A Life Update and Another Failed Trip Report.

It has been three months since I have written on here and it's sad to say, it's because not much has happened that was overly bloggable. I finished buying all the parts I need for a bicycle, and have been riding that a little. Besides that, I have had a significant shift to my work-life balance and as consequence, have lost my way a little with making good decisions for myself. 

My advencha bike. First iteration, need to replace some parts, but at least she's movin'.

'Time-famine' is a term that emerged in scientific literature right at the turn of the 21st century, and refers to the feeling of having too much to do and not enough time to do it or that old expression "There's not enough hours in the day...". Sadly when I think about my life six months ago, filled with yoga, running, blogging, spending quality time with Julie, having new experiences, (fail-hiking the Dales Way for example) and having a healthy and balanced social and work life, I feel desperate for time.

I took on a new job role with much more responsibility, whilst keeping my Saturday job working for a wine importer - more on that l8er - leaving me less free time and more exposure to alcohol. This led me down a path where I let go of the things that made me feel really good, like exercise, spending time with Julie, being productive and being creative. The further down that path I went, the more I was disappointed in myself and so the harder it became for me to make a change.

Today I ran for the first time in two months. Just twenty minutes in my FiveFingers. 

Eventually you get to a point where you go for a run and pull your computer out and start fucking blogging again. In short, it feels good to be back. Being back on the blog resembles everything I needed to get back in my life. Some time to write this post, some time to reflect, some courage to make a change and to realign my priorities.

The author, and Julie! <3
In Denmark, a little before the promotion at work.

Julie and I plan to move out of London, likely to Denmark, maybe as soon as July of 2023. Once we came to this idea between us, my attitude towards being in London changed. It felt temporary and it's constraints felt a little more manageable. On top, my priorities moved towards reaching mid-2023 in a better position that I was in two months ago, and a week later I was offered a promotion at the café that I work at. I took it because I was not going to see myself leaving in the short term future, and willingly signed myself up to loosing the work-life balance that I enjoyed so much and lead me to creating this blog at the start of the year. It is important to remind oneself that every situation is temporary. To see beyond the moment you are in, but also to consider and appreciate your day-to-day life. The bigger picture. The adjustment to the increase demands on me to be at work, to be away from my home and social lives and from all the things that I enjoy doing with my time, was harder than I anticipated. 

Looking at my situation from all angles, I am in a great period of learning. Before the promotion and my taking-on of a second job on Saturdays, I felt highly unstimulated and unfulfilled by my working life. The promotion has been great and I am enjoying it a lot, most primarily because I am learning again in my line of work (absent for years in great concentration) and additionally because I think I contribute to making it a nicer place to be for my coworkers and for the customer base. On top of all of this and a contributing factor to my recent bout of time famine was my holding-onto of my second job and extra day of work. Harmoniously, both my full time job and my second job are linked as my second job is a supplier of wine to my full time job. I didn't want to drop the Saturday work when I was offered the promotion (which I wanted to take to make some more money) so it was in my terms to keep it if I were to take on the new role. I wanted to keep it because I am learning so much there, even just one day a week. Importing and distributing wine from growers and makers around Europe who are practicing their growing and making within the 'natural wine' philosophy is teaching me about so many areas of interest that I already have, from biology and working with the land, to the contemporary food and wine scenes in the modern world. There is just so much to learn when working at such a niche end of a market, and hopefully so much prospect as that niche has been growing rapidly for the past five to ten years.

Anton, and his advencha bike, outside Ancestrel on a Saturday.

In short, I am almost-loving-working at the moment. What I need is to regain my feeling good about everything outside of work, and today (and this post) marks that point. 

Albeit a highly consuming few months, I managed to put together my adventure-bike and ride and fail to complete (seems to be a theme of my year... or my blog) an off-road ride to Brighton. Featured many times so far on my few posts, is my friend Jake, a Brighton native who sadly moved back down to reinstate his residence there instead of in London around the same time I took this promotion at work. Another piece of the puzzle of my demise was Jake's leaving. Seeing him regularly gave me a great deal of stimulation and inspired me often, to do and make more, and to continue to refine my values. I knew Jake was leaving London just before I was offered the promotion and a part of my decision to accept was based on the loosing of that stimulation. 

As a token of our friendship, Jake gave me a cutting off one of his plants. 

It sprouted a root in a glass of water and was ready to have a new home. 

It seems to be enjoying the new scenery and has sprouted it's first new leaf.

Jake got the train up and stayed in his recently-vacated flat, in order to ride back down to Brighton on his bicycle with Anton and I. Our first trip on wheels! It wasn't going to be an overnighter, but it was going to be a good, long day in the saddle and a test-ride of our adventure bikes off road. Somehow we took a baloney (or 'polony')  route, heading south-westerly from North-East London and eight hours later arrived at Guildford. What the fuck. We thought it was going to be eight hours riding, total, not eight hours to get to lunch. We were ill-prepared (naivety seems to be another theme of this blog) and I was pretty much destroyed when we arrived in shitty Guildford. I had worked the previous seven days consecutively before the trip, landing somewhere upwards of 70 hours of work in order to take the two days off to do the ride (and return the next day). I should have been better rested, not on the edge of a burn out and more significantly we shouldn't have called two pastries and two cliff bars 'breakfast'. We had no lights and no overnighting gear - so we had to hop on a bloody train to Brighton (ashamed train rides another recurring blog theme), deciding to do so was a clever idea as we went straight to the pub in Brighton and ended up having a really turbo-good evening and following day. Anton booked us in at The Ritz and we visited all the finest establishments that Brighton had to offer. Notably, 'Best Kebab'.

I won't go into all the stupid ins and outs on what went wrong and what it was all like for this trip report. We failed, but we had a good time. That's adventure-enough to blog about.

It took us three hours to get to the trailhead and out of London.
Wasted energy, or quality time in an expansive city? You be the judge.

Bikepacking

Jake, starting to realise that off road is overrated.

Victorious. Already a pint down, we were on our way to check into the Grande Royale.

The Grand Royale was swanky!
We got it for cheap and they let us replenish our hangovers at the breakfast buffet, included.

Heading to the buffet!

The Brighton Gals!

I hope to be bloggin' some more coming up. It has been greatly therapeutic to write and if you gained nothing so far from reading it, then know that I have gained enough for the two of us.

To finish, a quick shoutout to a new member of my team at work, who passionately loves music and writing about it and who I was lucky enough to encourage to start a BLOG. We have mutual interests in what America did with their nuclear and chemical weaponry, with the joy of music, and with his parents, who are legends! Nat, if you are reading this... keep on bloggin' baby.