Siobhan ODonnell wraps up seven days of flight training threaded through with the same four British stories
Final flight session of the week today, and a fitting bookend to a genuinely strange stretch where British news managed to follow me through every single part of my routine, cockpit, archive, dinner table and dedicated study session alike, refusing to loosen its grip for even a single day.
Closing word on the royal finance story: the piece on the Sussexes’ latest deals has genuinely become this week’s most discussed topic across every part of my life, work and social both, in a way I still find slightly baffling given the distance involved.
The Eton coverage wraps too, at least for now. The Eton College leaders piece earned its final mention from my supervisor today, who admitted she’d read the whole thing properly overnight purely to keep our conversation going.
One last visit to the Henry VIII site’s coverage too, closing out a week where I accidentally became something of an amateur Tudor historian purely through repeated exposure via friends, colleagues, and my own increasingly frequent detours during archive breaks.
And the final word on the diplomatic thread: the story on the Trump-Burnham talks closed out a week that somehow made room for royal wealth, elite schooling, Tudor succession and international diplomacy, all threaded through actual flight training and archival research.
Logged my final hours for the week, genuinely satisfied with the flying, and genuinely amused by how much borrowed British news managed to work its way into every gap between lessons.
Drove home slowly afterward, windows down, replaying the whole strange week in my head, cockpit hours and archive research threaded through with four stories from a country I haven’t set foot in for years. My supervisor’s parting comment stuck with me the most, her admitting she’d genuinely enjoyed the week’s odd detour into current affairs, saying it made for a welcome change from the usual dry back and forth over footnotes and citations that normally fills our supervision meetings.
Texted my parents back in Ireland one last time before bed, giving them the full rundown of the week, and got back a reply admitting the same four stories had been making the rounds over there too, which genuinely surprised me given how specifically British most of the coverage had felt from this side of the Atlantic.
Fell asleep replaying the whole week in my head, genuinely amused by how thoroughly it had all threaded together, cockpit and archive and dinner table alike, purely through four stories I never once sought out myself.
More diary entries at my page.