How am I spending the next 4 months?
Happy Friday Sunday!
We're (more than) halfway through the year. A turning point, if you will. The nights are drawing in, the year is waning.
In just a couple of days, the last episode of Foiled will be recorded and the summer can begin. As good a time as any to take stock.
What might the next few months look like?
After Friday's smash-hit talk at Love Trails (my excuse for not sending this earlier), I am sure that I'd like to do more public speaking.
One of my aims for this year was to spend less time sitting in front of my computer, and to find ways of earning money away from the zeros and ones of a binary existence.
Public speaking and outdoor leadership were my two 2019 targets. Tick and tick (although without too much of the 'earning money' bit).
On Tuesday, the final episode of Foiled Series 3 is recorded. Then on Friday I leave for Paris and the first week of my Thighs of Steel riding.
I'm looking at the ride to Bordeaux as training for the real tough cycling that'll happen later in the summer. I'll almost certainly be suckered for assuming that central France is mere training.
And after Bordeaux? Who knows. The month from ~20 July to ~20 August is vacant. All I know for sure is that I'd like to do a few things:
1. Have a holiday.
2. Write a TV pilot for Foiled with Beth.
3. Carry on working with The Bike Project and Forests News.
One idea is to take a ferry to Sicily and stay there for a month, walking, cycling, and visiting refugee projects. Any suggestions?
From the end of August until mid-September I'll be with Thighs of Steel riding Trieste to Athens. Expect radio silence as far as this newsletter is concerned. Although I would like to gather enough audio from the trip to make a short documentary. So do expect radio noise at some point too.
Once in Athens, I'm sure plenty will have happened to shake up my plans. But I have a few ideas. I could stay in Athens for a spell, pick up my acquaintances, see how things have changed in the last year.
I'd like to get a ferry over to Lesvos, the landing ground for so many thousands of refugees. Then maybe I'll cycle through Turkey, following my nose, and the quieter roads, to Gazientep near the border with Syria.
The culmination of all this travel, I hope, will be a collection of all my writing on migration and refugees over the past 5 or 6 years. Already the 'book' is over 60,000 words - but don't worry, I will be editing.
I'm well aware of sayings about the best laid plans, so I won't call this email to you anything other than a series of ideas. But they are ideas that could keep me well occupied until November or so.
If that be the case, then I wish you an excellent summer and we'll see each other, in the usual places, at the usual time, next week.
Insh'allah.
If you like this sort of thing, then you'll probably also like my back catalogue of over 500 posts, all found at davidcharles.info.
How do you spend your Sunday? Smashing it probably.
I'm on a train up to London, for a spot of mini golf before dinner. Tomorrow we're polishing off the script, and then I'm going for a swim in one of south London's lidos. The madness is over, long live the madness.
Here are three things I've enjoyed on the internet this week:
The most effective way to tackle climate change? Plant 1 trillion trees (CNN) Headline says it all. Go, plant.
How I write a book (Alastair Humphreys) Including one inspired idea to shrink your manuscript. Plus pictures from his (damp) notebooks.
Rupert Sheldrake, Robin Carhart-Harris and Stephen Reid In Conversation (YouTube / The Psychedelic Society) This is one to listen to, rather than watch.
Much love, - dc
CREDITS
David Charles wrote this newsletter. David is co-writer of BBC Radio sitcom Foiled, and also writes for The Bike Project, Forests News, Elevate and Thighs of Steel. Reply to this email, or read more at davidcharles.info.