The last time I posted, I mentioned something brewing professionally. I'll get to that. It's now resolved, and the resolution is good, and it turns out the road to it went through Ibiza and Crete and a moment in Manchester that I will not be detailing but that I've filed under: formative. Here's what the last eight months looked like.

Right. I’ve been neglecting this. I know. In my defence, the months between February and May have been somewhat full, and every time I sat down to write a proper post I found I’d either done too much to cover in one go or I was too tired to do any of it justice. So instead I did what any reasonable person does in that situation, which is: nothing, and then felt guilty about it. So here is the catch-up version. Shorter sections. Roughly chronological. No promises about the pho

So. Brazil. I have been back from Rio for two and a half weeks and I am still finding sand in jumpers I haven’t worn since I landed. The tan is fading. The mosquito bites are nearly gone. The 4am Carnival songs still surface occasionally in the queue at Pret, which is a disorienting experience for everyone involved. Twelve days. Two cities. One apartment neither of us had ever been in before, belonging to a colleague of Richard’s who was away and lent us his keys with the che

There is a particular quality to the months between October and February in London. The light goes early. The Tube smells of damp wool. People begin saying 'it's the run-up to Christmas' from mid-October as though that explains everything, which, fair enough, it sort of does. I either disappear into a duvet for the whole stretch and emerge in March slightly paler, or I spend it on planes. This year: planes.