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.

Hey,

Falmouth’s been good to me, so far.

I’m on the coast, so I get sea mist and cliffside walks.

There are beautiful running routes and traffic-free trails.

Hey,

To love is to relish the mundane.

I read this the other day in Tracksmith’s journal. The piece is ostensibly about running, but that line has been ringing in my ears since I read it and I think it extends far beyond running.

Romantic love is ablaze with passion… and it’s a comforting, familiar head resting on my chest each night when I fall asleep.

Hey,

Reading Half Marathon 2015: I (painfully and staggeringly) sprinted over the finish line, as it ticked over to 02:01:01.

That number gnaws at me.

It’s just so, so close. One minute and one second. If I ran each mile just 4.8 seconds faster, I would have a sub-two hour half marathon.

Hey,

I’ve been getting tattoos since I was 18, but it's ramped up a bit over the last couple of years. I’ve been building out a collection of brushwork British botanicals on my right arm.

During Lockdown 2, I took a daily walk through Higher Cemetery back in Exeter. It’s massive and full of beautiful planting and old trees. I’d watch the resident pair of Jays swoop low under branches and let squirrels take food out of my outstretched palm. Bucolic peace in unsettled times.

There's a ginkgo tree there. It stands out — yellow leaves in a sea of green — and the more I learned about ginkgos, the more I loved them. They’re considered ‘living fossils’, as one of the oldest living species in the world, and predate dinosaurs. And there it was, in that moment, reaching out and dropping leaves at my feet in my tiny sliver of the modern world. Magic.

Hey,

Full moon, storms in the Atlantic, big fat raindrops dressing the Juliet balcony.

By all rights, the sea should not have been so appealing. But, in all of its dark and choppy movement, it was. We were both feeling pretty depressed and knew a cold dip would bring a hard reset and help us try for a happier feeling again.

We stumbled across the rocky beach out to the high tide line. I’d learned that crossing this beach, with its rise-and-fall carpet of smoothed stones, can only be done slowly. When walking at my usual pace, I'd turn my ankle and end up stepping on the few sharp edges that lurk among the cherubim rocks. But when I slowed down, steadied myself, and took purposeful steps — picking out the biggest, flattest rocks — I could cross with relative ease.

Hey,

My Grandpa was a bookseller, specialising in British topographies and local interest.

Albert John Coombes — but never actually Albert, always John. AJC. He had a pretty difficult upbringing, not much money and a lot of hard graft. And then he built a family. He raised my mum to be the creative, kind, and curious person she is and then, before long, there I was. Here I am. Here he’s not.

He died on Sunday 12th. He’d been unwell for a while and he’d kind of been caught by aging. His body couldn’t do what it used to, which had been a lot. I remember him telling me how much he resented growing old, once. He hated that his body couldn’t do what it used to.

Hey,

In March, I’ll be picking up my whistle for the first time in 11 months.

Crikey, how time flies.

Refereeing is the one part of my life that I’ve struggled to keep with me as I move around the country and Europe.

Hey,

I’ve become pretty good at catching myself when I sway to the rhythm of the cult of productivity. I’ll clock when I’m itching and twitching about not working enough or maximising my time with opportunities and efficiencies. I know that that shit doesn’t serve me and it’s not a way of living that feels right or helpful or respectful.

But it comes up in other ways, that cult of productivity. Ways that I’m still learning to spot and address.

I’m in Madeira — have been for almost four weeks, will be for another two. I’ve done some nice stuff, seen some cool places, had a great time… and I have this regular, nagging voice in my head that says I should be out doing more, seeing more.

Hey,

A house by the Cornish coast really would be lovely. They’re out there—lots of them. I see them on Rightmove when I periodically check. A little terraced number in Pendeen, a pokey place in St Just...

A snug sense of home, a deep connection and thick roots in a community that extends beyond me in all directions. Regular haunts, familiar faces.

But then… a nomadic life continues to be lovely. It’s giving me so much.

Hey,

A day later than usual, sorry about that. I messed up some DNS records in the midst of switching email provider and, despite fixing them, they hadn't propagated in time for me to send this yesterday. Anyway, back to our regular programming.

This month, I’ve ended my working relationship with two clients.

One needed to happen. They’d had this huge churn in staff and weren't using my skills in an effective or valuable way. It reminded me of the last few weeks of a relationship where you know the end is coming but neither of you has said it yet. That, but on repeat for months. Pretty painful—and pretty relieving to be rid of it.

Hey,

Saturday night, we landed in Funchal. The lights of the south coast twinkled and rose up steeply into the hills. We took our taxi from the airport to Ponta do Sol in sacred silence, marvelling at the steep rise of cliff-faces on our right and the steady drop down to the Atlantic on our left.

I get this feeling sometimes in Cornwall, that I’m on the edge of the world and things are always a little more severe, a little more intense, more vivid. I feel it here. I feel it madly.

That’s one of my favourite things right now: finding that places completely apart from each other can share an essence. Or maybe it’s that they touch some similar essence in me.

Hey,

When you experience an experience, it comes and goes. When you resist experiencing an experience, it persists. And the major form of resisting your experience is by thinking. If you're trying to think your way around things, what you first need to do is stop thinking and feel your way through things.

Christmas chats, for me, were dominated by Radical Honesty. Interestingly, this was almost exclusively with my friends and Bex’s family, not my own family. The last hurdle. The final boss. The site of original dishonesty. Or something like that, I don’t know, ask Sigmund Freud.

Anyway, I wanted to bring the spotlight back to RH after Slow News Day #24 and feeling like I couldn’t explain what it’s all about to my friends over the last few weeks. This is my attempt at a second, third, and fourth explanation.

Hey,

I bought a blazer, trousers, and shirts from Uskees a couple of months ago. They’re quality. Proper craft and care with good, grounded ethics. Paying a little bit more for items is a privilege I’m still pretty new to, but it’s throwing up some interesting things for me.

When I think about the hallmarks of ‘quality’, the first thing that comes to mind is precision.

Precision is what separates the mass-manufactured shirt that quickly fades and thins from the carefully manufactured one that lasts for a decade. Delicate double-stitching, specific cuts of quality fabric, buttons made of natural materials instead of plastic. It’s not viable to make these products at the same scale as DTC behemoths or cheap-and-fast retailers, because the process can’t be done quickly.

Hey,

Past Joe here. I’ve scheduled this in advance, as I’m off work for a couple of weeks now. Usual service with the newsletter, if you can forgive a bit of time-bending.

Christmas is a funny time. I know I put a lot of pressure on myself at this time of year.

I have high expectations of myself:

Hey,

“I’m really not sure I can handle it,” I said. “It’s going to be so cold.”

I wasn’t preparing for a wild swim or anything brave—I was just boarding a plane from Tenerife to come back to the UK. Woe is me, right?

And my fears came true. Like wearing jeans with dodgy pockets, we climbed above the clouds and seemed to drop 20°C somewhere over the Atlantic. No chance of retracing those footsteps.

Hey,

Remember last week? I told you I was on my way up to Bristol to attend a Radical Honesty workshop over the weekend.

Well, I did it. I did it and I’m struggling to find the words to explain it.

I’ve never, in my entire life, done something so challenging. Nor have I done something so rewarding.

Hey,

The signature on the opening page stretches from edge to edge, covering its entire breadth. A thoughtful scrawl, seemingly forgetting that it’s supposed to be bordered by white space. It stretches beyond its expected confines and captures the eye immediately.

It’s also just Hannah Kent’s signature in the signed hardback of Devotion, given to me by Bex as a birthday present.

A historic queer love bildungsroman that takes in pain and faith, gain and love, and the unavoidable and ever-present magic of trees.

Hey,

Well, it’s here. World Cup fever feels more like a stuffy nose and tickle in the throat this time around.

Everyone’s got a stance, everyone’s got their hypocrisies. And I really don’t know where I stand with it.

I know that I completely disagree with Qatar’s policies around and treatment of LGBTQ+ people, migrant workers, and women. I know that I love football and the meeting of countries, citizens, and cultures that the World Cup uniquely provides.

Hey,

If you’ve been here for a while, you might remember Slow News Day #8. It was all about goodbyes—about the conflict of leaving something lovely behind while appreciating how the temporary nature of things is what made it special to begin with.

(You might not remember it even if you have been here the whole time—that’d be a pretty impressive devotion of mental space to these silly slow emails.)

Well, I’m in that place again. We’ve left Cactus Coliving and today’s the last day of our mini-holiday at the end of it all. All of the words I wrote back in August remain true. In fact, I’m pretty moved by their accuracy and perspicacity. Nice one, me.

Hey,

20 newsletters, how cool is that? I’ve spent every week for over a third of a year writing — taking time to reflect on my experiences through the lens of slowness and learning about myself. And a growing number of you are interested in reading it each week. What a joy!

On Sunday, Bex and I leave Cactus Coliving and are heading to Costa Adeje for a five-day holiday in true British style. Hotel, pool, laziness. Not quite all-inclusive, but not far off. After four and a half weeks of intense social connection and communal living, it’s a sweet tonic to look forward to.

And on the topic of holidays, I figured now is a good time to share how I take time off as a freelancer.

Hey,

Every Sunday at Cactus, a local guide takes the group on an excursion somewhere on the island. He picks a cool place to go and gives everyone a rough timescale for the day. It’s a great addition, but it’s not for me. I’m not much of a hiker (I could write for days about my dislike for the concept, but that’s not really Slow News Day material). I get anxious without a clear plan and I tend towards panic when I’m not in control of my movements or schedule.

So, I don’t go on these Sunday trips. And I feel like a total fucking loser when I don’t. I’m on a beautiful volcanic island and I’m not comfortable going out for the day to clamber over cliffs and swim in choppy seas.

There’s a huge swathe of negative self-talk that goes on in my head — even though I know I’m acting in a way that respects my boundaries and gives me the sense of safety I need. It’s something I’ve been properly working on with intention for the last year or so and I always pictured my progress with it as a stepped thing.

Hey,

I’m not too sure what time looks like; its form or function.

Why do our clocks tick in circles, but our calendars never come back to square one?

Is each inward and outward breath a unique process, or one repetition of a constant cycle?

Hey,

COVID really fucking got me, to be honest.

I felt pretty grim, probably the worst cold/flu I’ve ever had, but not exceptionally unwell and I didn’t need any external medical attention.

My cough and, more than anything else, my fatigue persisted… but I got over it. I thought.

Hey,

Bex sent me an article a little while back. It was written by Doi Emi, in 2019, for Nippon. It’s not extensive, it’s not detailed beyond belief, it’s a pleasant story told one drip at a time.

I won’t rehash it for you here; you can read the whole thing if you’d like to.

What I want to do here is focus on a few words Daibō Katsuji—the article’s hero—shared in their conversation.

Hey,

When I was a kid, I had a habit that came up regularly enough to make me itch with discomfort, but irregularly enough to keep me tantalised by its idiosyncrasy.

It’d usually appear on long car rides or when trying to sleep despite not really being tired enough. A perfect time-filler and brain-blower.

I’d try to create a sequence of sounds—word-like without being words—that, in my opinion, had never been uttered by another human.

Hey,

Last week was a long-awaited week off. I crammed extra work in in advance, so I didn’t have to think about client stuff at all. I prepped what I could to make this week a smooth return.

When I finally got everything ticked off my to-do list on Friday night, we went to the pub with friends for a drink and to play a board game. A nice way to see in some time off.

Then, on Sunday night, a tickle in my throat appeared and wouldn’t go away. On Monday, I was ill. On Tuesday, I got a positive result on my test. 2.5 years later, it finally got me. After all the risk-avoidance, planning, and care.

Hey,

I almost didn't write a newsletter this week. I'm writing this on Wednesday and things are kind of hectic -- we're in a busy period of regular relocating (we left Margate early - thank you for the encouraging and caring replies a bunch of you sent in response to Slow News Day #10) and I'm taking next week off work.

That means, this week, I'm effectively doing 10 days of work in five and trying to fit in packing/unpacking and an afternoon of travelling...

Yet I'm still happy about it. Yeah, I'm tired, but I'm in control.

Hey,

I’ve been taking Sertraline for two and a half years or so. I started at a time of desperate need and have no regrets—in fact, I’m proud of the bravery and self-love I showed in seeking the prescription at that time.

A year or so after first getting my prescription, I had a medication review with my GP. “You don’t really want to be on them forever, so if you’re feeling okay right now it could be a good idea to try and come off them.” (Certainly not their exact words, but an approximation as best I can remember.)

So I tried. A week later I was in a fucking bad place all over again. It was sudden. Severe. I felt dangerously out of control of my emotions and responses to them. I returned to my original dose a little later and took on board the idea that I’d failed and would need to stay on them indefinitely—despite my doctor’s belief that one should aim to do the opposite.

Hey,

In about two weeks, it’ll be exactly 10 years ago that I started university.

My parents dropped me off at St George’s Hall in Reading, we unloaded the car, walked around, and hugged warmly and deeply. I watched them drive off as my heart skittered and my independent life began.

I was an excited, baby-faced, incessantly stoned kid. I thought I had it all figured out.

Hey,

I’m writing this email on Monday 22nd, so the contents may sit very differently with me by the time they reach you. Writing really is an act of release. I’m documenting my thoughts in this moment, but how they feel—to me and you—by the time they reach your inbox is entirely out of my control.

We left France on Sunday morning—one ant in a colony of cars at Cherbourg, awaiting a delayed ferry. After we sped across the channel to Poole, I was drowsy on anti-sickness tablets and majorly grateful that I could hand the wheel to Bex for the four-hour drive towards the bright lights of Margate.

We made it. And I’m not sure I like it.

Hey,

Gentle waves lap in the background. Taoist thrums and pulses intersperse the news, review, and AOB sections. Two dudes get together to chat, laugh, and earnestly explore the milky depths of cereal culture.

When I first learned that there exists ‘a meditative podcast about cereal’ (via Jez Burrows’ wonderful newsletter, The Department of Enthusiasm), I was immediately hooked. It sounded like a perfect dose of silliness in my steadily steady life.

I started on episode one. All the way back — pre-‘rona — listening to stories of cereals that have since been discontinued and that I wouldn’t have been able to access at the time, anyway, given the US situation of the hosts.

Hey,

Coliving has been a wonderful experience so far. At the time of sending this email, we’ve got nine days left at Château and have watched 33 fly by. (We’ve also booked five weeks in Tenerife’s Cactus for October/November, if anyone fancies joining…)

Most weekends, a few people leave. It could be two, it could be five or six. This place is in a constant state of change, fluidity. The building remains the same, our three hosts remain the same, but the occupants are a constantly shifting collective. There is no defined, easily identifiable Chateâu group. Each week, new people join and established faces depart. Some stay for a week, some stay for months. The only constant is change.

Over the first couple of weeks, the goodbyes hurt. They were a millstone around my neck. I found my mood souring, my desire for distance from it all growing.

Hey,

I recently read Nicholson Baker’s Room Temperature. It’s a curious little book. A shade over 100 pages and set in the soft-lit mundanity of a new father’s internal monologue as he feeds his infant daughter.

A tiny postage stamp of a setting. A pinhead of a plot. But somehow so incredibly expansive and enrapturing.

The entire book is an ode to slowness. The detailed tangents in which Baker delights to explore are reflections of the tiniest nothings. A collection of coloured paper tags he finds in a suit jacket pocket, peanut butter variants, a set of rubber doorstops that somehow generate a pages-long missive on colour theory and language.

You can’t hack your way to anything meaningful.

It’d be cool if you could. My Twitter feed seems to be awash with the best ways to launch a business, the 5 top things to know about aerospace engineering, or the ultimate takeaways from the 50 best books of all time.

I’d really love to master all those topics in an afternoon.

But these claims aren’t really that true, are they? They don’t reflect what it means (and what it takes) to learn something.

Hey,

We arrived in France — at Chateau Coliving, to be precise — 12 days ago. The building, the people, the scenery, the wildlife, the area… it’s all incredible.

By my patchy reckoning, I haven't been outside of the UK since 2017. No doubt it would have been a shorter gap were it not for the events of the last 2.5 years, but it is what it is. I’ve been on our island for a long time.

I can’t explain how wonderful it feels to be part of an international group of people again. Hearing different languages and accents is enough to make me feel like I have a wider perspective again. Hearing about people’s experiences of life, work, love, and everything else that fills our time has expanded my perspective even further.

There are plenty of obligations and unavoidable commitments in life. Some of us have loads, some of us have not so many.

But not everything has to be an obligation - especially not creative endeavours. In fact, the most dangerous word to attach to anything creative is “should”.

“I should work on my writing today.”

“I should have started that podcast by now.”

Hey,

Most Saturdays, I’ll pack my bag and head to a patch of grass somewhere nearby. I’ll get changed into my all-black uniform - sometimes in a lovely new clubhouse, sometimes in a cobwebby shipping container. I’ll stroll out onto the pitch and check for dog poo, sticks, and stones. I’ll blow my whistle and bring together 22 people to kick a ball (and sometimes each other).

Refereeing’s a dear hobby of mine. Facilitating a safe, fun, fair, and competitive game of football is so rewarding and it feeds my interest in the sport in a way that playing never did. But, my word, it isn’t easy.

I get one second - maybe two - between seeing and acting.

Hey. I’m not really at work or on my laptop this week, but I scheduled this in advance. If you’re kind enough to reply, I apologise if you end up waiting a while for a response.

“They crack me up, you know.”

I’d just watched one of the dogs waddle over to their water bowl and start taking a long, loud drink.

“Like, they’re hanging out on the floor and suddenly think: ‘I’m thirsty now and I’m going to have a drink’.”

Hey,

When we moved out of our rental back in April, we set out for a stint of roving. ‘Digital nomad’ never sat quite right on my tongue; roving slips a little more smoothly.

It was a pretty major undertaking. Moving house is hard enough, but, this time, we weren’t really moving to anywhere. We had to whittle our possessions down to whatever would fit in our Fiesta and sell, donate, or rehome the rest.

In true millennial fashion, our houseplants were a big issue to resolve.