July was a good month, although life continued to feel exhausting. Despite my tiredness, I made an effort to be more sociable. I explored the local artists’ studios event, went to a poetry night and an Art Club, visited the folklore centre and attended the launch of a zine I’m in. We also had visitors at the house, including James, Alex and Gus the Dog on the hottest day ever (I got sunburned). Rosie the puppy came to stay and it was lovely to see her.
I travelled down to Brighton (the third time in three months!) for Sooxanne’s show on Wilde Volk, which took place inside Rottingdean Windmill. It was a wonderful Brighton event – some old friends and new came along, and there was a mummer’s play. The event was a huge success, and I’m so happy that Sooxanne has finally shared her work. As a bonus, I also got to spend a day with Tom, and played Dance Dance Revolution for the first time.
I took July off from tracking my steps and also paused my gym membership, since planning the sessions had become too stressful. However, through concentrating on my diet, I managed to lose a pound. This is significant, as I’ve gained weight every month since November, when I started my new work role. I’m going to continue seeing how things go in August and will probably return to the gym in autumn.
Writing was a struggle in July, given the weight of my work. I’ve continued the weekly substack, which had its second birthday. Favourite July pieces were Sharper Knives and Enjoy Haworth’s Literary Heritage. Rosy reviewed the 2025 Advent calendar, and I did some initial work on the fourth Mycelium Parish News. I also had a piece published in Bryony Good’s In a Land zine. I’m itching for a more involved project, and am considering several options. Whatever I do, it needs to be fun rather than stressful.
My reading was even slower than my writing in July with only two books finished. I mostly tried to catch up with a backlog of Kindle articles. I re-read The True Confessions of Adrian Mole, which is not as good as the others, being more a collection of snippets (one is a fairly obvious Thatcher parody, where the jokes rely on knowing the personalities of the 1980s cabinet). Despite the slow pace of my reading, I’m still accumulating books at an alarming rate.
I enjoyed the new David Cronenberg film, The Shrouds, despite some misogynistic scenes (Rosy left for the pub halfway through). F1: The Movie was disappointing, a missed opportunity. Yellowjackets was all over the place in season 3, but ended on a good point. Rosy and I also watched the new Adam Curtis show, Shifty. It included amazing footage but failed to land a lot of its points. I do think he’s right about the loss of shared truths in society, and that’s something we need to cultivate.
Death Stranding 2 has been a slow burn – a little too much like the original, but with more shooting – and combat was the least interesting part of the first game. I’d rather the sequel focussed on connection, landscape and story. I’m less into it than I expected, but the addition of a chronological mode to The Last of Us 2 has not yet tempted me away.
I’m not sure where my reading and writing time went in July. I have been feeling a little swamped, and it never feels like I have enough time. I also failed to make the two writing group meetings in July, which is a shame. I’m trying to reduce the amount of clutter in my life, both physical and virtual. It’s helping, but slowly. I’ll never be a minimalist, but it’s good to aim in that direction.
As tough as work is, I’m still enjoying the challenge of it. I had a vivid dream in July where I resigned from my job to become a freelancer/contractor. I then changed my mind because of the things I love about being part of the company. It felt like a useful message from my subconscious. While I’d prefer to be writing code or running a team, I still like my role – and managing my own stress levels is a fundamental part of consultancy.
I’m rekindling my love of tech. I’ve started writing weeknotes (week 27, week 28, weeks 29/30) to capture everything that I’m learning. It’s extra work, but it makes sense to consolidate all the things I read – particularly given what an exciting time this is. We’ve kicked off an event at work exploring AmazonQ, and it’s been fun learning about this alongside other people (I also blogged about that: week 1, week 2). One of the reasons I love work is being part of a community, even if it is a significant commitment on top of the client work.
- I watched someone cheat at a raffle this month. That should be impossible, and I’m impressed that they pulled it off twice.
- Rosy has been working on her new collection, and I heard a couple of pieces from it. I’m very excited to hear the full thing.
- It says something that the Wu-Tang Clan had a Farewell Tour, and I only found out after it ended. The Imperial Phase feels like a long time ago.
- I took a lunchtime art trip in Leeds and visited the land art exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute. It was very small but worth seeing.
- On another lunchtime outing, I discovered queer Indie bookshop The Bookish Type, which I immediately fell in love with.
- I don’t read much on AO3, but it contains some gems such as Death Stranding: Unreleased Early Production Notes by DeepskyShifter (OminousHummingObelisk).
- I learned about the Silver Sisterhood from 50 Years of Text Adventures and a friend told me that they may have spent some time in Hebden Bridge.
