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.

It’s late September. The window’s open in the sitting room and there’s that particular West Sussex evening air coming in — cold enough to need a jumper, still carrying something of a summer I barely remember having. A few months ago I was on a cliff path in Cornwall with wind in my hair and Sasha telling me I was circling. Now the plane tree outside is turning and the light goes at six and I’m forty, which I mention not for sympathy but because it’s sitting in the corner of t