I’m now half way through a ~2 month road/train/sky/boat trip that has thus far thrown up some unintentional contrasts: from the manufactured, human scale of Amsterdam to the manufactured in-human scale of Dubai; the melt-in-the-heat chaos of Mazar e Sharif to the surprisingly pleasant order of Munich.

Currently in London for a couple of days with a plan to take in the spontaneity that is no-doubt happening here and giving a talk here before popping over to a fashion-week NYC for workshops and a talk at this. With every change comes opportunity, the only question is opportunity for whom.

So much corporate-paced business travel is about absorbing and processing and acting upon experiences – but its ultimately only possible with a good home base (you know who you are) and just enough reflective time to take it all in. The longer the trip the harder it is to meaningfully process experiences – and a lack of decompression sometimes hits you full frontal like a sledgehammer, and sometimes it chisels away at a leg or a foot – destabilising you until there’s nothing left to do but topple.

Which is why this weekend was a much needed step back: with the wind in our sails and a favourable tide it took ~13 hours to sail from Brighton to Dieppe arriving with enough time to raid a decent épicerie, catch a few hours sleep and slip out of the port at dawn (photo) before heading back to Angleland. Can’t think of another weekend where I slept or puked quite as much as the last – not having been born with a sea-worthy bone in my body.

Good company, a welcome pause.

Now bring on the next.