Lyrics: “Undeveloped Film” – Frank Turner, 2013
Two third of 2025 already are behind us. How did that happen? I think I mentioned here before that at the start of the year I had planned to take some vacation time off work in June or July. That didn’t quite work out because of work deadlines and such. I spent some days away in Antwerp at the end of April and had the ocassional day off (“long weekend”). But April feels a long time away and I’m soooooo exhausted. From work and local politics. And people! It’s a bit weird, because in general I like those people: family, friends, coworkers. These days on the weekends I already spend quite some time on my own at home not talking to anyone and to be honest I’m quite content with that. Turning into a hermit at 50. Cool! Or not?
I’m only half kidding. I feel like my mind needs that “me time” and therefore I’ll take it, being well aware that I have to make sure that I’m still as sociable and gregarious as I want to be and as I am able to be. All in moderation and most importantly not feeling bad or weird or guilty about not exchanging words with more than the 2-3 people I encounter in at the supermarket check-out.
I am quite looking forward to recharging my mental batteries in kind of solitude in Scotland for about 12 days before I dive into the madness of a 4 days music festival and running into all the lovely people I have gotten to know in the Frank Turner world (at gigs and online) over the years.
Random pics from this week: I’ve bought a new phonecase for my 5 year old phone.
The old one was still alright, but I’ve also bought a new (smaller) car phone holder, which works with a metal plate glued to the phone’s back and a magnet. That does not work with the old hard shell case, so it was time for a new slim silicon one. Even after a few days I’m still not quite used how differently the phone feels in my hand to be honest.
Isn’t it weird how much we all (I assume) are used to our phone being near us or in our hands almost constantly. It’s not just me, is it? I am less on my phone / social media than I used to even a few months ago, I think, but I still use it so much for all the other stuff. Photos. Quick notes to remind myself. Music. Podcasts. I guess that’s just the way it is these days for most of us.
Not the most elegent segue: I also spent quite a bit of time to put locations I want / need to visit during my first week in Scotland into my phone’s satnav app.
I might visit just half of them, but I don’t know yet what mood I’ll be in on any given day, right? There is also the weather to consider. It’s autumn in the Scottish Highlands. For some perspective: It’s about 200 km and 2.5 hours drive between the ones furthest down south / up north. Scotland is a small country.
Some more time this weekend was needed to check out all the bands / artists that are on the “Lost Evenings VIII” line-up. Frank is good at inviting a variety of new (to me or in general) acts to the stages over these four nights. Lots of Scottish music, which is fitting and kind of cool. More impressive: the line-up is pretty equally made up of female / male artists, or at least bands with one or more female musician. But also also a few all-female bands and across all sort of genres as well. I don’t in general prefer female voices / artists over male ones. But I appreciate the effort to give more women a spotlight for a night as women are still so very much underrepresented in every corner of the music business. As well as in so many other parts of business and politics and everywhere as well.
One last “prepare for the Scotland trip” thing I did this weekend was going on a short hike up and down a hill to test the new boots I bought last week. They are wonderful and I’m so glad I exchanged them now before the trip. Even if I’m not walking up a Munro, I plan to be out and about quite a bit and I need proper boots for that.
Besides all that I finished reading my latest novel and for some reason Imight keep to non-fiction for the next few weeks. None of the fiction books on my shelf really interest me at the moment and when the plots and characters of the last ones I read (and also quite enjoyed) blur into each other and I forgot names and places from those stories quite quickly, it feels time for a fiction break. For a while anyway. I’ve got more than enough non-fiction across all sorts of genres on my shelf as well….
