June was an unusual month. In some ways it was a wind down after the crazy May of marking and Ireland. But in other ways it was busy because of exam boards, small projects and family visits. I had my run on Father’s Day, and later visited my family home […]
Monthly book and film lists
94 posts
This month I was busy with lots of marking, a couple of online gigs (one for National Teen Book Club, another for a conference in Cairo) and some travel. Like other recent months, it still seemed to drag a bit, despite being busy. Weather improved a bit so I got […]
Time still creeps at the moment. Perhaps Jaffa sped time up by keeping us entertained. Or work is gratingly slow. I am not enjoying it at the moment and looking forward to going part time even further in September. Whatever it is, it drags. This month Bee and I travelled […]
This month dragged a bit. I am used to time seeming to go faster as I get older, but this really seemed to drag. Perhaps it was the weather, but I don’t want to go into that again as it just becomes an Englishman’s weather blog. I will start by […]
February was spent prepping The Hobbyist for distribution and getting back into work. There was also a trip to Monkey World for my birthday and a quick trip up to Leeds to start some external work at Leeds Arts University. In between all this it rained a lot, so I […]
Bee and I decided to spend most of January in Marrakech after such a terrible end to 2023. It was a good decision. I can’t say that we’re relaxed and raring to go at 2024. But we feel as if we took some time to recover. I’ve been working away […]
Normally I would try to take a balanced reflection on how a year has been, taking in the whole experience. This time the reflection is simple: 2023 was a shit year. I lost my Dad and my dog Jaffa in the last few weeks, and other family members in the […]
Dad died on the 13th November. He’d been unwell for a while and it was not unexpected. I’m not going to write a gushing tribute to him here as he hated blogs and social media. So I’ll leave out the bit about him and mention a little bit about my […]
In previous few years, October has been a ridiculously busy month. Sometimes uncomfortably so. Thankfully this year, my life seems a little more balanced. While there have been some busier moments, overall it has been manageable. This is most evident in my health, which hasn’t (yet) deteriorated into a series […]