Category: monthnotes

February was a scrappy, windblown sort of month, which at first passed slowly then accelerated, leaving me a little surprised that it’s over. It’s been good though.

The month was bookended by two trips outside Brighton. On the 1st I went on a walk around the Long Man of Wilmington, and on the 29th, visited Hastings for a poetry workshop. In between, the month has been filled with amazing conversations and inspiration. New ideas and plans are blossoming.

Work was challenging, with a difficult release taking a lot of attention. My back has been better, but my sleeping (and sleep hygiene) has been less good, leaving me a little over-tired. Sometime to be more careful of this month. The job is still great fun, despite being challenging, and I wouldn’t want it to be easy all the time.

I didn’t finish as many books as I did last month, but have a lot of books that are almost finished. The highlight of the month was Jenny Offill’s Weather, which was inspiring and intensely emotional. I was also lucky enough to read a proof of Kate Bulpitt’s upcoming novel Purple People, which is being released in June. Kate describes the book as a ‘jolly distopia’, and it feels strangely relevant to the current situation (while being more fun and retro!)

Taking 10,000 steps a day proved challenging at points, particularly during Storm Ciara, when I was 8,000 steps short at 8pm. I still managed a total of 378,708, and a daily average of 13,058. My record was 33,241 on the 16th, when I went hiking on a rainy day. My lowest count was 10,112, just 9 steps more than my target. While I’m walking more than January, I’m also apparently getting better at only just passing my target. I think the walking is good for me though, and ensures I am out the house and moving every single day.

I saw three films – the Conan remake was terrible, Hustlers was OK, and Red Scorpion probably would have been more fun to watch at 15 years old.

Other things: Brighton Java had an interested talk from Luke Whiting about Kubernetes; I saw Emma Frankland’s stunning performance piece Hearty; and visited London for an Invisibles meet-up. As part of that visit to London I saw Cat Vincent give a stunning talk on magick that I’m still processing.

I was inspired by so many things last month, but I’ve also seen how important it is to focus on those things. It’s too easy for my attention to be distracted by background music, screens or general monkey mind. The new ideas and inspirations need to be given the space they deserve.

I’m liking reading other people’s weeknotes, but my life doesn’t really have the tempo for that. I experimented with season notes for a while, but that involved too much preparation. So, let’s see how month-notes go.

January has been tricky. Christmas and New Year were a weird break to the rhythm of the new job. That, along with a bad back and sleeplessness, has made it hard to get into a rhythm.

But overall I’m continuing to enjoy my new role. I love working at a large company. The competent organisation and the number of people more than make up for the occasional and inevitable bureaucratic frustrations. I probably wouldn’t have liked this much before my 40s, but I am feeling suited to it now. I get to play with interesting systems and am learning lots of new tools. And I have a great team.

Coming off twitter has resulted in me consuming a large number of books. After being underwhelmed by my 2019 reading, I’ve been much more eager to abandon books I don’t like. I’m also been reading mostly fiction, after a few years of focussing on non-fiction. Initial highlights of 2020 are discovering NK Jemisin (thanks, Kate), Jennifer Egan and, somewhat belatedly, Benjamin Myers’ stunning novel Pig Iron.

I decided not to set any goals for 2020, but I have been trying to get my 10,000 steps in every day. My total for January was 379,133, which is an average of 12,230. My record was 23,924 when I went on the BEC hike. My lowest count was 10,103. I am going to ratchet up my goal for February to that number and see if I can push myself more.

I found myself lusting after idli, and persuaded my friend E. to cook some for me:

I watched 3½ films. 1917 was thrilling but somehow empty and deserves a post of its own. I enjoyed Midsomar far more: despite claiming not to be a horror director, Ari Aster’s first two films have been well within that genre. The other film I saw, I’m not copping to in public, and the half was the first two parts of 1965 film Kwaidan, which I saw at a night of films about hair:

Luke Wright’s new book The Remains of Logan Dankworth was published, and I read it the night it arrived. I can’t wait to see it performed live, and I’m eagerly waiting for a local date to be announced. It’s a great play, with some amazing lines.

Rosy was interviewed on the Cast Iron podcast. It’s fascinating hearing a friend talk about their life in a completely different context. I’m very excited about seeing her new play Musclebound in the Brighton Fringe.

I ended the month at the Blake exhibition. John Higgs was hosting a panel, after which I had an hour in the gallery. The show was breathtaking, and did a good job of communicating Blake to someone who hasn’t previously felt much affinity with his work. I arrived back in Brighton just before midnight and the start of February.

January is not a month for big things, but I’ve set a good start to the year. This month was work, sleep, read, walking and a little writing.

And I almost forgot – I published a little book, Cows Don’t Believe in Slaughterhouses. But I posted about that on Thursday.