I rented a holiday chalet on the Dutch coast, quite close to Alkmaar, and shut myself off for a week to make headway writing a book about how to lead Amaseu Journeys. And it worked – I had about 20 pages of content when I turned up, and 80 when I left. Long walks on a deserted, foggy beach each morning helped clear the mind.

EURO 2024 was magnificent. Five weeks of interviewing the Dutch squad and going to matches in exceptional stadiums in Leipzig, Berlin, Munich and Dortmund. [And Hamburg, which imho is impressive but not exceptional]. I did three pitchside interviews with players of the match, which went out on the world feed (and were shown, for example, on the BBC). Also contributed to the matchday blogs, wrote features on players I interviewed, contributed a number of times to a podcast. Plus I drank a lot of beer and ate a lot of schnitzel and currywurst.