Last day in the office for a fortnight. Woohoo. I am so glad to be having a break. I know it’s only three weeks since I was last off, but I feel exhausted. We’re working harder than we have for months at the moment and to be honest I feel a bit guilty about leaving everyone there for a fortnight while I’m gone.

Come to that, I feel a bit guilty about leaving permanently in a few weeks. Things are working out fairly well from the look of things and my leaving date is considerably closer than I’d expected, being as I’m on three months’ notice, and as I edge towards it, and discussions on successors are already taking place, I can’t help but feel a pang of… nostalgia, I guess it is. After six years on the same mag you come to think of it as more than a job, I suppose. I’ll certainly miss it. And the people I worked with there.

But then the team has fragmented so much over the last six months. In fact, the whole industry has fragmented. Ben has left the industry for a while, Dave has returned. Mark has switched mags. Leo has gone freelance. Ems has switched mags. I’m switching platforms, mags, publishing houses and publishing cycles. PCW has two new writers. Nigel has departed for several months’ travel.

These things always happen in bunches. One person leaves and it causes a shuffle around, and pretty much every mag in the industry has someone new, although it’s almost always a familiar face, poached from the competition.

But anyway, holiday is what’s first and foremost on my mind. My bag is packed, my valuables stashed with friends, and the alarm clock is set. It’s Saturday, just gone midnight, and that means that in four and a bit hours I’ll be getting up again to catch a train to Paris. What a horrible thought. Still, the net result will be worthwhile. St Remy by tea time and then, in four days, Rome.

I doubt I’ll get onto the net until then, so no updates here for a few days. St Remy is poky and pretty and not known for its Internet cafes. It’s the town in which Nostradamus was born, van Gogh died and dad has lived for the last 10 or so years. A perfect French village at the foot of the mountains, not far from the coast. Round, green, with a great big church and cute little lanes down which you can fit no cars. Around the edge there are olive groves and fields full of sunflowers. In the centre there is a market square and a raft of pretty little cafes.

London will be 500 miles away, perhaps more, but it will feel like more than 1,000.

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