Sam Malik

Just a guy going about life

• June 2026 - Manchster
• June 2026 - Château
• July 2026 - Château
• July 2026 - Turkey
• August 2026 - Château
• September 2026 - Château
• 12th August 2026 - Eclipse
• July 2026 - Chateau pt.2

June 2026Ending of one chapter and start of the next

Manchester, UK

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This is me recalling what happened in June. I’m writing this on 14th September 2026.


June was the month everything kicked off in this next chapter of my life. On the 4th of June, I just finished all the refurbishment work that I needed to do on my house. The house that was meant to become my home for the foreseeable future. The house I’d planned out how I wanted it (though it turns out I didn’t like it by the end 😅) down to the colour. The house I had told everyone I was moving to, and where I was going to host dinners, board game nights, Dungeons & Dragons. It was a house that was mine.

Everything was done. Estate agents had visited, tradesmen come and gone and all that was left was a clean. That same evening, as a celebration, I want to an improv night by Dropout, Make Some Noise Live. It was an event I’d booked in a year prior that happened to coincide with this final bit of work. I went there tired and covered in paint and sat back and just took it all in – the people roaring with laughter, the fun light play and jokes being cracked left right and centre.

Halfway through the show, there’s the intermission. ‘No big deal, I’ll just sit here and wait for it to be resume’ I thought. But then someone next to me started talking to me. And he was talking fast. Clearly a massive fan of the cast, he just went on and on telling me all the inside facts he knew about every person there. A friendly guy, but god I did not want to talk to him. I got up, and promptly told him I was going to get a drink. I could tell he wasn’t the type to get a drink too – as most broke uni students don’t, and luckily, he didn’t join me as I head over to the bar.

Now at this point, I’m realising, I’m heading to a bar in the O2 Apollo, and gods this drink is about to be real pricey. Having been to other events in similar venues, I knew the prices were going to be ridiculous – normally I just go thirsty till the end because why would I spend 3 quid on a drink when it only costs £0.50p to get it at the store. But despite all that, I thought, fuck it, I’ve got money now, and a house that should be netting me a nice pile of cash. I go up to the nicest bar I’ve seen and order a Tango Apple. For 4.5 bloody pounds. I wince but remind myself, ‘hey you’ve never done this before and let’s enjoy the night’. Sipping on my overpriced Tango Apple, I enjoy the rest of the show. For tonight, I don’t need to have a care in the world.

Once the show concludes, I promptly get up, say my curt goodbyes to the people I tried my best to ignore beside me and head out to my car. And on my way there, I remember just saying to myself, ‘It’s over’. The house I’d spent the better part of a year refurbishing was done, and I could sit back for a minute. I drive home and realise, oh gods I’m hungry. I’d last eaten a cold Tesco meal deal at midday and hadn’t stopped to eat something else since. The thought of getting something on the way popped up but the miser in me pushed that to the side. ‘Why buy food when you could just make something at home for less than half the cost?’ But I thought back to the Tango, and decide, this is a day to relax and enjoy. Get the damn food.


Thinking back on this, I think this was the world teaching me something which I’ve come to appreciate. You can spend money on things if you enjoy it. The decision doesn’t have to make sense. It can be a poor financial transaction. But if it brings you a level of enjoyment, why not indulge every once in a while?

The next day, I head back to my would be home. I walk around and notice the things that are still out of place. A poorly filler’d wall here, bad painting there. But I have to decide enough is enough and call it there. Job done. Pack my stuff up, and do a final walk around before I leave for good. The thought of leaving for good gave me so much joy, for this chapter to finally be over. I never wanted to step back into this house again. But through my malice, I decide to take some final pictures. Just to really wrap this up for good. Pictures that I can look back on one day and think, hey I did this. From where it started of a shithole, this is how it’s ended.

I take the pictures and walk out, and knock on one of my neighbours doors. I forget her name now, Carol? Elaine? But nevertheless, she was the best neighbour I’ve ever had. We spoke a lot in passing, I got to know her and her grandson’s Mexican restaurant a 10 minute drive away. Her husband who passed as she lives alone. Her dog Pip who is way too old to be running around the way he does. She was a wonderful human being who kept me company as I did things around my place, and I returned in kind around her home. She’d asked me not to leave without saying goodbye. But with her not being in, and me wanting to be gone for this place as soon as possible. ‘Maybe I should wait for her to come back?’ I had no way of getting in contact with her and no way of knowing when she would return. She helps her grandson out at his restaurant and they’d just had a grand reopening so she was likely to be busy. I turned away from her door, walked down to my car. Got in and left.

Should I have waited? I don’t know. Could I go back and visit, sure. Will I? I have no idea. She could very well pass away before I’m next back in the area. She was a stranger in my life – no affiliation to any business, not me trying to use them for money or them use me. Not someone who had to talk to be because we were in the same university class. Just a complete stranger, who saw me working outside a run down house and decided to chat to me. And someone I may never see again. I don’t know how I feel about that.

I get home and it’s go time. I’ve got 23 days to get my car and turn it into a camper. I’d barely given it much thought before this but it’s now or never. I get down to business, looking at what I need to fix to get the car operational (because god nothing worked) and crack on. I was still running my board game nights, and that day rolled around while I didn't have a gearstick in my car (it's a long story). One very sketchy car ride later as I picked people up in a barely functional car (I would not advise anyone try and do that, it shouldn’t have worked), I held the board game night.
It was nothing new, same old same old. But now with the unsettling feeling of I don’t know when I’ll see these guys again. We’d made plans for board game nights to take place at my newly refurbished house. For BBQs to be held in the small stone outdoor garden. For brownies to be made in the kitchen while we shoot the shit in the dining room. This is all ideas that would never come to fruition.

There was no sadness however. There was excitement. The feeling of something else, another place to go to, another life to live. And as I spent those final moments yelling at my barbarian friends as a vampire count for killing the deal with the bards in the isles, I was happy with how this was coming to an end.

The next weeks went by in a blur. I had full automation to do whatever I wanted without someone breathing down my back, whether that be business partners or my own business self. I went to B&Q to get plywood cut to size, Halfords for fuses, and many IKEA trips to get different sized boxes, of which they never fit and I made £200 worth of returns of mismatched boxes in the span of a week. All the while my parents looking at me confused, as I sketched mad ramblings of how I was going to make this all work. Many days of problem solving later, I was approaching the finish line – whether I liked it or not.

On the evening of the 27th, the day before my 8am Ferry I was done. I did my final pack, cleaned the wood scraps out of my car and was doing a quick oil change; I didn’t know when I would next have access to my ramps to get under my car so I thought one final oil change before I set off. And wouldn’t you believe it, an oil change which I’ve done plenty of times before, went awry. The oil pan had a hole in it, so instead of it pooling in my pan, it was pooling all over my parents drive. And I needed to leave in 10 minutes. Agitated and exhausted, I decide to just deal with the horrible morning to come and leave in the morning. So once I got the driveway cleaned up, a not so restful sleep, I’m saying my goodbyes to my parents home. My home. My city. The place I’d once found so much freedom after leaving our previous home in London to go to university in Manchester. Only to end up back at my parents new home in Manchester, trapped my the same life that I was in before. Yes I’d changed so much as a person from the last time I lived with family, but something about their house gave me so much warmth, and double the amount of grief.

My parents goodbyes are sleepy tearful ones as I awake at 3am to leave. I try to act mournful, I really do. But something about this journey was giving me so much hope and joy. To finally head out, and explore the world. Without anything holding me back. Just me, and my car and the unknown.The journey over was uneventful. I get on the ferry very sleep deprived, immediately head to my cabin and knock out on the sofa bed they had. This was some well needed sleep, and on my wake, I realise that gods I’ve not showered, and I’m covered in engine oil, wood clippings and just overall dirt. So I take a shower in that cramped tiny ferry shower just in time for us to port in Caen as I go down to my car and drive over to the next destination. A place that I’d been do very briefly in March, that didn’t really make any sense to me. A place where I was meeting 25 people I’d never met before and was going to live with them for the next couple months. A place where I know my brother was known but I wasn’t. I didn’t know it then, but that place would change me in ways I didn’t know was possible. That place was Chateau Coliving.

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Test

12th August 2026 - Eclipse

This was the day of the eclipse and I almost drowned so I figured I'd write something about what happened.We got to the beach and I felt pretty good. After the beach from the day before with Atoosa and Kevin, I was pretty confident in heading out into the water for a bit on my own. Yeah the waves were big, but if I just get through them they’ll ease off and calm out.So I headed in and noticed that I could still feel the sand below me for a fair bit and felt chill that I could just walk back if needed. Went a bit further till the sand stopped, and figured I'd just float there for a bit. Laid back and watched the sky and saw the first clipping of the sun from the eclipse.It was about that time where I decided I should probably head back but as I went upright and looked around, I realised I was really far out. No worries, I'll just start my swim back. Started swimming and was in earshot of the other people in the water so I felt pretty confident of heading back. Deciding it was chill, I went back on my back and swam like that in what I thought was towards the shore.I looked over my shoulder a couple times and thought, "huh, I'm still going further right to the cliffs" so I figured I'd go parallel to the shore to get some distance away from the cliff. At that point I felt a bit winded, nothing major but felt that I should definitely get out now rather than waiting for me to tire more.I swam for a bit and did see the cliffs getting further away so the going was good and thought to start turning towards the beach - in theory that would be the quickest way back. I noted the cliffs there and the thought of hitting them got into my head so I figured, hey time for a workout let's push to get back sooner.It was probably 5-10 minutes after this that I started to realise I was barely moving. There was this silhouette of a plant in the water that I kept seeing come back to me. Thinking I must be mistaking it for another, I looked to the hills on my left to note a point on there and use that as a benchmark of how fast I was moving. Another 5 odd minutes of swimming after, I realised I was in fact, barely moving and that spot was in the same position.I think that was the point where I hit my oh shit moment. I was out here, not even in line with the beach and more on the cliff side, with no one around me, and the tide taking me towards the cliffs rather than the beach.Running through my brain, I went through loads of scenarios:
- With the eclipse happening if everything turned dark I would be truly fucked
- If I let myself float, I hit the cliffs, and I've heard enough about that situation to know I'd be fucked
- If I keep to my current swimming pace, the tide would keep me in the same position and I'd just tire out and be fucked
- Worst case, tides get worse and they'll rush me to the cliffs - best case they even out and I can swim the calmer tide back to the beach.I wouldn't be able to control the way of the sea, so the only thing in my control was to just give it my all to swim parallel to the beach and away from the cliffs.So I start swimming as hard as I can. Just chanting in my head, If you panic, you die. Started as hard as I could with a breaststroke, till my left leg cramped. Then switched over to my back to give my leg a chance to recover while pushing with my arms as hard as I could.Again, barely moving, I try to switch back to a breaststroke but then feel my other leg cramp. Pushing through that, I kept that up - but at that point I was going closer to the cliffs. So with my legs cramping, I thought fuck it and tried a doggy paddle and just lunging my stiff legs out there trying to move.I don’t know how long that stint lasted, but I realised it was all futile. It was taking all my effort not to move closer to the cliffs but I wasn't moving away from them either. I got back upright treading water to note the situation again. Swimming was out of the question - it wouldn't get me to safety. Floating would buy me some time, but would eventually lead me to hit the cliff. I thought, maybe I could get to a safe part of the cliff, maybe break a few bones but have a chance of getting out of here.Realising that was a shit option, I look around me and see nothing nearby - a couple boats but how the hell would I get their attention. That's when I notice the sounds around me. Over the screaming winds, I heard the waves. The absolute roar of the waves hitting the cliffs, and the spray of the water from it. The force it was colliding would've meant immediate death.At that point, I realised my only option was trying to get help somehow. The thought crossed my mind, Is it more embarrassing to get help or to die? That had a pretty clear answer, to just shut the fuck up and get help. I try to wave, but with my legs stiff as hell, bringing my arms out to wave just sent me under.Trying that repeatedly just repeated the same thing. Wave, fall under, resurface, wave, fall, repeat. I saw people at the beach, couldn't tell what was going on. Look towards the boats, don't see any moving. So with no other option, I just decide, I'm just floating on my back to preserve energy and yelling for help as loud as I could.If the tide takes me in somewhere, I need some level of energy to try and figure that out, so on my back I went just yelling repeatedly help. That was my oh this actually be the end of me. Just lying out here, yelling, not really being able to do anything but hope and pray. It sounds weird now but I was just thinking about parts of my life. Laughing at the Chateau, exploring rural towns while backpacking Japan. And all the property bullshit to make money. All of that just going to fall away. I felt weirdly calm?, but knew I just had to keep yelling.At a certain point I look over and see what I thought was a kayak, now know was a paddle board heading towards me and I just got filled with relief. That part after was a bit of a blur of just trying to understand what everyone was saying in French and trying to follow orders.At some point on the paddle board I'm like this is really fucking awkward and ask the guy's name. I have no clue why I asked that and why my brain was going how to make this less awkward. But hey, Seb was my fucking hero and quite literally saved my life.I get ferried off the board to a boat with this couple, then ferried on to a coastguard boat till I make it back to shore.Finally get on land and I just want the world to shut up and sleep, but then the ambulance?, fire brigade?, someone gets me in a truck to do checkups with Kevin, Atoosa, and Tracy there and thank fuck for you guys. Anyway, I'm here I guess.



Oh and hey I ended up on a news board :)