Back In The Swamp

It seems that the only time I post anything on here these days is to apologise for not posting anything on here, and now I’m doing it again. But today’s a little different.

It’s exactly a year ago today that I gave up my job as a corporate lickspittle and decided to wander the earth having adventures. Like Caine from Kung Fu, but a bit chubbier and a lot less Chinese. To date I'm still in Surrey, which is perhaps not that impressive, although Redhill is certainly the sort of place where you can have adventures. Just not the kind you'd want.

It’s been an oddly fragmented twelve months, and I’m still not making a living out of writing or music as I’d hoped, but I’ve been back to college and gained a formal journalism qualification. I’ve had news stories, reviews and feature articles published in several papers and magazines. I’ve interviewed music journalists, trauma victims, comedians, and the Climate Change Director of Greenpeace in Europe, which is pretty grown-up by my standards.

I’ve discovered that, to my surprise, I’m better at writing news than features, and better at both of those things than subbing, which, as a natural pedant, I thought I’d be good at. I also procrastinate like crazy unless faced with a deadline.

My mother died in December, which is something I’m still getting used to. I’m shamelessly trying to figure out how to get an article out of the event. She’d be proud of me for that. I’m also, as a result, an Irish landlord – like most Irish landlords, of course, I live in England.

Even though I’m determined to make a living out of creative stuff, at the back of my mind I’ve always thought, if the worst came to the worst, I could go back into a finance role. Last week I offered to help someone with an Excel spreadsheet. Spreadsheets were my life for fifteen years, up until I left Nortel Networks last year, and I consider myself an expert. I tried to explain how to do this advanced thing. I couldn’t remember.

So that’s it. Once your gills have gone you can never go back in the swamp.