& so much more! Thank you to everyone who has supported me on this leg of my freelancing journey! I’ll be hitting the ground running when I’m back in September, so if you’re interested in working together, let’s chat then. See you on the other side. 😎

🗞️ I also got my second Times byline in their small business section, writing about lessons from startup failures: www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

👟 I edited Issue 1 of Run Don’t Walk, a new magazine celebrating people, ideas and community. Get your copy of that here: www.rundontwalk.co

⚛️ I worked with the team at top European VC Atomico as copywriter for the iconic State of European Tech report.

👩‍💻 I reconnected with my colleagues at @sifted.eu to write articles and meaty reports for them on behalf of sponsors like Microsoft, BCG X and Amazon.

🐻 I published my first travel piece, an account of my Appalachian Trail hike for the Times newspaper: www.thetimes.com/uk/article/h...

😎

Good times! They tried to stop me going into their empty cafe the other week - members only!

DAY 18 - Many exciting milestones today. We climbed to the top of Kuwohi mountain (aka Clingmans Dome) which is the highest point of the AT. We also crossed the 200 mile marker! We took a shuttle to Gatlinburg which is... an interesting place. Like a MAGA Margate in the mountains.

My favourite Appalachian flower!

DAY 17 - 18 miles of up and down today, phew! The woods are getting more beautiful by the day — shoots of grass are appearing and wildflowers are starting to carpet the forest floor.

Sierra curve still looking good for hikers...!

One exciting thing about this day is that it's when entered the Smoky Mountains National Park, the most visited in the US (for good reason - it is beautiful). Normally visitors must book their spots to sleep in the park's shelters, but as thru-hikers we were permitted to pitch our tents. (2/2)

DAY 16 - My toughest day on trail so far. I was exhausted, extremely hungry from days of hiking + not eating enough, and unenthused by the 4,500ft climb we had ahead of us today. We’re not the only ones hitting a rough spot; a guy at the Marina called his hike yesterday. (1/2)

DAY 15 - We’re now more than two weeks in and I am ACHEY despite holing up in hostels at any opportunity. Today we hikes 14 miles and climbed 3,000 ft to arrive at Fontana Dam. We grabbed a free beer at the Marina, then hitched a ride in a golf cart to the lodge, where we met up with another hiker.

This also describes what I am doing - moaning about social media on social media, with no intention of leaving social media 🙃

DAY 14 - The rain kept on coming! Last night a hiker told me the point of waterproof clothing isn’t to keep you dry, it’s to keep you alive. Alive? Check. Not dry? Check. We slogged through 14 more miles of misty ridge walk then bailed to a local cabin in the woods to dry out and eat pizza.

Social media encourages and rewards division, othering, hatred, suspicion and arguing with each other so that we spend more time on these sites.... to look at adverts!!! It's all for adverts!!

The full article is dismal — a homophobic attack on an individual who has committed the crime of... working on the rebrand of a British company?