Huge month - I am a (unofficially) priest haha.
What an honour to sling on some afro-special livery and act as the celebrant for my good friends Tom and Sarah at their wedding in France. What a special honour, weekend, and experience. Two legends unite - and do it in style - with a smorgasbord of music, games, activities, wine (!), incredible food, great people and good vibes. Now I can see why they’ve moved to entrecasteaux - an absolute paradise ensconced in nature. I actually played this one pretty straight, nothing too heavy in the run up and felt good at my squash match the following Tuesday which was imperative. Lots of runs and didn’t fall behind at work either amongst the chicanery.
Spending some time in Nice as well was a delight. Very easy to see how that becomes a bit of a millionaire and billionaire paradise given the incredible conditions and landscape. Huge yachts all over the place. The other big trip abroad was Barcelona where the opposite could be said! Glad this happened the week before and really cooled my jets. Paddy Colville doesn’t do things by halves, nor do his best men Freddie and Shed who smashed it with the festivities. The less said about that one the better but good to catch up with some rascals I haven’t seen in ages. Definitely a city I could see myself living in given how embedded it is in the natural world, the intermingling of beach and urban life, as well as this epic eatery brand called HONEST GREENS which creates literally some of the best salads I've had the pleasure of munching. It’s not especially runnable from my limited experience but there’s rich history and culture dripping from every edifice you come across, let alone a not so subtle energy coursing through the streets and palpitating from every golden tanned citizen you come across.
A minor disappointment was the release of Black Man.
Super proud of it as an artistic piece of work reflecting on race and discrimination. I always felt it would cut through, particularly given we put it out during Juneteenth and the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder which inspired its inception. I’m not really paying attention to how most of the releases are doing, their existence is rewarding enough, but I was definitely low-key expecting this one to shine more. Same goes, but to a lesser extent, for Chupacabra. This one is a little more understandable however seeing as we half released it earlier in the year plus had some issues switching distributor, meaning we didn’t get as much lead time to pitch it to playlist curators (gatekeepers) as we normally would. Ace job as always by the Dojang team who literally are so on top of the admin it is a joke, really helps they are buddies too and willing to be patient with me being slow on the uptake with stuff like Songtrust.
Ok from the good, to the bad, to the ugly.
Sport and spiritualism were an absolute car crash. No excuse really for muted spiritualism except to say that it is certainly harder to maintain without the stability of being in the same place (and routine) for a prolonged amount of time. Bad excuse but a legit one to some extent. In terms of physicality it’s a little bit of me learning lessons from the past and trying to come back SLOWLY after injury. Have definitely lost some mental edge that comes from just smashing it daily and getting into that routine. My body also now cramps alot trying to do the same stuff I was doing daily a mere two months ago. A little time out will do that to you. Great news is that the niggling injury in my glute is feeling a lot better as the month closes out, thanks to a LOT of lunges and squats. I’m also doing plenty of hanging (aiming for five mins a day at the moment and failing often), which is loosening everything up. Have signed up for the Battersea half marathon in September and am cycling to Amsterdam in August so plenty to build up to!
