Life update

Three months. Another extended break from mumbling. I've been busy with work and life stuff. I took a more switched-off approach over summer—some proper R&R after starting my new role at Contentful. So what have I been up to?

Work

It's been a solid three months at Contentful. My team's first 'large' project went live and has been (so far) a massive success. We're moving onto a newer project which, on the surface, is shaping up to be an exciting and challenging time for me and the team.

Back in July, I had the opportunity to visit Berlin too. Our main office is based there, so every once in a while, remote team members head out for planning, socializing, and team building. Most days were 12–14 hours long (starting at 9am, with socializing after work hours until late into the night). It was exhausting but very much worth it.

While there, I managed to squeeze in some tourist runs before work to see the sights. The city is rich in history and well worth a trip.

6 and then 9 months sober

Being dry for 2025 has been a massive success. No cravings, all my time back, sleep is great, weeks feel empowering—just to name a few benefits.

I wrote more about it in another post at three months, but going from 3 to 6 to 9 has been one of the most rewarding periods of my life yet. I can easily push to one year, which is still the target. One of my biggest wins has been feeling more in tune with my social self. I don't feel the need to have a drink to be social or to attend social events.

Hiking Seven Sisters 🌅

We both took a vacation day to walk the Seven Sisters hike one Friday. After a painful three-hour train journey full of delays and cancellations (typical private rail firms), we arrived in Seaford and embarked on a six-hour walk to Eastbourne. This was Sabrine's first 'long' distance walk, and we got lucky with the weather: 20°+ with a slight breeze and no clouds. Perfect.

After one hour and one sister, we reached the Cuckmere river. The tide was in. A 40-minute inland walk to the nearest bridge, plus another walk back to the coast before we could rejoin the path and carry on. No worries though—our spirits were still high, and we cracked on over the other six, stopping momentarily for food and rest breaks.

We made it to Eastbourne and took a fairly empty train home. The end to a perfect day.

Running 🏃🏻‍♂️‍➡️

Had to take a break from running in September. Previously, I'd consistently been hitting 100km months, well on my way to 1,000km for the year. But at the start of September, during a soaking wet run, I overtrained and/or overstrained and injured my calf. It completely stiffened up, and I still had to get home in time for work. Needless to say, I was pretty bummed out.

Before that, I'd consistently been doing 15–20k every Sunday, which felt great. I was fast, light, and strong. I wanted Valencia to be a PB, but it's increasingly looking like that's not the case.

Visited Malta 🇲🇹

Visited Malta! It was nice, but I didn't realize how many British people there were—crazy to see. After racing across London and being affected by the Heathrow Cyber Attack, we just about made our flight. Landed and took a €10 Uber over to our hotel in St Julians. I'd recommend not staying here—too rowdy for me, to be honest.

Malta itself was gorgeous, and the people we met were kind, generous, and full of love. At one point I lost my wallet, and someone found it and held onto it for me. (They attempted to reach me on Facebook, but I'm not really active there.)

Day 2 was a calm chill at the pool before getting a boat over to Valletta for dinner and some exploration.

Day 3 was our excursion day. We headed over to Mdina to explore the old streets of the old town, then got a ride down to Blue Grotto and took a boat tour around the caves with what was probably the bluest water I've ever seen.

Day 4 was more of a chill start before getting our flights back to London.

Board games 🎲

Rekindled my love for board games. Multiple nights a week, instead of putting on Netflix and just mind-numbingly sitting there, my partner and I have picked up playing board games. Our current picks are Here to Slay and Exploding Kittens.

I've also gotten into... Warhammer. Yes, I have become that which cannot be destroyed, corrupted by Chaos. Jokes aside, it's extremely therapeutic.

Miscellaneous

• Rebalanced the washing machine—literally just changed one of the legs
• The heating came on

🔗 links

• (why use multiple languages)[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJC5WB2Bwrc]
• (The tea app ID leaks and UK's ID verification changes. What a load of BS)[https://x.com/anothercohen/status/1948878534262575430/photo/1]
• (V8 speeds up JSON.stringify)[https://v8.dev/blog/json-stringify]

Coming soon 🔜

🇩🇪 Back to Berlin this month for more work trips and a company hackathon, which will be a nice way to meet others.

🇪🇸 I have a half marathon in Valencia at the end of this month. With the injury, I'll very unlikely be going for a PB.