‘Tis the season for shockingly awful Netflix Christmas films. We watch them anyway: the so-bad-it's-good genre of Lindsay Lohan's latest and shameless titles like Twas the Text Before Christmas (can't bring myself to watch that). 

Recently, I watched Best. Christmas. Ever. which strangely features a hot air balloon. I feel like at this point they (they: the big Netflix gods) are clutching at straws to have a point of difference and, well, I guess the hot air balloon idea won out that year. 

Guys, why do we run?

For the last seven days, I have run every day. I know I’m not going to win any awards for that; no-one’s going to do an adventure documentary about me to show at the Banff film festival - but maybe they should! We don’t need to do extraordinary stuff to be extra-ordinary.

I’m going to list for you the pros and cons of running every day. I was maybe going to make this into an Instagram reel but Mark and I have been talking recently about how social media is likely to be the cigarettes-causing-cancer equivalent in twenty years’ time (where the cancer is depression and anxiety) and so now I’ve got undecided feelings about Instagram. So, I’m writing things down here instead.

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” 

 This beautiful quote from Marcus Aurelius has been my phone background for several weeks now and it is still working for me.

 When you're feeling down, people remind you of all the things you've got to be grateful for. Gratitude practices definitely help, but it's the way we do it that is most impactful. 

I sit down to write; to flex a stiffened muscle. Not to sound too corporate, but I appreciate your patience in me getting back to you. 

Every day - multiple times a day - I think about writing. I consider stories and circumstances that might lend themselves to a good article; I imagine the titles in my head; I hurry to write down quotes and protect that spark of inspiration. 

Allow me to tell you a story from a Tuesday morning in sunny Brighton.

The coffee was too pale, she said; too cold- hadn’t she asked for it extra hot? She took up the waitress’ offer for it to be remade. She sat, sullen, arms-crossed, opposite me. Her accent indicated she wasn't local to the area and was clearly waiting to be impressed by this recommended coffee shop in a city she likely felt to be too loud. I felt myself to be protective of the lovely day I was having; I felt my table to be close to hers, as if the geography of our closeness would allow her mood to spill; spread; seep stain-like across from her table to mine. Deliberately, I re-established my focus onto the book I was reading (The Unbearable Lightness of Being).

Not to sound too much like Ross from Friends, but I recently bought an air purifier. And not to sound twice my age, but it's really only because it had a great review in the Which? magazine. It's probably what you would describe as an impulse buy: not to sound too middle-class, but it was on sale in John Lewis. 

Anyway, I unpacked this thing, slightly reminiscent of a shrunken, cleaner Dalek. The instructions told me I should hoover the filter every four weeks. Okay, that's fine. I folded up the large box and added it to my recycling pile. 

I had this strange expression come to mind as I sat down to write today: the worm that turned. It's a lovely expression, isn't it? Suddenly the menial worm becomes something mighty; the soft, unexpected rhyming echoes the phrase's sentiment of rebellion. I typed it into Google (as I often do with this newsletter, if I'm being honest, just to check I haven't horribly misinterpreted some word) and, pleasingly, I got several great hits. 

The first, a shop in Nottingham. Having lived in Nottingham for five years during medical school, I passed this shop front often several times a week. It always caught my eye with the lovely curly-wormy font on its sign. I was sure it had closed; how nice to see it up and running still. 

This week I went to the laundrette. It’s only taken me four years to pluck up the courage to go in (how does it work? Where do I pay? Will my naivety be embarrassing?). As with most new things, it’s generally best not to overthink and just do before any thinking sets in. 

It felt wonderfully nostalgic, like stepping back in time to some artsy sepia-grain movie set in rainy day Paris (or that early Friends episode where Ross helps Rachel do her laundry for the first time in her new quest for independence - it's one of my faves). 

There is a new fish and chip shop that's opened up on the road by my house. On the large sign on the front of the shop, the A-board and the door, it boasts “traditinel” and “freshely cooked food”.

I would like to point out now that this won't be a newsletter focussed on the snobbery of correct grammar and spelling. No, rather than admonish this new shop for the audacity with which they have so brazenly bought signage with such glaring mistakes, I am actually here to praise that audacity with a kind of awe-filled reverence.

There is a fabulous children's book called A Witch Got On At Paddington Station, by Dyan Sheldon, illustrated by Wendy Smith. I think all five of us read it as kids growing up. If you don't know it, it's a lovely story all set on a traditional London bus. A witch gets on, very excited to visit her sister. She announces frequently to the bus, to the conductor and to her fellow passengers “I'm going to visit my sister!”. The other passengers are grumpy and disinterested; the conductor tells her she simply can't bring her broom on board.

The sound of the rain on the metal balcony chairs outside the window is accompanying my writing this morning; I'm not sure the cushions I left on them will ever recover - heavy and water-logged as they now are.

I can't remember when or where this week, but I was reading about David Dawson, an artist to whom Lucian Freud left his house and studio when he died. On the walls of the studio, David has written “storms rinse the skies”. (In fact, I've just recalled it was House & Garden, a midweek WHSmith treat for this 30-going-on-50-year-old.)

“Storms rinse the skies”. Such beautiful imagery, as if the drip-drip-drip on the table outside is actually just some large cloth being wrung out above us. 

I want to tell you a story about how I wasn't enjoying football anymore, and now I am. It's profound, I know - stay with me.

I joined girls' football last August. I loved it. I went because I wanted to play team sports again, and wanted something fun and inclusive. I didn't go expecting to make new friends, not really - that wasn't my goal (not that we're bothered about scoring at Gals) - so I was pleasantly surprised to meet people I genuinely felt I could be good friends with.

None of us was very good back then. Our first session was on Hove Lawns because all of the pitches had been booked up nearly a year in advance (by about 90% boys' teams I might add). Our wayward balls strayed dangerously near to passing cars and I'm pretty sure there were more squeals than there were actual passes.

This week marked 12 years since my dad died. It’s always an uncomfortable time of year, with birthdays and Father’s Day around the corner, and I found this year particularly difficult.

12 years seems like an excessively long time, doesn’t it? And yet the timeline when it comes to loss is neither linear nor particularly rational. Loss is something which, I think, evolves, rather than disappears. Like a swirling mist, it curls and rounds and drifts, and takes on different shapes - all at once both beautiful and sad. On the brightest day, the mist rises and seems less present - and may almost seem at the point of evaporation - but then you may just become aware of its presence in the peripheries of your vision. It’s difficult to hear “12 years” without hearing “12 years a slave” because of the Oscar-winning film. It made me consider: have I been “a slave” to grief for all this time?

I had two interesting experiences yesterday I’d like to tell you about.

The first: I went on a home visit for a 98 year-old patient, mostly just to touch base because she isn’t able to leave the house to come to the doctor’s. As all people are once you start talking to them, she was very interesting. Imagine being here for 98 years; it’s hard to know where to begin. She was very matter-of-fact and no-nonsense, in that way that a lot of people of that generation are. She had been recently watching some of the D-day programmes that were on ahead of the 80th anniversary. She said, in fact, D-day went over her head at the time, because they were still in the midst of war, so it hadn’t yet got the gravitas of those things that we often only recognise as momentous when we look back. She was an amusing lady, preferring to keep piles of newspapers and things in bags in the living room not only, she told me, to provide a softer landing if she fell, but also so that she would always see it and be reminded she still had something to do.

In recent weeks to months, I have been learning about something called Polyvagal Theory (PVT). Some of you may know about it; others of you may not. Particularly in the yoga world, I think, this is something well-understood and in many ways provides the science behind many ancient yogic philosophies and practices - like pranayama (breathwork) and meditation.

I hope over the coming weeks to months to help you to understand more about PVT and how you can use this understanding of your own nervous system to help find more regulation day-to-day.

Without realising it, I think I’ve been striving to be the same as everyone else, or at least, to be the same as everyone else’s version of the best.

I believe we live in a world which has become increasingly monotonised. As we travel more and share more online, our risk of merging our individual differences becomes higher. How is it that teenagers in France choose to dress the same as teenagers in England? How is it that the fashion in Land’s End can be the same as those in John O’Groats?

Whilst the sharing of cultures and our ability to travel the world has many, many benefits - particularly in terms of understanding and respecting other cultures and ways of doing and being - we must also be aware of our inclination as humans to fit in. We like groups and labels and feeling part of something: loneliness kills as much as cigarettes. Whilst a shared understanding of each other can only be a good thing (as generally, understanding allows for compassion), I think we have take care not to iron out our differences, or chastise our differences as weaknesses.

Happy Friday to you. I’m sure the beautiful weather this week has benefitted us all - it’s so lovely to see Brighton and Hove come alive in the sunshine again! As I write, I can see the sea is impeccably still and beckoning me for a dip…

I have been reflecting this week on being proactive, rather than being reactive.

I have thought a lot about reactivity before in the context of emotions, particularly when it comes to choosing how we respond to different circumstances. Our reactions are within our control; we can choose how we respond - even when we haven’t chosen the circumstances.

We talk in medicine about being proactive with our health - or, rather, we criticise the NHS and modern medicine for being far too “reactive” and often not heeding the old adage of “prevention is cure”.

Over the last week, I have been thinking about the value of opposites. We spoke about it a little when I returned from Costa Rica - about how every emotion has another side to the coin - but I suppose I’ve been thinking more about the role we play as individuals and how it’s important we see both sides of the story.

I remember in school how each assembly had to have some sort of moral message, fable-like in its delivery. I distinctly remember someone telling us about how when you point the finger, you have three fingers pointing back at you. (Were you ever told that one?)

I want to talk to you today about ‘Ma’. (And no, sorry, mum, this isn’t a post dedicated to you.)

‘Ma’ is a Japanese word, meaning negative space.

It is sometimes difficult to define a word that exists in another language; a direct translation is often inadequate. How beautiful, though, that the Japanese character meaning ‘ma’ depicts a door, through which a crevice of moonlight shines.

Some define ‘ma’ simply as emptiness, but somehow this seems too cold a translation. Rather, the concept of negative space lends significance to the emptiness as being something important in its own right, and not just the absence of something else.

Last week we spoke about music and how, when we play, we are searching for a colour. We spoke about working to create a soundscape in a way that keeps this bigger goal in mind; in a way in which we observe rather than criticise.

I have spent a few days this week on a chamber music course (I promise I do work sometimes), playing Haydn as part of a string quartet. There is an art to practising well as a group. We had the opportunity to observe our coaches, a professional string quartet, rehearsing. Some of you may have experience playing music in an orchestra or band, but there is a diplomacy that translates into other areas of our lives. It’s the same thing we wrote about in our personal statements all those years ago, about how being in an orchestra has “helped you hone the skill” of being part of a team. At the time it always felt like slightly forced and generic, but I can see now how the skills might be transferable.