Many thanks to all who donated to The Stroke Association in support of my Cardiff Half Marathon run on Sunday 4th October.
It was a glorious day, a last twinkle of summer (maybe), and the run was by far the most enjoyable of the three Cardiff Halves I've done. I paced myself a bit better, so I came in a bit slower than the previous two years, but the upside was that my recovery was much quicker. Normally I'd be saying never again, but I've already got my name in the ballot for next year's event.
Before the run.
At the Mile 7/12km mark.
And tea and medal(s) at the end, after 21.1 km.
29,000 people took part in the run, from all over the world, and the support from people along the course was phenomenal. Special thanks to my wonderful wife for getting me through the day and pampering me afterwards.
My music choices included Metric, Rush, Catherine Wheel and the Comsat Angels.
There's still a chance to drop some funds into the Stroke Association, should you wish.
Yesterday I sent off my final corrections on MERLIN'S WAY, all 600 pages of it - it's the biggest book I've produced in some years - and barring any minor gremlins, that'll be it now, with the book moving into production for publication early next year. It's been a really protracted process, this one, and it's with a degree of relief that I can finally turn all my energies over to the current work in progress.
Here's the cover, by the way:
I do think it looks bloody fantastic, and I'm excited to see the final package when it arrives.
Talking of even bigger books, my wife and I went up to London last week for the launch of China Mieville's massive new novel THE ROUSE. It looks and sounds fabulous and it was great to hear China talking about it. China and I were both on the same Arthur C Clarke shortlist back in 2001 (he won, deservedly, with PERDIDO STREET STATION) and I've been following his work with slack-jawed admiration ever since.
Moving on, thanks to those who've already helped with my fundraising bid for The Stroke Association, for which I'll be running the Cardiff Half Marathon in just over a week. We're just shy of a thousand pounds on the main donation page, although taking into consideration some very generous contributions made directly to the charity, we're actually well over that figure. But it would be nice to bump the figure on the donation page, wouldn't it?
Every little bit really helps, both with the charity and my own motivation. I'm feeling pretty good about the run itself right now. I did a 15K on Monday and while that's still 7 and a bit K short of a half, I reckon I grind out the difference, especially when you add in the hydration stops and so on, not to mention the boost you get from the spectators. I was going to run a full practise half sometime this week but I'm not sure that's wise now; it'd be unfortunate to pull a muscle with only a few days to go.
I was saddened, incidentally, to hear on the radio last night that Michael Kiwanuka has had a very severe stroke. I love his music and I hope he makes a good recovery and can continue doing what he does best. Strokes are horrible.
Here's Michael with the equally brilliant Little Simz. Get well soon, Michael.
You can read a bit about my reasons for doing the run over there, and I'll also be logging progress here and there as I try to get myself ready for the big day. I've had a few minor niggles over this summer which have impacted my running, meaning it feels like a bit of a bigger hill to overcome than it did this time last year, but I'm confident I can grind my way around come what may. And I have a 10K in Cardiff next month as a warm-up for the longer run, which should help.
My readers were incredibly generous in 2024 and 2025 when I ran for Alzheimers UK and Cancer Research Wales respectively, and also for my "100 runs in 100 days" thing that I did last year in connection with Red January, and believe me it makes a massive difference to my motivation to see those donations. So if you are able to sponsor me again, it's greatly appreciated, and every little drop helps.
Sharing a laugh with Peter while on stage. Photo by Thorsten Wulff.
I had a busy, productive July. I got the month off to a promising start by joining Peter F Hamilton in Berlin, where we attended Metropol Con 26, the European SF convention. Our visit was in conjunction with our friends from the Otherland Bookstore, where Peter and I had both done successful and enjoyable events in the past, although not together. Peter and I flew in on separate flights and met up at the Moxy Hotel, just one S-Bahn stop down the line from the excellent event venue at the silent green Kulturquartier, a converted former crematorium. It sounds unpromising but you couldn't ask for a better event space, and everyone there looked to be having a very good time.
Signing with Peter. Thanks to everyone who came along, it was great to meet you all.
We certainly enjoyed ourselves, with some excellent beers and meals in the evening, and Peter and I also found time to visit the Berlin Technical Museum:
I think the C-47/DC-3/Dakota might be one of my favorite aircraft types - but you'd know that if you've read one of my earlier novels. There's just something so totally right about them.
And credit to Peter for spotting this before I did: it's a piece of circa-1800 plateway from, of all places, Merthyr Tydfil, just up the road from where I live in Wales. Fantastic!
I've always been impressed with Berlin as a beautiful, liveable city, spacious and airy, with wonderful public transport and great amenities, and this third visit did nothing to change my opinion. Many thanks to Wulf and friends from Otherland, and to the organisers of Metropol Con; I think it was a great success, and thanks also to my good friend Peter for his usual great company. I'd also like to thank photographer Thorsten Wulff for the beautiful prints he gave me of Bowie and Patti Smith, truly wonderful.
Beers with Wulf. That stuff - a dark lager - was bloody lethal, especially as I hadn't touched a drop of alcohol since the start of May.
Your new favorite band photo, according to Wulf. Photo by Thorsten Wulff.
Upon returning from Berlin I had a short week back in Wales, in the middle of this blistering continuing heatwave, during which I just about managed to continue work on the new book. The second round of edits for MERLIN'S WAY had in fact come in just before I left, but rather than work on them in a fragmented fashion, I opted to hold fire until I'd got back from my second big trip of the month, this time to Spain. You need to be in a certain mindset to focus on edits, in my experience, and it's best done in an uninterrupted workflow.
The Spanish trip was built around attending Celsius, the festival of horror, fantasy and SF in Aviles, northern Spain. The brilliant writer Ian Watson had very kindly invited me to come along in 2020, but, because of Covid, and my mother's ill health, I had to decline. Ian had re-invited me for 2026, and I was more than happy to accept. Ian passed away earlier this year, but his partner, Cristina, was determined that Celsius should proceed. I cannot thank Cristina enough for her warmth, enthusiasm and helpfulness during what must have been an incredibly trying period, but I can only hope that the evident success of the festival offered some small reward for the effort invested. My wife travelled with me and we were very well looked after, and made extremely welcome by all present. Aviles is a wonderful location for the festival - it was actually cooler and rainier than Wales while we were there, which was no bad thing - and I know many writers make a point of returning. It's a very chilled affair for the attendees, and although the events tend to run well into the night, there's no stress and always the promise of some good wine and tapas to reward one's sterling efforts. I was delighted, incidentally, to find out that another Ian, Ian McDonald, was also attending. He's one of those who've made repeat visits, and it was lovely to catch up with him over wine and grub.
I have to pinch myself sometimes, getting to hang out with the likes of Ian, after first discovering his stories thirty five years ago, when we were both a lot, lot younger, and very much closer to the beginnings of our careers than the ends. I'd sold a couple of stories to Interzone, but they'd not yet published them, when in early 1990 I came across Ian's first short story collection, "Empire Dreams", in the books section of Grace Brothers department store. No, not the fictional Grace Brothers from "Are you Being Served", but the actual one that used to exist in Sydney and maybe elsewhere. Anyway, I read Ian's stories with amazement and envy, blown away by his use of language and seemingly effortless ease with all the gnarly tropes of SF, and it's a source of great delight to get to hang out with him all these years later. I also enjoyed meeting, among others, and in no particular order, Paolo Bacigalupi, Jo Walton, Ursula Vernon, Becky Chambers (we'd said hello in Berlin) and Wole Talabi, who gave an excellent interview full of interesting insights on AI. Anyway, Celsius was great! My wife and I flew in and out of Bilbao, where we've got family, but even the five hour bus ride to Aviles and back went smoothly.
Once I was back and settled in Wales, I cracked on with the delayed edits for Merlin. Those went pretty smoothly and the ms is now back with my editor, who reports that the changes I sent back all look good. Barring any further queries, therefore, the book's next port of call will be typesetting, after which it will go out for proofing. That's about the last stage at which any alterations can be made, and they ought to be small ones by then, after which the book will move to the printers, ready for publication early next year. And I, meanwhile, am now back working on the next one, which has the working title THE DREAM FARMS. We'll see if that sticks.
Thank you to all who braved the heat to meet me at Cowbridge Library, it was lovely to see you all and I could have chatted for hours. Thanks also to Phil and Charlotte at the library for a most enjoyable event.
And, just because I heard it on the radio in the car on the drive down, this rather gorgeous piece of new music from PJ Harvey, which I believe was commissioned by Brian Cox!
In a very short while the UK will be holding a referendum on the country's continued membership of the EU. At the moment, judged on the polls (which are of course often inaccurate, as with the last general election), things seem to be heading the way of a vote to leave.
I think it would be a great shame were this to happen. As a young scientist, I benefitted tremendously from the freedom of movement allowed within the EU. I'm not talking about my time within the European Space Agency, which is a non-EU organisation, although that experience certainly helped frame my views on European cooperation and integration. But having left ESA in 1994, I was immediately able to take up a two year postdoctoral position at a Dutch university, and I did so with the minimum of hassle and paperwork. Once again I was immersed in a pan-European working environment which I found stimulating and encouraging.
After my postdoctoral position expired in 1996, I found myself unemployed. There were a handful of possible job opportunities back in the UK, but I had grown fond of the Netherlands, and my partner at the time, who later became my wife, had a full-time job. She too had benefitted from freedom of movement within the EU. Disinclined to leave Holland, therefore, I signed on for unemployment benefit from the Dutch state, while continuing to look for work opportunities within the area where we lived. I applied for one job in Delft, working on satellite monitoring of the Earth's atmosphere, but was not made an offer.
Luck eventually intervened, in that I saw an advert in Nature for a newly founded business in Haarlem, which would revolve around developing scientific software for astronomical applications. It seemed right up my street, almost literally so, in that Haarlem was only a short train ride from where we lived near Leiden. I applied for the job and was suitably astonished to learn that the driving force behind the business was an old colleague of mine - and a Welshman, like me, who had settled in the Netherlands. We met for an interview, which went well. While there was a strong prospect of working for the company in the future, though, there was still going to be a few more months of unemployment. I therefore continued to sign on, while going through the motions of looking for work. It was an odd, unsettling time, but - in hindsight - a blessing, because it enabled me to dust off the abandoned manuscript of Revelation Space and finally give it the polish it needed prior to submission. That was early 1997, and the book sold two years later. Those months of unemployment were therefore literally life-changing, and I owe them to the Dutch state and EU regulations on worker's rights.
Many of the arguments for and against membership of the EU seem to revolve around economics, which seems to me to be an extremely narrow metric. Even if we are better off out of the EU, which we probably won't be, so what? This is already a wealthy country, and leaving the EU won't mend the widening inequality between the very rich and almost everyone else. More than that, though, look at what would be lost. Friendship, commonality, freedom of movement, a sense that national boundaries are (and should be) evaporating. When many countries (including the Netherlands) moved to the Euro, it was a joy not to have to pack Guilders, Belgian francs, Deutschmarks, for a simple drive to visit to family in Germany a few hours away. The eradication of visible borders did not lead to a smearing out of regional cultures, but instead it made it much more easy to sample those cultures and gain a deeper sense of European history. I never stopped feeling that living in the EU was a thing to be proud of, and more than ever I am content to think of myself as European before British. I therefore hope that the Remain vote will win the day.
It's not a new album, it's been out since 2024, but it feels as if I've listened to little else since first picking up Mercury Rev's Born Horses. I've always loved Mercury Rev but even for a band that's rarely repeated itself, this record is an astonishing, mind-blowing excursion into strange new territories of the psyche. I can't compare it to anything else, and I don't think "masterpiece" is going too far. A genuine work of art, I think, which will endure.
Thanks Jonathan, Grasshopper, etc, you have made the world a slightly better place.
Thanks for your patience with the lack of news over the last few months. All's been well, I've been busy with work and travel, but I'll offer a few highlights as a prelude to more regular updates as we go into the summer.
Once the Zurich stuff had died down (see last post), I got back into preparatory work on the new novel. I decided I wouldn't start any actual writing, though, until I'd completed the first round of edits on MERLIN'S WAY. February and March, then, were mostly taken up with planning, chapter outlines etc. It's not always the way I operate, but with a book of the kind I'm now writing, it's all but unavoidable.
It wasn't all hard work. In Mid February my wife and I travelled to Birmingham to see Carlos Acosta's ballet production Don Quixote, which was magnificent. On the way, we diverted via London where we went to the launch for our friend Paul McAuley's wonderful new novel LOSS PROTOCOL, which is certainly one of his best and most personal books, an affecting take on climate change, catastrophe and adaptation in a future Britain four or five decades from now. I recommend it wholeheartedly.
March came and went, as Marches tend to do. I hit my 60th birthday, but not being one much for milestones I kept it deliberately low-key, and was perfectly content with that. As the end of the month neared, edits came in on Merlin so I attended to those (not too bad) and then travelled back up to Birmingham for the Easter National SF Convention, held in a hotel at the NEC. I only went along as a punter, not taking part in any programming but it was nice to sit in on a few readings, panels etc and just generally catch up with friends old and new. I really love Birmingham and its environs; I've always felt comfortable there and it's a particular joy to have that connection affirmed by my link to the Birmingham SF Group (who I also visited during February's trip). I enjoyed Eastercon but I think it reinforced my feeling that one full day is about right for me, especially now that the dealer's room isn't all that great for just general book-buying.
Peter Hamilton and I had an enjoyable meal the first night, then did the same thing again the second, along with the aforementioned Paul M, and Robin Kilsby from the Brum group.
Back in Wales, I finally made a real start on the new book. Not much to say on that one right now, other than that it's set mostly in Wales, in 2046, and it's structured around a police investigation. It's not noir, but it is very much science fiction.
Later in April I'd agreed to go to Bratislava to attend "VytahConf", a business-orientated space meeting. As the trip neared, I dropped work on the novel to prepare my talk for the closing session. My topic choice was handed to me on a plate, given the recent success of Artemis II. I'd just turned 60 and my whole life - thus far, at least - might be viewed as bookended by crewed Lunar missions. I don't remember any of the specific Apollo missions, but I do remember the fact of them happening, and my interest in space exploration was sufficiently activated that I do have clear recollections of Skylab. It's also one of the great thrills of my life to have met two Apollo astronauts (Jack Schmidt, and the now late Al Worden).
For my talk, I took an overview of those 60 years, looking at the timeline for orbital bases and lunar settlements that we might have had, contrasting visions from both NASA technical forecasts and contemporary science fiction, taking in such ambitious but perhaps unlikely ventures as Von Braun's proposal for a nuclear powered Mars landing by 1982. Although much remains unclear about Artemis III and beyond, the evident success of the Lunar fly-around, re-entry and splashdown was enough to be able to leave things on a reasonably optimistic note. I was captivated by the whole mission, in fact, and can't wait for the next chapter.
Just a pity they cut the chorus:
Anyway, my hosts in Bratislava, Igor and Adam, made sure I was very well looked after. I loved my glimpse of this beautiful city, which marked my first visit to Slovakia. Indeed, other than a visit to Vienna about thirty years ago, I'm seriously untravelled in this whole part of Europe. I flew in to Vienna, by the way: it's only a relatively short, frictionless car ride across the barely-discernible border and between the two glittering, Danube-threaded cities.
Igor had arranged a Q&A and signing event at a great bookshop, Martinus, for the evening before the conference. The bookshop event was fantastic. Although I've not been translated into Slovakian, a number of my books have appeared in Czech language editions over the years. I signed many copies and chatted to some lovely people.
I don't take being translated at all lightly, but once you've received your contractual allocation of books, it can sometimes feel a bit abstract. Seeing these books, some of them new, but some of them also old and well-read, gave me a fantastic jolt of appreciation for the time and energy taken to put these translations into the world, and to the readers who have sought them out. I loved talking to everyone at Martinus (and the other readers I met at VytahConf, and in the pub later on) and hope my gratitude came across. There are so many legitimate reasons for having a writerly whinge lately: seeing your work scraped for AI training models, the hollowing out of publishing, the creeping death of the mass market paperback etc... but there are good times, too, reasons to keep grinding on. I came back from Bratislava absolutely stoked and threw myself back into the new book with renewed purpose.
There was stuff in May, and now I'm back on the book ... but I'm also taking a stab at a new novella, because I don't think I've been doing enough shorter fiction lately. It's a topic I touch upon in this interview with Jon from ScifiScavenger, which I did last month:
I very enjoyed chatting with Jon and if you've not checked out his channel, there's lots to dig into there. On the subject of Youtube channels, too, while it's not an interview, you might want to check out this discussion about Halcyon Years on Robin Kilsby's Bookspin channel:
Well that's about it for me. I'm off sick right now with a nasty chest infection so there's really nothing to be done except lounge around watching Star Trek re-runs. Could be worse, couldn't it?
As promised, a pair of sketches (one complete with authentic coffee stain!) that I drew before writing Halcyon Years. I'd worked out the basic parameters of the story at this point, putting in the locales I knew I'd need, but there are a few bits and pieces which didn't end up playing much of a role in the book. All of the following is revealed in the first few chapters of the book, by the way, so no fear of giving away anything crucial - although if you'd like to go in totally cold, obviously, read no more.
The first one (click to embiggen) is a basic cross-section of Halcyon. I didn't really have a set idea of how big it needed to be, but 50 km long seemed about right for the type of story I was intending. I was thinking, very roughly, of something about the size of greater Los Angeles. I wanted there to be room enough for distinct settlements with countryside between them, not just one big city, and I also wanted roads and railway lines, and especially the former, so I could have cars. I decided that the ship would be completely closed, with no windows to the outside universe, and that there'd need to be a long, thick tube running down the middle to give the illusion of sky.
The little sketch to the bottom right of the picture is me working out for myself what rough percentage of the interior would be visible from any given position on the inner surface. As you can see, it's never possible to see the opposite side of the tube.
The second sketch (also click to embiggen) is the complete interior rolled out as a map:
As mentioned, there's stuff in there that doesn't come into the final story, and which may or may not be in contradiction with it, such as the island in the middle of Midlake. That was going to be a kind of private retreat for the DelRossos, but in the end I decided not to bother with it, just letting them have their estate and the luxury yacht. I wasn't going to draw another map just because the story took me in a slightly different direction.
Should these or tidied-up versions have been included in the book? I'm not sure. Perhaps because I wasn't a big reader of fantasy, I've never expected to see a map at the beginning of a book, and those few times when I encountered one in an SF context, I never found it all that helpful. But that's just me.
Many thanks, all, for your patience with lack of updates and unanswered comments over the past few months. Everything has been fine here, but what with travel and an unexpected commission, time just seemed to slip away after October.
After delivering Merlin's Way and completing the Cardiff Half, my next big milestone was a trip to France at the end of October. I was one of the guests at the Utopiales festival in Nantes, but prior to that I spent a few days in Paris and was kept enjoyable busy with interviews and a fantastic evening at Millepages, a wonderful bookshop in Vincennes, on the outskirts of the city. My thanks to Clement from Millepages, my friends from Belial, who looked after my wife and I during the whole trip, and the brilliant people at Utopiales. I met many readers, did a huge amount of PR, and came back buzzing with enthusiam. I've always had friendly relations with my different French publishers over the years, but they've not always been able to sell my books in sufficient numbers to make the whole thing viable as an ongoing proposition. Since publishing the French editions of Thousandth Night and House of Suns, though, Belial seem to have tapped into some enthusiasm for my work and I'm really happy to see where this takes us. It doesn't hurt that Belial take a lot of care with their translations and covers, of course.
While I was in France, I got the disappointing news that the play our local theatre group had been working on for some time could not go ahead due to an unanticipated rights issue. We were rehearsing for Neil Simon's California Suite. I've always been a fan of Neil Simon's work, especially The Odd Couple, and it happened that my character was going to be the one played by Walter Matthau in the film version of California Suite - a double bonus because my dad was a big Walter Matthau fan. Ah well, perhaps we'll get another stab at it down the line. In the meantime, with my evenings somewhat more open than I'd been expecting, I decided to knuckle down and throw myself into online French lessons, which I'm rather enjoying. Having received such a warm welcome in France on my recent trips, it seems I really ought to make more of an effort.
Halcyon Years duly appeared in the UK while I was in France. I didn't do much publicity, certainly not compared to the days of ten or twenty years ago, when pub week would be pretty full-on, with trips not just to London but Manchester, Birmingham, etc but that seems to be the way things are now. On the back end of a trip to London I already had planned, I signed some stock for Goldsboro and Forbidden Planet, and I also maintained my long-standing relationship with the excellent Anderida Books in Worcester, who still have some signed and numbered first editions available.
Although the focus was on novellas rather than Halcyon Years, I did chat to my good friend Robin, of the Bookspin Youtube channel and also the Birmingham Science Fiction Group. You can watch the interview here:
And, jumping ahead a bit, I also had a good chat with Gary Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan on the Coode Street Podcast in December:
Thanks both for your kindness and support throughout my career.
Halcyon picked up some nice reviews from (among others) The Guardian, SFX, Locus and so on, and I'm really grateful. The US edition is due out this month and I'll be sure to jump on any promotional opportunities that come my way. Timed quite nicely is this interview I've just done with Arley at Clarkesworld, for which many thanks:
That was October into November, and a bit of December, but the big unexpected thing that came along was a short story commission for Zurich Insurance. I'd worked with Zurich in a future-forecasting role about twelve years ago, so if I'm a corporate sell-out I'm afraid it's already happened, but this was something slightly different, paring me up with professional futurologist Tom Cheesewright to take a look at the world of 2050, shining a light on where things might actually improve rather than get worse. Tom and I had to work quickly, with Tom producing a sort of bullet-point forecast about all sorts of things in 2050, from healthcare to food, employment, travel and AI. I then cherry-picked half a dozen or so eye-catching items from Tom's report, and wrote a story around them, taking the title "Meet Tomorrow" from the overall name of the Zurich project. We were all very pleased with how the whole package came together. By a nice coincidence, too, one of the illustrators attached to the project was Amir Zand, who has also done my Belial covers!
We went live on Monday 12th January, and Tom and I spent Tuesday doing a raft of interviews for local radio and TV across the UK, all of which seemed to go well. In fact there's been a bit of repeat business, in that we've been asked to go back onto Radio Wales this coming weekend - which is nice.
The package Zurich has put together looks really slick. We spent a day filming in the Barbican centre, so you can see me talking about the project, and also hear me reading the story. Take a look here if so interested:
From that page, you can also download and read Tom's detailed predictions across all the relevant areas.
Aside from any more media that comes our way, Tom and I may meet up in October when we are both booked in to do the Cardiff Half! I'll be breaking out the begging bowl again for my chosen charity partner (this time the Stroke Association) but I'll leave that until well into summer. Thank you for those who supported me in my two charity drives in 2025, for Mind over Matters and Cancer Research Wales.
November and December were busy in other ways (I know, is anyone ever not busy?). I went up to London for a reading and signing event at the Super Relaxed Fantasy Club, which was terrific fun, then I was back again for the aforementioned Barbican film shoot, then back again for the inaugural Global Space Awards.
I was there just as a punter, so I could sit back and enjoy the wonderful surroundings and hospitality in the Natural History Museum. It was a really fantastic evening surrounded by the great and the good of the space sector, brilliantly hosted by the physicist Brian Greene (a very cool operator) and with the likes of Tim Peake and Maggie Aderin-Pockock there to give speeches and hand out prizes. I was particularly pleased to see the life of Jim Lovell honoured, with the inaugural James Lovell Legacy Award being given to his family, some of whom were in attendance (below, with Brian Greene and Tim Peake):
I got the chance to say hello to Tim again, which is always a thrill - I've met him three times now and he's exactly as engaging and enthusiastic in person as you'd hope.
Well, that's me more or less up to date. I'm trying to get going on a new book, but I've not yet settled on a theme that really fires me up, but we'll see how that goes over the coming weeks. I've got nothing further to report on Merlin's Way, incidentally, but at some point I should expect some feedback and editorial requests, for which I'll need to stop work on whatever I've got going by then. Whether that'll be next week or next month, I've no idea. Twenty five years ago, when I started publishing novels, the typical turnaround for first impressions was on the order of 3 - 6 weeks, but you can comfortably call it 3 - 6 months now, and longer isn't unheard of. To some extent you used to be able to plan your yearly schedule around these rhythms, but no longer - at least not at my level of sales and name-recognition. No one is to blame; everyone in publishing (should I say "trad publishing"?) is chronically overworked now, but the end result is that writers, at least those in my acquaintance, spend more and more of our time in limbo, hoping to get started on a new thing but never actually sure where we are with the old. It's not really conducive to creativity, but we make do as best we can.
Thanks again for reading me in 2025, and I'll wish everyone a healthy and enjoyable 2026, wherever you may be.
And hey, let's have some B-52s, because nothing could be more absurd than the present moment.
After the storms of the last couple of days, Sunday 5th October was about as nice a day for running as one could hope for. It started off a bit chilly and breezy, especially as I made the long walk from Cardiff Bay to the event village near the castle, but once the run was underway I warmed up very quickly indeed, and had a good sweat on within a few kilometres.
At the village I bumped into my friend Lee from the local parkrun community, and he kindly took a photo of me just before the start:
And then we were off! Lee's an Iron Man nutcase so I wisely decided to let him run his own pace while I fell back, got my head down and concentrated on the miles to come. I find that with longer runs, the best way not to be too daunted by it all is to break it down into smaller chunks. The hydration stations were at 5km intervals, which is parkrun distance. Nearer the end of the run, I definitely found that it helped to remind myself that there was just a "parkrun" or a "parkrun and a bit" to go. Earlier on, I tend to focus on music, with the length of an album being a good metric for covering a decent chunk of distance. I must admit that the first half of the run is the more enjoyable for me, since it takes you on a long, sweeping course out of the centre of Cardiff, out toward Penarth and then across the barrage and back back to Mermaid Quay. It's a beautiful, ever-changing series of vistas and the sensation of running along the barrage, with water to either side, is fantastic! The second half of the run, which is more about street running through the terraces of Cardiff, isn't quite as enjoyable, not just because there are long stretches where it all looks the same, but because fatigue is starting to kick in as well. I was all right until around the 18 km mark, but then I started getting back ache and needed to alternate some walking and running for the rest of the event, especially because there is a really nasty hill at around the 20 km mark!
Another friend of mine from parkun, Gareth, took a photo of me as I was near this point in the run:
Rather shockingly I was oblivious to Gareth being there, lost in my bubble of music and exhaustion! Sorry, Gareth! One thing that definitely helped, even as tiredness was building, was the amazing boost from supporters along the way. People were there to cheer on friends and loved ones, but also just to shout out positive encouragement to random runners like myself. From the police, race marshalls, the supporters and participants, it was a wonderful show of what this country can be at its best: diverse, welcoming, inclusive, warm. Another thing that helped me push through the tough bits was to remind myself, in a zen fashion, of my marvellous sponsors, and the great support they have offered to Cancer Research Wales. The last time I checked, CRW had raised well over two hundred and twenty thousand pounds via the Cardiff Half, and it's not too late to add to the tally.
Thank you again, all, for your kind support and motivation!
Thanks again to those who have helped support my Cancer Research Wales fundraising bid for the Cardiff Half Marathon. With the run just three days away, I'm feeling good and ready for the challenge. There's still time to tip some money in for CRW:
Another slickly-produced video for your perusal, this one looking at the Eagle and the fantastic MPC kit. I was just about to go out and do a 14K training run.
Chris Foss's 1973 illustration for The Early Asimov, which appears to have influenced the design of the Eagle.
Hope this is of interest. Once again, any donations to my Cancer Research Wales half-marathon fundraiser will be greatly appreciated.
A little video about the Aoshima 1/350th scale model of Fireflash, the iconic atomic-powered airliner as featured in the opening episode of Thunderbirds.
Thanks for the comments on the last video; more of the same here except I've moved the camera a wee bit closer. It's all very amateur hour but it's just to get a feel for how I like the medium. The colour cast is a bit weird; either I messed with the camera settings by mistake or it's to do with moving the camera a bit closer. At least I'm not orange.
As before, let me know what you think, and as ever, I'm appreciative of any donations for my Cancer Research Wales charity half-marathon.
I thought I'd have a dabble with some video content, this time talking about the Starship Enterprise model on my writing desk:
If you've enjoyed the content, let me know, and while I'm here, there's still time to help me with my Cardiff Half Marathon fundraising for Cancer Research Wales:
Handing in a book always entails some mixed feelings. There's a general sense of relief that a substantial project is off the desk for the time being, meaning that at least a month or two can be turned over to something else. In fact I haven't been into my office since sending in the Merlin book, although I was mildly tempted to go in and do some tidying up this afternoon (I didn't). There's also a period of mental and physical exhaustion, and subsequent recuperation, which doesn't really hit you until after you've submitted the work; it's as if you're running on reserves until then, delaying the inevitable. I've often found that I can keep a cold at bay until I'm done with the book, but it hits me hard a day or two later. Anyone who has gone through some lengthy, stressful process such as a series of exams or a comparable works deadline will probably know the feeling. I like to keep my running going no matter what the writing pressure, but I must confess that I more or less stopped running entirely about a week before delivery, not just because the weather was poor enough not to be an incentive, but also because you're in that window where every hour is valuable, and you just want to push through. In that week I'd also set myself two intermediate deadlines which I failed to achieve, but only after a fairly exhausting run at each.
Anyway, I couldn't switch off immediately because I had a pre-arranged evening up in Birmingham with the Brum SF group, two days away that felt slightly unreal because I was both very tired, but also suddenly free of the anxiety of getting the book in. I had a wonderful time with the always warm and friendly people in Brum, and returned home very pleased with the whole thing, but also beginning to feel that I was running on empty. I did find time to pop into HMV and stock up on new long-players by, among others, Wolf Alice, Wet Leg, Eels, Divorce and Alan Sparhawk, none of which I've yet listened to.
I caught up on some rest on Sunday, then it was back out into the world for a moderately tiring day dealing with banks and accountants, mostly business that had been delayed while I got the book in. I had appointments up in Gloucester on Tuesday, with an early start and a tiring car journey either way. By Wednesday I was feeling out of sorts and decided that only more rest or a run was going to help, so I did my first bit of real exercise in over a week, with a slow, grinding 10K in utterly foul conditions. I was tired at the end of it but it probably did more good than harm, and convinced me that it can't possibly be as horrible on the day when I do the Cardiff Half. Today I had my usual early morning Thursday guitar lesson, then picked up on a little light admin and correspondence. I've been doing some good reading this week, finishing Robert Mason's CHICKENHAWK and now beavering through JET MAN, by Duncan Campbell-Smith, a recent and very readable (if exhaustive) account of Frank Whittle's struggles to develop the jet engine at the start of WW2. Tomorrow I'm back out again for the day, then on Saturday I'll be trying to deliver a successful parkrun at my local event, and praying to the rain gods.
Amid all this, the one thing I haven't been doing is feeling any great sense of elation or triumph at the delivering of a book. It's never been that way for me. There's a general relief, as I've mentioned above, and with that a necessary period of respite, but the emotions are much less ecstatic than you might think. It's more akin to delivering some massive piece of homework - you're glad it's done, but you're too close to it to have a detached view, and more than anything you just want to think about anything else for a few days.
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