• Another year, another Tour de France over. Jumbo-Visma’s ferocious attack on Pogačar was a real masterpiece and seemed to come from a different era of cycling. Pogačar’s relentless attempts to unseat Vingegaard for the next week and a half were equally impressive. On the one hand it was a shame to lose riders to COVID but on the other perhaps the weakened team strength led to a race in which leaders had to take more risks and go up against each other. Next year I’ll see it in person! (I say this every year.)

  • Our second kid is gearing up for the dreaded 4 month sleep regression. She has gone from sleeping mostly predictably to wanting to party and waking up all night. We sleep trained her sister at just over 4 months old (with great success — she is a good sleeper all round) so we’ll probably do the same with the new one pretty soon.

  • Still in Italy. Still hot. For a change I tiled a splashback in the in-laws’ kitchen. A mosaic in 35°C weather is a stiff first time tiling assignment but it came out mostly okay. It’s not perfect — some tiles are a bit wobbly and I didn’t finish the grouting — but if you don’t look too hard it’s fine. Here’s a halfway action shot.

    Mosaic