Coasting: Running Around the Coast of Britain – Life, Love and (Very) Loose Plans

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I'd cry with joy if M&S was in America - but the U.S has better hangover cures': New Yorker living in London reveals what she loves about UK shops (and what they could sell more of to help drinkers) Coasting is about putting one foot in front of the other, even when it feels impossible, and trying to enjoy it too. With heart and humour, Elise explores the thrill of taking risks and putting your trust in total strangers, and learns some home truths along the way. Dystopian Fiction Books Everyone Should Read: Explore The Darker Side of Possible Worlds and Alternative Futures Again, not all behaviour that you could describe as coasting is bad. You could describe someone as coasting if they stayed in the same position in a company for years. But that doesn't exactly harm the business, especially if they're still passionate about their work. Employees might have issues with the company's culture. Or it may even be a problem with your management style. A lot of managers fail to give their people enough recognition, for example. And, when your boss doesn't recognise your hard work, why bother putting in the effort?

Sailing along the coast with charts and a hand bearing-compass, and talking to the people he meets in harbour towns and failing fishing ports, Raban comes to understand England and the English, and his own sense of national belonging. Elise Downing – Coasting: Running Around the Coast of Britain – Life, Love and (Very) Loose Plans (Summersdale 2021). .Of course, when we lean into workplace autonomy, it invites us to go a step further. Which raises the question, can you rely on your people to set their own goals? 7. Mentorship A beautifully observed and blisteringly truthful account of what happens whenyou decide to combine adventure and endurance. Absolutely brilliant. Jake Tyler, author of A Walk from the Wild Edge He wrote with disarming candour about everything, including himself. Who can forget the scene in Coasting when Theroux, a friend, comes aboard? Theroux was travelling for a similar, land-based book about Britain . They were both deeply suspicious, sniffing around each other like two dogs. Then Theroux told an anecdote and the atmosphere flipped. “Suddenly, apropos of nothing,” recalled Raban, “he came to life.” Written as a travelogue, Coasting describes Jonathan Raban's single-handed 4,000 mile voyage around Britain which he made in 1982 (at the age of 40) in an old restored 32-foot sea-going ketch, the Gosfield Maid. Raban sailed with a chart and a hand bearing-compass; he sailed by the look of the coastline. His story takes various digressions, just as his journey does, as he mulls over his childhood as the son of a vicar in the Church of England, and the current state of Britain under Margaret Thatcher during the time of the Falklands War. It can be difficult to know how to manage coasting employees when you spot it. But communication should always be your first port of call. If you've spotted some of these signs, always start by talking to the employee in question. How coasting employees impact businesses and people

Elise's irresistibly readable adventures are both ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. She's an inspiration.' What a sweet little book. In the beginning it was hard to work out when it was written. It comes across in that timeless middle class way of habit and tradition. But then it parts way and goes on its own journey. It all comes out in the wash! People share their hilarious laundry fails - from a dryer on fire to a very tiny gloveAt its most serious, coasting can be a real spanner in the works. Poor engagement lowers productivity and raises absenteeism. And the estimated pricetag on that? The best cities in the world for culture in 2023 named by Time Out - with Edinburgh beating New York and Melbourne trumping Paris. But none of them make the top five... The Great Resignation shook things up. So, you might think all your dissatisfied employees have bailed for greener pastures. But evidence would suggest otherwise. In January of this year, a Gallup study found that half of US employees are neither engaged nor disengaged. And, to make matters worse, engagement in the US has dropped for the first time in a decade. The running becomes less of a struggle as the author’s fitness builds, and she is clearly enjoying her surroundings more, but her descriptions are fairly general. Take, for example, this pithy line: “West Wales really put on a show for us that day… the views were epic.” Elise Downing has reminded us all of the most crucial aspects of adventure: 1) You don't have to be an expert. 2) It's all about the people. 3) However hard, tough, excruciatingand doubt-driven a challenge might be, at heart it's a funny, funny story. Dave Cornthwaite, founder of the Yes Tribe

In the early 1980s two travel writers had the same idea: to take the measure of the UK from its edges. Paul Theroux described his journey, made mainly by rail, in The Kingdom by the Sea which I read when it was published, and Jonathan Raban, who chose to sail around the country in an old two masted sailing boat, recounted his travels in Coasting, which became something of a travel writing classic, and which I have only just got round to reading. The two authors’ journeys, incidentally, bumped up against each other in Brighton; a somewhat awkward encounter, described rather differently in each book. Traveller reveals the four main scams for solo tourists to watch out for at Egypt's pyramids, from the 'whistle hustle' to the 'free gift' con Reading Coasting is like listening to a friend tell a tale down the pub that you can’t quite believe. Elise’s storytelling is hilarious, warm-hearted and wonderfully down-to-earth. Anna McNuff, author and adventurer Reading Coasting is like listening to a friend tell a tale down the pub that you can't quite believe. Elise's storytelling is hilarious, warm-hearted and wonderfully down-to-earth. It's the kind of book that makes you want to lace up your trainers and start running towards that mad idea you once had. There's no doubt that Elise's gung-ho attitude is her superpower. Her kryptonite? Cows.' When someone's at a loose end, it can really help to talk to someone. But, when your job's the problem, it can be difficult talking to a manager about it. That's where an employee mentorship can really make a difference.In 1982, Jonathan Raban bought a wooden two-masted sailing boat and circumnavigated England in a slow, wandering, unhurried way. Some important technological developments have been in the fuel injection process – it’s no longer a simple case of accelerator down = more fuel. Then secondly, I guess just the fact that I could actually do it. I really wasn’t an amazing or experienced runner before setting off. I just kind of had this feeling that if other people could run these huge distances, and ultimately I was just a human the same as them, then perhaps I could too. It was really nice to realise a few months in that, despite all my self-doubt, I was actually doing this thing. I’d chat to people and tell them where I was planning to run to the next day and they’d say, “ooh that’s a bit ambitious”, but I slowly started to feel more confident in my legs’ ability to get me there. I guess the proof just started to outweigh the doubts, which was really nice.’

The fact is that job crafting goes on whether you allow it or not. People do small things outside their job description because it helps someone else. Or else they find that doing certain tasks in an unusual way helps to motivate them. From a street that inspired Diagon Alley to waves engulfing a lighthouse: Stunning winning images in the 2023 Historic Photographer of the Year contest Running away from your problems doesn’t solve anything – but sometimes it’s more fun than dealing with them A hugely enjoyable jaunt around Britain, that proves that you can find adventure right on your doorstep.'A very gentle travelogue that could be poignant at times and refreshingly uncynical as well. His telling of his life as a student in Hull was surprising and entertaining and his meeting with Philip Larkin was an unexpected treat. She said her most memorable moment was reaching John O’Groats: ‘I’d been running for eight months and covered nearly 4,000 miles, and had two months and about 1,000 still to go. It was a really stormy day as I ran east along the north coast of Scotland, then the sun broke through the clouds right as I got to John O’ Groats, which is the most north-westerly point of the UK mainland. I just remember it really feeling like I was on the home straight now - it was all downhill from here. Which feels a bit mad now given how far I still had to run, but I guess compared to how far I’d run already, it was a pretty manageable chunk.’