September's Sabbatical Shenanigans

It turns out taking a sabbatical takes a bit of effort (if you want to avoid becoming a complete hermit). Other people have jobs and lives and there is only so much time you can fill bingeing old ER episodes. That said over the course of the month I did start to feel like I was genuinely decompressing and getting a sliver of my mojo back.

I've caught up for coffee/beers with Mevan, Steph, Amber, Audree, Louisa and Sally. Had a meet-up in London with Sam, Dan, Alex, Josie, Mike, Eliot, Vicky and Tilly. Attended the TPXimpact launch party at the Barbican with a cast of 100s.

Had an 'all-dayer' with some of my closest friends (and their dog) when a couple of them visited Bristol.

Went to the cinema to see Shiang-Chi, Copshop, Many Saints of Newark and No Time to Die. The first and last made up for the other two.

I read four novels of varying quality and regularly considered reading one of the pile of non-fiction next to my arm chair.

Thanks to the US opening up a bit I have booked four weeks in the frigid north-east during November / December to over-indulge my fondness for Christmas - and have already started shopping to prepare for it.

Got myself a new shower installed and arranged for new windows plus started to work up the ideas for the significant refurb of my flat (which will happen while I am in New York).

A great deal of my time still consists of deciding what I am going to do at the end of this break. At the moment I mainly have thoughts on what I am NOT going to do (at least not in 2022) but some  things are coming into focus...slowly.

October is shaping up okay as well and got off to a nice start - who knew resting took so much planning though.