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2026 Summer Solstice Update

by Matt Marshall on

A relatively quiet half of the year. We’ve been enjoying the brighter days and more stable weather by being generally more outgoing and active. We recently purchased some E-bikes which has meant less time driving and more time doing things outside, and we’ve had a good few days out in nature as well.

Solstice itself was largely fun, but a little hectic for my taste. We climbed Roseberry Topping with some friends and family, visited some other family, and had a feast at ours. This was a great plan but due to lack of planning on our part it was a little rushed, we got caught in multiple different roadworks and ended up having some stressful driving and it felt a lot like running around. Thankfully, there’s plenty of time to think about an iteration on this to iron it out for next year!

Key Events

Hobbies

Lightweight but nice, is the theme of this update as far as hobbies go. I’m very happy at the moment as I feel like I’m getting the most out of most of my hobbies, with a few exceptions where I know I want to do more.

Archery

Not much archery at the moment. I have been down to the field and shot more arrows than I’ve done previously. I think I got my arrow count up to a “solid” 25, which is already up from 6 last year!

My goals with archery remain to simply shoot more than once or twice in the next few months, while the summer weather holds.

Creative Writing

No real creative writing. I’ve been pre-occupied with a few other things, and creative writing is taking a back seat for the moment.

Exercise

I have finally broken out of my very long rut with strength training. I won’t go into all the details here because I am planning on writing about this separately, but I’ve re-organised my routine and my approach to pull-ups and have seen immediate benefits in both strength gains and enjoyment.

Essentially, I’ve returned to a split routine which has given me more recovery time between workouts, left me feeling less broken after a workout, means I’m outside more mornings per week, and allowed me to slot in a few exercises to round out my training better. I’ve also tried my best to make it work with Jackknife Pulls, rather than using an assistance band; and have seen stellar results from this already.

I’m also walking more. After each workout I take a 10 minute walk around the park (approx 1km), and then on my midweek rest day I take a longer walk around another local park which lasts about 45 minutes. Sometimes I turn this walk into a “ruck” by adding a few kilos of weight to a backpack, which adds a bit of fun and active recovery to it.

I’ve not re-started my running because I’m enjoying focusing on strength training and walking, and I want to milk my new workout routine for as much as it can give me before I split my focus again. I have a soft goal of re-establishing a habit of running 5k, but right now I’m pretty happy just getting stronger and building more structural integrity in my body.

Hiking

I have done some hiking! I had some surplus leave to burn up at work, so I booked myself some time off and have been up some hills.

I mostly walked in the North Pennines, near Teesdale which is rapidly becoming my favourite walking spot, but I did visit the Cheviots.

I re-visited Cronkley Fell solo, which was a lovely little walk and served to remind me how to actually climb a hill. It was much easier than I remembered from the first time I did it. Later, I returned to the same area with my friend M and dragged her down Widdybank Fell just across the river. I failed to imbue a love of walking in her, which humbled me a bit, but she said it wasn’t a bad day so there is that.

Later, I climbed my first mountain for a long while. I went up Murton Fell with a detour to Murton Pike, and then descended into High Cup Gill via the gorgeous and very photogenic High Cup Nick. That was a solid walk, although ascending to the peak of Murton Fell and back down did challenge my navigation and my patience with rough terrain somewhat! The day afterwards, I did a recovery walk in the Cheviots with my heartsister K which she enjoyed. The route through Ingram valley was based off one from a walking book, but we overshot and a relatively easy stroll turned into more of a walk as I found a route back which took us over a large hill. But a good day was had by all.

Languages

Not much on the language front. I haven’t picked up any Mandarin like I thought I might, but I’m still regularly using Esperanto for my diary and to chat with my friend M every two weeks.

I occasionally get the “itch” to do some more serious language work, but this doesn’t last long as I’m fairly happy at the moment. Currently I’m debating buying Ōsweald Bera to try and put some time into Old English, but if I’m being honest with myself I probably won’t make time to read it soon!

Logs

Albums

Not much to say or reflect on here. The list contains lots of old favourites. I did explore a few new artists, including finally taking a proper dive into Babymetal, and I expanded my collection of Turmion Kätilöt albums.

Other highlights were Strapping Young Lad’s albums. Consistently good, just nice heavy fun. Some people at work have been sharing some music they like, so I dipped my toes into electronica via some Youtube videos from artists like Boards of Canada. It was nice and I might look to get an album or so to have, but didn’t grab or excite me as much as I’d hoped.

Lately I’m feeling the urge to dive into some more Jazz and Blues, as well as some more Industrial.

As always, this is a de-duplicated list1, so doesn’t contain repeat listens.

Books

Quite light as my medication and general tiredness interfered with my reading somewhat, but I’ve recently hit more of a stride.

I enjoyed re-reading some non-fiction books that I enjoyed years ago, to see if they still struck a chord or not. They did, and I felt re-invigorated to put some more effort into the Minimalist and Stoic habits that help keep me happy and peaceful.

I enjoyed reading Dune once more, although didn’t feel compelled to pick up the rest of the series. I struggled with a few of the latest Discworld novels, but I did enjoy I shall Wear Midnight.

I was in the mood for some decent sci-fi, so I picked up Excession for a re-read. I originally read this when I was first discovering The Culture, and didn’t really like it then. However, everyone I’ve spoken to about it in the last ten years have all loved it and said it was one of their favourites, so I reckoned that I’d maybe appreciate it more this time. Turns out; I didn’t. I still didn’t really enjoy it. I probably got more from it than I did the first time, but I found none of the characters compelling at all and the crisis plot didn’t feel compelling. I also don’t find the exchanges between the Minds as funny as everyone else does, apparently!

Reeling from this, I tried Shards of Earth because I loved Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time books. However I really struggled with it. I loved the premise, but there seemed to be a lot of infodumping and the characters didn’t quite do it for me. I might pick up the next one to see if it gets better now most of the infodump about the world is out of the way, but I’m not feeling compelled by it.

Raising Steam did re-energise me a bit, but definitely wasn’t a favourite. To get me out of a glum reading slump, I went for something easy and picked up some of my childhood faves: the Artemis Fowl books. These perked me up because they were easy and I could progress through them very quickly. Feeling re-energised, I tried out Jade City and was blown away. It was a little bit info-dumpy in places, but Fonda Lee has crafted something very special there. It is my perfect blend of character-driven and action-packed in the right proportions. I immediately picked up Jade War and am currently chewing through Jade Legacy at a comfortable pace, although I might slow myself down to draw it out some more!

Movies

A nice little collection of movies lately. I’ve been getting some recommendations from friends as well as algorithms, and my new workout routine means I’ve also created space for a consistent Friday night movie night which my wife has also been able to join lately.

Highlights: 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple was utterly phenomenal, as was Anora. I also really enjoyed The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Welcome To The Jungle was a surprisingly great action movie.

On the flip side, I knew A Minecraft Movie was going to be bad going in and I was mostly watching it in the same way people watch a train crash… but I didn’t expect it to be so bad. Wow. I actually felt like I’d wasted my time.

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