If I needed any further indication that the summer is coming to an end, the pitter patter of rainfall on my bedroom window provided it.
After near enough three months off my thoughts are starting to turn back towards Medway and the University of Kent.
The bulk of my time off has been taken up by two things: football and work experience. For the first month of my holiday I watched the majority of what was a disappointing World Cup.
The day after the final I started a two-week placement with the Medway Messenger – which is based in the same office as Kent Online.
To say I did a bit of everything would be an understatement. I wrote about everything from teddy bears picnics and footpath closures to snake bites and court cases.
It was an enjoyable and fulfilling fortnight of bread and butter reporting that I have taken a great deal from.
For the majority of this month I was back at Sky News Online. After familiarising myself with the CMS again I was thrown into the fray, being given stories to cover and picture galleries to compile.
Over the three weeks I wrote stories on the floods in Pakistan, mudslides in China, the heightened tensions between North and South Korea, the collapse of the tour operator Sun4U and much more besides.
The piece I was most pleased with, however, was a warning from the victims of the ‘Amazon’s Chernobyl’ to those affected by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that they should be prepared to wait years, even decades, for compensation.
I pitched, sourced and compiled all of the elements to the story, and it was published on my last day there.
At the end of the placement I was throughly knackered, and since then I have been reacquainting myself with a long lost friend called sleep.
Once Freshers Week is over I think we’ll begin to grow apart again!
