January 15th, 2023 – 1,572

~ Sam Shuttleworth

“Think back on your most memorable road trip.”

Um, good question – granted not a question but still. Most memorable, I guess I have, no idea. I mean we had a few as I grew up. France was memorable if only because I don’t think I was super happy in the campervan. Wales both times were good memories, I guess I’d give it to that in a vacuum where I couldn’t bend the rules, but I’m actually gonna compound ‘Every single road trip to go see Southend play at Roots Hall’ into one. I’d say when I went to see them beat Manchester United, except we couldn’t get tickets so I watched that on the TV. Maybe when we drew with Chelsea and I heard the most absurd football chant in my life – “You’re going home in a mobile library!” – Hey, imaginary readers, if any of you have the slightest idea why someone in the late naughts/early 2010s would shout that at Chelsea or any of their then team, please, this has been bugging me for almost half my life. But yeah, those trips are the most memorable because there’s just a magic to it every time. Which is why being ill this weekend sucked extra hard as I was gonna go and see them play Darlington – dad’s original team and my late-grandfather’s team.

And yes, I am still ill, but I am going back to work tomorrow because I managed to do a ton today in spite of being ill, and I’m calling that proof I can go back in. If it turns out I broke myself today and I end up more ill tomorrow, well, I would feel like an idiot that’s for sure.

Published by Sam Shuttleworth

I’m Sam, and I live to write. I spent most of the first 8 years of my adulthood trying to balance writing with a large amount of crap in my personal life, until towards the end of 2018 I threw everything out and started afresh with just my writing. I built the new me around one goal: I have to write at least 1,000 words a day. I called this goal 1K, and it changed my life. So long as I write a thousand words a day, the day is a success, and atop that I've managed over time to build the life I wanted all those years. My greatest flaws as a writer is I still use too many adjectives, adverbs, connectives as openers, accidental passive voice and I don't force my work down people's throats enough on pain of extreme and unusual torture. My greatest strength is I know my greatest flaws and I'm working on them.