I spent a crazy week in Tenerife with my new colleagues, mostly partying, on a boat, on a bus, on a moonlit beach, on the foothills of a volcano… you name it. It was an exhilarating time, I felt so alive.

All the photos below are from one of the first evenings there, a fizz-fuelled sunset at 2000m, overlooking the Teide.

But even during the long slog that was the return trip to Bristol, I began having all these thoughts about how deceptive single experiences like this can be. It gave me this artificial feeling that I settled in, and that I’m seen as an integral part of the team, but in fact I’m a very far way from forging real human connections. Which is normal – it’s only been three months since I joined. It takes a lot longer than that to truly belong.

Either way, I’m starting to discover that I have some serious confidence issues that I was never really consciously aware of before. And these things are seriously affecting my ability to connect with people, and even my performance at work. Today, in a rather low mood, I’m feeling seriously debilitated by it, and don’t even know how to turn up at the office come Monday morning.

I’m getting tangled up in this new job in an unhealthy way. It’s such a mind-blowingly unique place, working there is amazing in so many ways; and yet there are so many aspects of it that make me frown and have second thoughts.