Friday 23rd January 2026, 12:15

After my workout this morning, I headed to the changing rooms, slipped into my swimming trunks, and meandered through to the pool area, as I do most days, in search of the steam room. Everyone knows how beneficial steam rooms are for muscle recovery and relaxation, as well as a plethora of other advantages, and the reason I signed up to my current gym is largely because my previous one didn’t have one. Usually I ignore the pool and head straight into the steam room, spend ten or fifteen minutes in there, and then head back down to the showers. 

This morning, however, something remarkable happened. I’ve been going to the gym (on and off, admittedly) for over ten years, and I honestly cannot remember a time this has happened to me before. I walked into the pool area and, by the grace of god, the swimming pool was empty. Completely empty. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before in my life, at any of the gyms I’ve been to, and I have been to a lot of different gyms (I get bored very easily). Usually there are some sad looking Mums playing with ugly screaming toddlers, or lots of old people taking 42 years to swim a length, but today, there was nobody else in sight – just me, myself and I. 

I felt as though it was an opportunity I couldn’t afford to miss, so despite having done over an hour of strength training in the gym, I decided to go for a swim. As I entered the water, I could physically feel myself relax, as the stress faded away and my mind emptied itself of troublesome thoughts. I picked a lane, pushed off the wall, and swam. I thought of nothing except kicking my legs, putting one arm in front of the other, and making it to the other end of the pool. For a moment, life was serene – no, scrap that, I was serene. 

There is something uniquely wonderful about swimming, and it is a deep regret of mine that I don’t find the time to do it more often. I recently read Swimming by Roger Deakin, and the experiences of wild swimming he described so beautifully left me in complete awe of nature, and with a renewed desire to make a bigger effort to swim more often myself. This morning is yet another reminder that I must push myself to follow through on it. 

Saturday 24th January 2026, 18:55 

I find myself sitting at the desk in Room 712 of the Holiday Inn in Leicester, watching the traffic go by out of the window and considering the unique ugliness of this city. I’m here as part of some ‘Leadership School’ training that I’m doing – I won’t bore you with the details, but it’s structured over three weekend residentials, of which this is the first (the next one is in Nottingham in March, and the final one is back in this same hotel in May). It’s actually quite a nice hotel, and has been awarded four stars (as you know, I never do less than four stars darling). 

I had to be here for a 10am start this morning, so my plan was to wake up at 7am, go for a quick run, get ready, pack my stuff and head off, with plenty of time to spare. However, a friend of mine somehow persuaded me to go for a ‘couple of pints’ at the pub yesterday evening, but those couple of pints were rapidly followed by a couple of large Sauvignon Blancs, and in the end I didn’t get home until 2am this morning, so naturally my original plan went out of the window. Nonetheless, I still made it to the hotel conference room on time (with 12 minutes to spare, actually), and even had time to stop on the way for a McDonald’s breakfast. 

It therefore goes without saying that I have spent most of today in an overheated, windowless conference room with 15 other people, none of whom seems to be under the age of 40, longing for it to be over so I could check in to my room, turn off the lights, and lie down. However, by the time we wrapped up at 5pm, I was actually feeling much better, and I even managed half an hour of cardio in the gym. Look at me go! Even so, I’ve declined to join the rest of my training colleagues at dinner this evening, and have instead ordered piri piri chicken, chunky chips, chocolate ice cream and a bottle of sparkling water from room service. The training is all expenses paid, so why not? 

Monday 26th January 2026, 20:20

My iPhone has been locked in my drawer again, replaced once more by the iconic Barbie Mobile. I cannot explain it to you rationally or logically, but I passionately detest my iPhone, to the point where I just don’t want it in my presence. I took Forest for a walk earlier whilst listening to the audiobook Small Pleasures by The School of Life, and it genuinely took every ounce of restraint I had not to throw my phone at a lamppost or put it in the dog poo bin. 

I’ve removed everything from my iPhone that should serve as a distraction – I’ve deleted all of my social media, as well as any other non-essential apps – so that now it is literally just my internet banking, emails, Spotify, and a few other essentials (Trainline, for example), yet somehow I still find myself scrolling.. my internet fucking banking? I cannot make head nor tails of it, yet it happens, more regularly than I would care to admit – trust me when I say that checking the balance of your Stocks & Shares ISA 14 times a day does not offer a positive reflection of your mental health.

I also think it is the expectation of the iPhone. Sure, I have no apps to distract me, but it’s more than that, and I find myself asking questions such as why isn’t anyone messaging me, and why have the people I’ve messaged not replied immediately? It’s absolutely preposterous, since I also regularly go days without replying to people and regularly explain the detrimental effects the expectation of constant communication can have, yet there I am, expecting exactly that anyway. With the Barbie phone? I could not care less if I tried. 

So, since I’ve written about this laboriously before, I won’t go on for too long, other than to simply say I fucking hate my iPhone, and I am genuinely going to try and figure out how I never have to use it again.
Oh, and I love my Barbie phone.