The

The Welcome back to Nomad Podcast. I'm Tim Nash, and I'm very pleased to tell you, this is Joy Brooks.

Hello. It's crazy, but I think it's been 10 weeks since you were last on the podcast.

Has it really? Wow. Yeah. I've not been counting. You had a little run of episodes over the summer. You had three on the bounce in August, September, but since then it's been all Nick and Anna. Yeah, well, people need a break from the same voices, I feel, although they can't get a break from you, generally. I was going to say, they get me every single episode pretty much, yeah. But anyway, Joy, it's good to have you back. Thank you. to ease us into the episode what's been life-giving for you over the last few weeks

and maybe what's been a little bit challenging? Three things sort of went, yay, this is what comes to mind. One is the fact that when I sit on the steps in my garden at the moment, quite often, if I'm at the right time, a little flock of long-tailed tits. Are we allowed to say tits on this podcast? I think so, yeah. Anna referred to blue tits, I think. Okay, yeah, there we go. So a little flock of gorgeous long-tailed tits comes and hops around in my willow tree. And honestly, it does. It just makes my heart feel all kind of warm and expensive. I get that, yeah.

And then I'm currently reading a new, well, it's not a new as in newly written,

but a new Rowan Williams book called The Tragic Imagination,

which is expanding me in so many ways.

And if you love literature and theology and probably psychology, really, and sociology and history

and all of that, then it's great. If you don't love having to read three sentences and then read

those same three sentences a few more times before you understand what's being said, don't go anywhere

near it. And then the other thing else, because I was thinking about, oh, human connection. And then I remembered for work, I'd been down in Cornwall and I got to stay

the night with Anna in her house with her lovely dog, Babel, and obviously Jim and the girls. So,

and honestly, it was just the loveliest thing to connect and have a good old nata and see where

she lives. And yeah, because we connect over Nomad podcast, obviously, and various things,

but not actual in-person sat next to each other with a cup of coffee.

So that was really lovely.

But yeah, and in terms of challenge, aside from living in a world that's completely manipulated by billionaire tech bros with horrific inequality and suffering, aside from the challenge of that, I fitted a dado rail in what is my eldest spectrum slash spare room slash office for Tony.

So I was like, that was challenging.

That involved a few swear words.

And I think probably one of the most demanding things at the moment is whilst I have a small

private practice, most of my work is in the public sector. And working in ever more stretched

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