Hey,

It’s been a little while. Again.

The second half of this year has seen me write just two editions of Slow News Day. That’s way past slow. It’s more like glacial. An agonising drip-drip-drip of snowmelt.

Maybe agonising is overdoing it. Either way, t’is the season of generosity and goodwill – so let me deliver a newsletter. Such thoughtful gifting.

Hey,

Well hello there. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

I’m grateful for the few of you who’ve checked in and asked about the future of the newsletter. It’s still here, I’m still here. I’ve been hard at work at what feels like not a lot, but is probably even more than I can say.

The abridged version is that I’m just getting back into the rhythm of a more settled life. I’m only just starting to lose the twitching sense that we’re about to have to pack up our stuff and move somewhere new. This little house is ours. (It’s the bank’s, really.) Its wonky walls and wobbly floorboards keep us – still. Still.

Hey,

“Dan really did live his life like Fatback [his dog]. He got up when we wanted, lay down when he wanted, spoke when he wanted, stayed silent when he wanted. Unlike white people, he never explained his actions, or announced when he was going to do something, no matter how abrupt it might seem.”

So writes Kent Nerburn in Neither Wolf nor Dog.

Nerburn and I both agree – modern-day mythologising about Native American mysticism isn’t pretty or useful. His writing captures the ordinariness and difference in American and Native American cultures.

Hey,

Friend, we’re in.

Moving has meant a lot to me. Nine days in, I’m trying to keep track of all the things it’s meant in all the ways.

It’s meant four separate bunches of flowers brightening our kitchen windowsill.

Hey,

The last six months have pretty much been about two things:

Rebalancing after an anxiety resurgence + buying a house.

The former is an ongoing process, but the latter is officially done next week.

Hey,

Want to know a burgeoning interest of mine that I’m a bit embarrassed about? It’s speedrunning. No, I’m not becoming a 100m sprinter, this is something entirely different.

This is the dominion of elite nerds who complete video games as fast as possible.

When people start ‘running’ a game, it’s basically about skill, learning patterns and the scripting of events, and optimising the routes taken. Then, it gets messier. Pushing games to glitch in beneficial ways. Beyond that, it gets into insane stuff like interpreting the game’s code and chaining unconnected events together to skip entire sections of the game. People can complete GTA Vice City in eight minutes, ffs.

Hey,

I’m still here. Slow News Day is still here. It’s all still here.

I’m still waiting for our house move to go through.

I’m still caught between stages of life and still bemoaning the fact I said, in January, that I didn’t want this period to feel like purgatory.

Hey,

I’ve always said that my schedule works well for me. I work five days a week, but very rarely a 09:00-17:00.

10, 11, or 12:00-16:00 is more like it. So, I do ‘part-time’ hours across a five-day week.

(Side-note: not sure why, in all my self-employed freedom, I still maintain that work should be dictated by a 40-hour standard. Weird.)

Hey,

I’ve not been very slow recently. I’ve been work-heavy and life-stagnant. I’ve been waiting and waiting for progress on the house we’re buying. We’re getting there, but it’s not as fast as I want.

Try as I might—and forewarn myself as I did—I’ve felt a bit like my life’s in limbo.

Everything’s good, really. But I’m caught between places and selves.

Hey,

The Hero’s Journey sees a protagonist take up the call of adventure, departing from their daily life to face challenges and glories alike. Their final act is the homecoming—a return to the place they left all that time ago—that cements their progress, their change and transformation.

I make no claim to heroism, but what are we if not the protagonists of our own stories?

Two years ago, or thereabouts, we set out on our adventure. Leaving the daily life we’d built in our little rental in Exeter (as our landlord decided to sell up) and opting to live nomadically for the next however-long-we-fancied.

Hey,

A few weeks ago, I wrote to you about returning to my geeky hobbies. More hours have gone into Football Manager and I’m about to buy my first box of Age of Sigmar miniatures to paint. An expensive hobby to take up as I prepare to buy a house… poor timing, Joe.

That was possibly my most popular newsletter ever in terms of the replies it generated. (I don’t know for sure because, as the footer of each email explains, I don’t track a single interaction you have with this newsletter. Worth shouting the privacy-first approach out again, for any newbies here.)

The results are conclusive, though.

Hey,

It was probably mid-2022 when we first played Wingspan. Mat and Rosie introduced us to it and we were baffled in our first game. Then we played again. And again. And we went home and talked relentlessly about it and eagerly awaited our next opportunity to play.

We couldn’t do a lot about our newfound hobby. When you’re living out of a car (or, sometimes, a suitcase), board games just don’t really work with the lifestyle.

But, when you love something enough, you find a way to make it work.

Hey,

When green coffee beans are roasted, a critical part of the process is ‘the first crack’.

Akin to popcorn popping, this noise is an indication to the roaster that the process is nearing completion—a little longer and they’ll have a beautiful golden brown light-to-medium coffee.

The roasting process takes green beans and exposes their base elements (proteins, sugars, caffeine and acids), to heat and motion, transforming them into something delightful.

Hey,

Time for a proper Slow News Day classic. A reflection about slowing down and how it isn't easy, despite all my efforts otherwise.

I’ve written more than enough times to you about my struggles in the last few months. Resurgent anxiety disorder, ill health, you know the score.

Without wanting to jinx it, I’m somewhere closer to balanced right now. Well, I’m not getting worse. I’ve levelled out and, overall, started to feel a bit more normal. But I’m still pretty stacked with struggles, day-to-day.

Hey,

I wrote last week that, among other things, I’m rediscovering some old hobbies and interests. They are—by and large—pretty geeky, uncool things that occupied my early teenage years before my interest girlfriends, house parties, and underage drinking took over.

So, frankly, I’ve been playing Football Manager 2024 and loving it. I used to be so involved (2007 was my peak) that, as a 13 year old, I spent my evenings moderating the second-largest forum for the game with a bunch of adults from across Europe. I used to design some genuinely decent signatures for users, free of charge, and often regret that I didn’t keep up that interest in graphic design.

Geeky, as promised.

Hey,

I used to hate it. The same old, the all-too-familiar drag of routine. It used to feel so default, so mundane in its existence and persistence.

Now it feels like a struggle to ever find it.

Consistency used to feel like a constriction. I’d wriggle away from it and get into something else for a time, start wriggling again, and repeat.

Hey,

Sometimes, when I stop and really look in the mirror, I see the lines.

Big brackets where I smile, tiny rivulets by my eyes, a deep fault line between my eyebrows — I seem to wear a frown by default, but never really notice. There are two clear stripes across my forehead, the imprint of surprises past.

I track my hairline obsessively. Is my widow's peak tracking further back? Are the hairs that stand alone in a tiny island of skin leftover like tidemarks or have they just grown a few millimetres off course by chance?

Hey,

Cape Cornwall, June 2022

I see you, kestrel. Slick, slight. A comma in the raging sky, hovering at the pinch of the cove. Cliff at your back, ocean ahead.

What do you see out there? What could ever cause you — all wonder and magic and flight — to stop and stare for this long? I imagine you’re having fun. The pressure of the wind, the delicate twitch of your tail or wings to rebalance when a fresh gust challenges. I see you looking, looking.

Hey,

“I think today’s a good day to do it,” I mumbled. “At least if I don’t feel good, most of it’ll be over the weekend.”

I brushed off the fact that’s a pretty messed up thing to say and kept looking at the little white pill in my hand.

I opened my mouth to talk, stopped, paused again.

Hey,

By and large, I’ve had a quiet year with work — mostly intentionally.

Nomading has taken up a lot of my time and energy, but I’ve also wanted to have more time to myself. No real purpose, no specific goal to work on, just taking it easy for a while. I’ve written it enough times in these emails, I must have finally taken my own advice.

In the last week, though, I’ve ended up with six prospects in my inbox at various stages of interest and readiness. My income could potentially treble in December if it all comes off. (It’s a mix of projects and retained work, so by January/February, it’d come down a bit.)

Hey,

“When you find the one, you’ll know it. You’ll just feel it!”

Houses, houses, houses.

I’m waiting to feel the one. That magical glowing feeling of “This is it — this is the place I have to be.”

Hey,

To stand beneath the autumn sky and watch a centimetre-long snail pirouette underwater, clinging to a fallen leaf…

This. This is to know one’s place in the world.

To think: I came all this way — 5 hours up the country, 1 more hour across it — to a vast, flagship nature reserve, its marshes and wetlands surrounding me and the muffled roar of endless traffic in the middle distance. I came all this way to crouch, awestruck, at the wet wooden edge of this pond and watch this snail.

Hey,

“How were you feeling, mate? Happy to have it out the way?”

My best man’s speech was possibly the easiest part of the day. I knew what I was saying, I knew that they wanted me to do it, and I knew that the room was on my side, so to speak. The chances of booing or a torrent of rotten vegetables felt pretty low.

The hard part was waking up with a sense of impending doom, my body tense as if under threat.

Hey,

I’ve got a bunch of friends who are going about having kids in a way that really pleases me and feels refreshing.

See, growing up, I think I took in this idea that having kids is an act of ultimate sacrifice—that it’s the moment you abandon yourself and your interests in service of another. It’s everywhere in our media and, I think, was the predominant view around me. You live your life, then you have kids.

That never sat right with me and I don’t love that I still see it in the world. I do love that I’m learning it’s not an absolute rule, thanks to friends and family who are proving otherwise.

Hey,

About being a digital nomad, this much I know:

• I get to enjoy a huge amount of novelty. Places, people, cultures, landscapes, lifestyles.

• Planning, enacting, and navigating that novelty requires a lot of resources.

Primarily, these are mental resources. I can (and may well in the future) write about the practicalities and costs of living as a digital nomad, but that’s not my focus as I write this.

Hey,

I’m a writer, right? Since I was a kid, it’s the only thing I’ve ever felt really good at. I’ve always been able to communicate things effectively in writing—emotion, information, instructions, whatever.

And right now, my words are failing me.

You might remember back in May, I wrote an email about a mysterious illness that was plaguing me. Well, it's kind of back. Or a version of it is, at least. I’m unwell again and I’ve spent days (no exaggeration) trying to understand what’s up. It’s messy, you see. I was feeling this unnamed weirdness since Saturday 16th and then I caught a cold on Wednesday 20th. Lines are blurred and sources are muddied.

Hey,

There we have it: six (and a bit) weeks at Château Coliving done and dusted, left trailing in the chugging wake of Brittany Ferries’ behemoth Santona.

It’s sad, for sure. It’s okay, too.

I think my acceptance started on Monday 4th, as that was the start of our last full week together. Then, this Monday, I knew it was the last few days. Still, though, for all the acceptance and processing and stoicism… Thursday sucked. It was the last day that I knew was coming, that I knew was inevitable, and yet it still hit me square in the chest when I woke up. Winded, I moved through the day trying to get everything in place.

Hey,

The air is warm and the sky is pink. Crickets and grasshoppers ring on both sides of the country lane. Cacophonous, shrill, furious. Blades of wheat, filling the fields and horizon besides me, strike softly in the breeze and cut the soft evening into ribbons of night.

I’d spent most of the day in Caen, taking in tall buildings and throngs of people after a month of pure chateau solitude, in 29C heat. 14,000 steps, a lot of sweat, and plenty of my old heat-health anxiety had wrung me out… but I got home, made dinner, and noticed that the run still called me.

Before I knew it, I was changed, hydrated, and taking an energy gel to get my frazzled body out the door for a gentle 5k.

Hey,

We sat in a circle, grounded on the old floor of the chateau living room. Floorboards older than any of us, their surface marked with rivulets and imprints from people long past. Candles, soft music, mint tea.

We talked about the moon—some might call it woo, but I felt it genuine and interesting. I felt a lot, in all of it. There was a group meditation, then we each wrote down something we wanted to let go of and burned our little shards of unease in the fire. We ended with a long, stretching sharing circle, talking about the things we want to release and invite in. I was moved by the openness and honesty around me. Inspired.

Except we didn't end there. We stepped outside and watched the moon rise, from a bank of cloud, with such brightness that it cast our shadows far behind us. Sam stepped into the clearing and sang a Scots folk song.

Hey,

I do travelling—and coliving, more specifically—wrong.

What I see in a lot of people, a lot of the time, is this adventurous spirit of wanting to get out into the world and explore everywhere nearby (and not so nearby). At Château, that means trips to places like Bayeux, Honfleur, and Mont Saint-Michel. Weekends get packed with day trips and activities, people leaving early and returning after dinner.

I don’t do that.

Hey,

I get giddy about this. It’s probably a bit silly, but it catches me by surprise regularly and makes me fizz with excitement. I’ll try to explain it as best I can…

My life—especially now, moving regularly and stacking plans—is full of milestones in the calendar. For example, in ~four weeks, I’m running a 10k race in Exmouth. I know that that date is coming up, that I’m accelerating towards its stationary position. That, no matter what I do, think, say, believe, feel, I know that that inevitable point in time will arrive and I will be on that start line.

I had it with our arrival at the Château—I knew that the moment would come in which our car turned in through the gates and we’d be held by the archway of trees and my heart would slow down and I’d feel the wash of peace across my chest. That knowledge made a brutal ferry crossing easier, it made the weeks leading up feel… out of shape?

Hey,

Back. I’m back. I’m back at work, I’m back writing this newsletter, and I’m back at Château coliving.

Some of it feels good, some of it doesn’t.

I’m loving how quickly I’ve settled into life in Normandy again. I presumed I’d find it easier this time, given that I’ve been here before, but I’ve found a sense of comfort beyond simply recognising where I am and knowing where things are. I’m feeling refreshed, back in community again. My last coliving was in February, which I left early. To be back in an intentional, international community of like-minded folks of all ages and creeds is a joy.

Hey,

Tomorrow’s my 29th birthday.

Getting a bit reflective on the cusp of a new year, the first thing I want to say is a big, sincere thank you. It’s really cool that you’re here, whether this is your first Slow News Day or your 57th! I write this newsletter primarily as a way to keep my own writing practice sharp, to carve out time for my own thoughts, and as a bit of a public journal. The fact you’re here, finding something useful or meaningful in my brain’s witterings, means a lot to me.

What’s 28 been about, then?

Hey,

I’m new to this adulthood thing. I’ve only done 10 years of it. Before that, I was a kid — legally, literally, and emotionally.

That means I’m about to hit the teenage years of my adulthood. When I think about the misplaced forthrightness of my childhood teenage years, I’m starting to realise I should tread carefully.

I had it all figured out, you see. I knew how things worked — I saw through the bull and knew how to right the wrongs of the world. I was sure that how I saw things and the way I imagined my life should go were absolute and would remain correct forever.

Hey,

The sky is big down here, at the edge of the island. Clouds bank up like they’re stored here to be distributed to the rest of the country. The sea is usually in sight and, more often than not, there is a hill upon which to marvel at it all.

Everything is open above me, beyond me.

I love Penwith. It’s so far out on the swollen limb at the end of Cornwall that it's claimed itself back, out the other side of tourism’s latching grasp, and exists in a bubble beyond the rest of Cornwall. Penzance is a popular town, but everybody stops and waits the same when the harbour bridge swings open and a vessel enters the dry dock.

Hey,

I’ve a funny relationship with the sea: terrible swimmer, ardent admirer. I don’t often get in, in what I’d consider a proper or meaningful way. I’m happy in the shallows, on the shore.

But I do sometimes go deeper. Especially when I feel in need of a certain… something. I heard Wyl Menmuir talk at an event last week and felt that something clarify when he spoke of “the sea’s great indifference”. As he sees it, we take from the sea what we need. When we need to feel small, we find it in the vast expanse. When we need to feel significant, brushing past the fronds of a seaweed reminds us of our closeness to the great, messy, soggy chain of life.

Hey,

Enough isn’t especially sexy.

A packed-out calendar and a few hours’ sleep sounds more industrious than prioritising rest.

A thriving stable of side-hustles is more admirable than doing a couple of things well as part of a sensibly balanced schedule.

Hey,

From the car park at Gwynver Beach, everything was dialled up to maximum. The light shone in all directions—from within and piercing out of the lazuli water and the swirling blue and yellow sky—as if we were nestled inside some secret coastal paraboloid. The strength of the light played tricks on the ocean, such that the passing clouds cast fast-moving, luminous green shadows on its glistening blue. They moved in perfect silence.

To do it a huge disservice, the view—perched, as if in an eagle’s nest on the near-sheer cliff-edge—is dramatic. Sennen Cove settles far off to the left, the rocks off Cape Cornwall glint past the headland on the right.

It’s a long way down to the beach, taking in a narrow stretch of coast path and a steep descent on stony steps and sandy soil. The beach itself is golden, fringed at the edges by shingle, and at the shoreline—about an hour after high tide—a sudden shelf drops half a metre or so and tinges the pleasant, rolling waves with threat.

Hey,

Justin Ehrecke's interview in Any Distance’s Community Spotlight features one of the most profound statements in my recent memory. I may have shared it before, but it clearly wanted to make its way back into Slow News Day.

"Our coaches would punish us by making us run. I never really considered myself a runner, honestly, because I always thought it was punishment."

If you'll forgive me the sweeping generalisation, I think this is the reason most people hate running. It's drilled in as a punishment, something to strain to overcome. And that's where a lifetime of running too fast begins.

Hey,

I’m not one for clickbait, so let me say from the off — the newsletter continues!

Instead, something else is over. Something that feels kind of big and scary and cool and hopeful. I’ve called time on my sessions with my therapist. For now, with her, at least.

Starting therapy was, I think, the single most important act of my adult life. I’ve learned new things about myself, my relationships, and the ways I think and speak and act. I’ve come to understand the ways I take myself seriously and the ways I act unkindly towards myself. I’m working through a bunch of things that, I hope, will help me create a more peaceful and fruitful life.

Hey,

I’ve got an idea, right? It’s an article for a magazine. It’s personal, it’s about a few interconnecting threads that run through the tapestry of my self. I’ve had the idea for a while — it came to me quickly and naturally as I was reading the last edition of said magazine. I think it’s a good fit and I know I can write it well.

And I’m doing everything I can to not send the pitch. I’ve fiddled with it for a couple of weeks, traced the ridges of its bumpy surface, and always found a reason to close it down and distract myself elsewhere.

I can guess why I’m holding myself back — it’s vulnerable, it’s risky, it could end in rejection. And this isn’t just some freelance prospect who could be a new line of income but doesn’t mean much to me beyond that. A missed payday might hurt a bit, but a “No” to a deeply earnest representation of myself feels far bigger, sharper, than that.

Hey,

Sorry I didn’t write to you last week; I’ve been feeling terrible. Well, sometimes. I wrote about it last time I emailed and those symptoms have persisted. Sometimes it feels like it’s getting better, other times it’s back with a vengeance.

And… now I think I’m coming down with a cold.

It really sucks to be in this space and for it to still be happening. Three weeks of it now, which is unfamiliar territory for me. I’m rarely ill and I’m never ill for this long. It’s stopping me from living life — I’ve not been running for three weeks, I’ve had to skip out on things I wanted to do, I’m having to squeeze work into the healthy edges of my time and let other things fall away.

Hey,

So I’ve not been feeling wonderful for the last few weeks. Well, I don’t know. I’ve been alright a lot of the time, but I’ve had this hard to shake malady that keeps coming back. Sometimes it’s behind my eyes and it feels like my vision is half a second delayed and everything’s a bit too bright. Other times it’s a twisting knot in my stomach that sidelines me pretty strongly. Other times it’s a kind of aching in my face - like my sinuses have enflamed after a bunch of sneezing. It can also be a bit shakey and shivery, a bit headachey, a bit… off?

It’s been hard to put it into words because it changes quite often and sometimes seems to go away.

Basically, I keep feeling not so good and it’s been going on for three or four weeks, on and off. Because of its changing nature, I’ve been finding it hard to pin down exactly what the cause could be.

Hey,

I’m a coffee snob. There, I said it. I’ll own it. I’m one of those wankers that’ll grind beans at home and time how long I let the grounds bloom before adding more water.

Take me as I am, it’s all I can offer.

Being a coffee snob has done more than make me insufferable, though. It's helped me see and appreciate the craft in everyday items and experiences.

Hey,

It’s always there. Nagging, gnawing. Sometimes shouting as loud as it can in my ears and rattling my skull. Sometimes a weak whisper. Only every now and again is it gone completely.

I wake up to my alarm and prop myself up to try and stay awake, inevitably falling back asleep in an awkward position. An hour or so later, I wake up and blearily swipe around on my phone.

I go downstairs and make tea and heat up breakfast. I sit at my computer, eating and drinking, promising myself an easy start — checking Twitter or watching a YouTube video — before the workday begins.

Hey,

I have a habit that I love to beat myself up over. I tell myself I’m terrible for it. I always dive into the depths of it and find new ways to be appalled at myself.

I don’t reply to messages.

And here’s the really interesting wrinkle of it: I do it almost exclusively for people I really care about.

Hey,

Today is the last full day of my solo trip. I settled into it pretty nicely after those first few days of anxiousness, finding a routine that felt comfortable and comforting. I’ve done loads of things with a very clear intention of making myself feel good or looked after — whether that was bringing familiar comforts with me or moving my body regularly.

And it's the latter I want to talk about in a bit more detail. If you’ve been reading for a few editions, thank you! Plus, you’ll know that I’m getting back into running. Joy of joys, then, when I saw that Park Run had made its way over to Rotterdam!

If you don’t know about Park Run, it’s a free, volunteer-led, 5km event held every week across the UK (and some European nations, too). The event is super inclusive, accessible, and welcoming and I’ve — somehow — never done one before. I timed my first ever 5k back in Falmouth and absolutely dragged myself over the line in a shade under 30 minutes. Just before leaving for Rotterdam, I did the same in Leicestershire and managed a pretty identical time with a similar struggle.

Hey,

I am never alone. Like, genuinely, never. Maybe one or two days in a row at most. I’m with Bex basically every day, or I’m with family or friends or colivers (who are a mix of both).

But I am never on my own, solo, out in the world. Haven't been for 4+ years.

Hey,

Having is evidence of wanting.

My therapist shared this idea with me a couple of weeks ago. I'd been explaining how I felt a bit low on energy, how I felt like I could stay in bed all day but didn’t want to waste the day.

Then she told me this quote, talked about Carolyn Elliott’s Existential Kink, and set me off on a big old thought train.

Hey,

Searching the charity shop shelves, I finally found it. A simple black tie, just what I needed for my Grandpa’s funeral. It had taken me a few different visits to find one.

I stood at the till, the volunteer worked his way into the seat behind the plastic screen as I waited.

“Just this one please,” I smiled.