A pretty regular week, but I felt tired and sluggish in my work. A week in which I was busy but more or less ended up with the same task list as at the beginning of it.

This week I

• Had the monthly morning of discussions with my business partners
• Had the monthly team meeting sharing the financials
• Had the weekly client meetings
• Started preparing the meeting of the Tactical Council on the EU data strategy which takes place in 2 weeks
• Started preparing the meeting of the Interprovincial Ethics Committee which takes places in 2 weeks.
• Discussed some internal tooling to keep track of time spent and make the billing cycle easier
• Submitted the project plan for the Interprovincial Ethics Committee for the coming period. After last month’s elections everyone’s waiting on new elected decision makers. Until then the plan needs to move within the boundaries set in the previous election period and the ongoing budget.
• Helped prepare a panel discussion on digital ethics in two weeks
• Discussed a potential contribution to a conference on the legal aspects of the European data spaces early June in Spain
• Did the monthly invoicing
• Had the quarterly board meeting of the Open State Foundation that I chair. Beforehand I had dinner with my former team colleague S. who is now also a board member of the OSF. It was a good session, with one of the board members saying at some point he wished he had taped it as a podcast.
• Met with an accountant to discuss how to make our financial administration less work, while maintaining the level of insight doing everything myself yields
• Discussed a potential contribution of the Interprovincial Ethics Committee to an event at the end of May.
• Had a board meeting of the Open Nederland association, the Dutch makers using Creative Commons licenses.
• Had a phone conversation with the Ministry for the Interior, resulting in a request for proposal on doing two open data surveys in the coming months. Will aim to write the proposal early next week.
• Helped Y prepare for her Easter breakfast at school, boiling and decorating eggs with her.
• Had lunch with E in town in a place we hadn’t tried before.
• Took Y to her swimming lesson.
• Met with some parents of Y’s classmates I hadn’t met before, and picking Y up turned into almost 2 hours of conversation.
• Flew a kite with Y over the Easter weekend.
• With E found time to watch a movie, the first time in ages, Everything Everywhere, All at once. Enjoyable movie.
• Enjoyed a late afternoon drink in the garden in the sun for the first time this year. Spring is here, Y asked to use the sandbox, and the sound of compressors are everywhere as people are cleaning their garden furniture with water jets.

Y made a museum in her Playmobil castle, and showed a group of figurines around. There were Playmobil versions of self portraits by Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Dürer, a pirate’s treasure and three works she made herself. One mimicking a Mondriaan, one titled ‘a star in the heavens’ and a ‘fossil’ which was turtoise she painted on a stone.