week 25 / 2026: rest and relaxation

“It’s not over / but nothing lasts that long / and it’s melting / and just goes on and on and on / don’t you see, my love / that we almost nearly had it all?”

Greetings from Malmö, where the long weekend that is midsommar has been quiet and sultry with the promise of thunderstorms that still have yet to arrive.

lookback

Midsommar has for Swedes the importance that Christmas has for the British: it’s the big annual family get-together, characterised by traditions far less ancient than they’re cheerfully assumed to be.

Thankfully the country doesn’t lock up entirely, like the UK does at the end of December—but the cities do get quiet quickly, as midsommar also marks what for a lot of people will be the start of four to six weeks of holiday, families decamping to the country stuga, if not to places further afield. Malmö will have an arid and somewhat depopulated feel for the next month or so, like a very buttoned-up and unadventurous film director’s interpretation of J G Ballard’s Vermilion Sands... and I can’t say I don’t like it that way.

The weather has been warm (which I like) and muggy (which I’m less fond of), which has made it easy to take advantage of a fortuitous lull in urgent deadlines and dial down the intensity of work over the past week: not quite a holiday, exactly, but a break that seems appropriate at the pivot point of the year which has always meant the most to me. I’ve been doing various bits and pieces—most notably, preparing and kicking off my Rogue Worldbuilding course—but it’s been a patchwork sort of week, and I’m fine with that. I’m overdue for a rest, and July is looking like it will be fairly lively; my body has leaned into the lull, and I have let it do so.

ticked off

• Seven hours of admyn (of which two hours correspondence).
• Four hours on the Rogue Worldbuilding course, including the first seminar.
• Four hours on PROJECT LUDIC.
• Four hours of writing (of which two hours blogging).
• Three hours of art practice.
• Two hours on PROJECT RADBURN.
• Two hours of networking.
• One hour on PROJECT MUNICIPAL.

And ten hours of undirected writing and reading, as always.

Worth noting—for me, if for no one else—that apparently my idea of a slow week still totals up to something close to the standard forty hours. A few friends have noted by backchannel that I could probably do with a proper holiday, and I don’t disagree! But it’ll have to wait a while longer.

Thanks, as always, for your attention; I hope all is well with you, wherever you may be.

This has been the Worldbuilding Agency weeknotes for Week 25 of 2026. Thanks for reading! If you've enjoyed them, it's free to subscribe. If you are already subscribed, please send to a friend!