have had to take on more roles for which we don't have volunteers right now. Hopefully, this is temporary, as it's a lot of additional work on the weekends.
I also have a couple of workshops to design for upcoming sessions. One is a visual session for the IAF conference, working with Penny Pullan. I attended her graphic facilitation training last year and loved every minute, so the chance to co-design and deliver something together is going to be brilliant.
App Development and the ND Community
Work on the app continues, and I am really enjoying this phase. Building out materials for the neurodivergent community and the research is satisfying. This week I had a great call with a virtual assistant who specialises in supporting ND clients. The start of what I hope becomes a directory of talented ND professionals that community members can actually access and utilise.
Home, Family and a Letter
One of my Lovebrain goals this year was to spend more time with friends and family. This was the longest I had been away from home in a few months. I had missed my cats and my other half more than I realised.
While I was there, I hand-delivered a letter of gratitude and deep appreciation as part of the Lovebrain programme. Everything my family has done for me, seen and unseen. Simple as that, and yet it meant everything. My relationship with them has improved so much through this work. I feel more connected to them than ever before, they have done so much for us over the years.
And Then Friday Happened
Friday brought a small knock. A team-building day I was hoping to land didn't, but I was really glad that we had the conversation. Not the news I was hoping for at the end of a full week.But that is part of running your own business. Not every discovery or sales call lands, and sitting with that is something I am still getting used to. Pick yourself up, note what you can learn from it, and keep going.
I wonder... why sometimes I confuse productivity with purpose. I notice it constantly: the assumption that a day without output is a day wasted. But living isn't a byproduct of doing. It's the whole point. How many times have I called myself unproductive when I was actually present and living? This week I felt more present and connected. Need to do more of it.
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