Recently, I spent a fractious morning rearranging my writing room. Fractious, because it involved removing everything from the room to another room, making decisions about where stuff would be relocated, and then moving it all back again. Normally, I would enjoy this kind of activity but Bambino insisted on helping, too. He isn’t a help. But I did it, and this is the view I have before me this morning…
I am lucky to have a writing room. Over the years, I have written whilst sitting on sofas, in the corners of bedrooms, at dining room tables, in my car and on park benches. I tried writing in a library once but it was too annoying, what with people coming and going and making a lot of noise whilst trying to not make noise. As a teacher, I’ve written in my classroom and whilst sitting at the back of really boring and pointless staff meetings. But it isn’t until recent years that I’ve had, as advised by Virginia Woolf, a room of my own in which to write. Virginia Woolf had a tower to write in. That’d be great, wouldn’t it? A writing tower?
When I first had a room of my own, many years ago, it was also home to my other hobbies - sewing, knitting, music - and to my teacher stuff. When you are a teacher you accumulate a lot of stuff and you don’t always have space to store it in your classroom. But now this room is just for writing. All my arty crafty stuff has been whittled down and fitted into a cupboard in the corner of the room. Even now I am thinking about getting rid of the arty crafty stuff altogether and lining the cupboard with book shelves. As I write, I am surrounding by pictures and wall-hangings that bring me joy. I have plants, books, and knick-knacks galore. And I have a magnificent desk which is L-shaped and makes me feel like I am in a proper workspace.
Yesterday, whilst I was writing, I glanced up and saw a load of sheep being off-loaded into the field opposite the house. There hasn’t been any livestock in that field for seven years, so that was a nice surprise.
This morning, they are all gathered in a dip in the field, I have no idea why unless it’s for warmth and to get out of the breeze. Perhaps they all climbed in for larks? You can never tell with sheep - they are woolly enigmas. There they are - just to the right of the photo.
A lack-lustre blog post today. I am feeling a tad life weary at the moment, so to distract myself, I am revisiting a novel I wrote almost twenty or so years ago. It’s making me laugh and it’s fun to meet up with all the characters again. I think it has the legs to be published - self-published, of course, because at the moment I have neither the courage nor the tenacity to send it out to agents and publishers and cope with the almost inevitable rejection because I am a white, middle aged, middle class woman who isn’t a celebrity. BUT it is a good writing project to be working on, so hurrah for that!!
Plans are in place to visit Kent for Auntie Pollie’s funeral. I shall pop into town this afternoon and organise some flowers for her.
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KJ