Posts tagged #vibe-check

Instead of pretending I'm writing this in early March, let's just cover February and two weeks of March 2025 in this one. Improbably crocuses Nature's dormant winter is never ending and then spring happens. The early snowdrops and daffodils, and then crocuses and cherry blossom are quite ignorant of our...

January gets a bad wrap. As someone with a January birthday I try not to take it personally. I also spent the first three weeks of January 2025 intentionally between jobs - being free of work commitments, but assured of upcoming employment, I personally found this to be a most...

December comes to us, mild in temperament and temperature this year. Although this season didn't see quite the Grand Social Obligations Tour that previous festive periods have, the household has remained busy (and largely healthy) through December, something to always be celebrated. The month contained moments of great personal and...

I used to write a Vibe Check blog post at the end of each month. I haven't written one for six or seven months, and I miss writing them. But also I have been busy. Mists on the River Thames The view from Brill Hill November 2024 was a very...

I think I left this Vibe Check too late into April and I sort of forgot what happened in March. Luckily: my blog, my rules. I declare bankruptcy for March 2024, and find myself acquitted of all charges. These last six weeks have been Classic British Spring: there have been...

January 2024 was a lovely month, really. We ended up celebrating a few delayed Christmases, so the festive period itself didn't tear through my stamina. It also meant that I didn't really feel The Blues, because every other week I was going to a family household and getting wined and...

December 2023's Vibe Check was started on gloomy December morning, and finished a fortnight later on cosy December night. Context changes things. Winds and rain (both freezing) stopped what was a mild winter. "Winter's not too bad" I thought, like someone who's never lived through a winter. We're into the...

The past few Vibe Checks happened between one-to-ten days after the month ended. Today it happens a few days preceding. The preparedness. October 2023 has been a delightful month. We've had our first few proper cold-snaps (the heating isn't yet on a schedule, though); the astonishing bright oranges and deep...

September 2023 was definitely the end of summer. As I write this, the temperature remains balmy in the twenties, but it's dark at seven-thirty in the evening, and the days take turns towards the blusterous, or rain sprayed. All of the things that can only happen in summer - gatherings...

June 2023 was a pretty busy month. The company I work for went through a second round of redundancies and the software team (the team I lead) ended up being quite badly affected, and many of my colleagues were made redundant. I ended up doing a lot of mental and...

Summer's coming in, which is pretty great. I love the summer (old news and a lukewarm take). I've found myself fulfilled over the last eight-ten weeks. I have seen one of my closest friends get married, I've finished multiple sewing projects (I'm wearing a Snout Street shirt right now, a...

I find myself writing this a full two (2!) weeks into April. It's been seventeen days since I last wrote anything, which feels unusual. My brain feels it: I've taken more and more detailed notes (at work, in life) in the last five-or-so days. I wrote the notes for this...

The Vibe check is a series of monthly blog posts where I think back to the past month. Today I'm talking about February 2023. Music and Film Recs Cha Cha Real Smooth (film; drama). This is the best film I've seen so far this year. Without being self serving or...

Everyone everywhere says last year flew by. Contrarian by nature, it 2022 felt like it took about a year. January 2023, however, felt like it took about a week. I'm looking forward to the next few weeks being a more eventful, more different, and (hopefully) passing a little more slowly....

I welcomed in 2023 with a board game (Ticket to Ride, got my ass served to me wholesale by my fiancée) and a double dram of The Lake's Distillery Whisky Maker's Reserve #5, which I nursed lovingly for several hours. It was quite the quiet affair. I enjoyed observing the...

Winter came to Oxford in the last seven or ten days. The other day I stepped out of my house and got that Winter in England smell that I forget for six months of the year, and alternately resent and treasure in for the other six. It's the smell of...

I got a Steam Deck in September (huge flex), and so October 2022 saw the resurgence of video games into my life. As a teenager I spent the normal amount of time playing games (thank you) and took a lot of pleasure from it. I wasn't a gapital-G-Gamer, but I...

It's been two months since my last vibe check. We've reached the bookend sub-seasons where morning, afternoon, and evening each require their own outfit. Three layers in the morning, one layer at lunch, then two layers in the evening. It's maddening. The more diminutive amongst the trees have already surrendered...

Vibe Check #5 We're over half way through the year. Which is good. The second half of the year is definitely my favourite half, with late summer, autumn, and Christmas ahead. I'm gearing up for my personal summer out-of-office. During which I will be mostly in-office, but using all my...

Every year my brain tricks me. June, it says, June is summer. And every year around this time I get long daylight hours but seemingly endless wind, rain, and rarely-over-twenty temperatures. Some days have been beautiful, but many (like today) are unadventurous. I sit inside a cafe to write. The...

Three of the past four weeks have been a four-day work week. It's been wonderful. And yet still I'm posting this a week later than I'd like. The weather has been overcast, but everything in balance, even good weather. Still, some rain would be nice. To burden the spring metaphor...

March 2022 has been a good month for me. December-January saw me feeling very mentally strained, in retrospect because we're seeing the remnants of covid restrictions lift. personal and professional obligations are changing, and as an introvert they're drawing from an already shallow well of extrovert energy. I've not felt...

It's basically March and the days are finally getting longer! On Sunday, the sun was up to greet me as I made coffee. Tiny sweet peas and strawberries bud on the window sill. The flow of spring into winter feels miraculous. It's getting lighter, but it's secretly the coldest, wettest...