Return

I have been on a blog hiatus. A very long hiatus. An 'I'm not sure about this whole blog thing, I might just give up' type hiatus. In the midst of this break, in fact just a few days after I wrote my last post in August, a little seed was planted during a magical storm. This seed took nine months to blossom. He will be six weeks old tomorrow.

And suddenly I have had the urge to blog again. To record this new adventure. So here I am. Tired, half-dressed and hungry. But happy. My baby boy in a sling round my neck making little squeaks in his sleep, and a cat trying to find a bit of lap to sit on.

I'm going to hit publish before I change my mind.

The comfort of words

I love listening to words as well as reading them. I have always loved listening to stories, audiobooks on car and train journeys and the radio. I grew up with a mother who always had Radio 4 on in the background, as now I do, when I am cooking, cleaning, working.

Recently I have discovered the lovely podcasts by Marisa at Creative Thursday. Marisa's words have been inspiring me as I go on rainy evening walks, on sunny morning bus journeys to work, during moments at the day job where I feel I can't type out a single more word (yes, we are allowed to wear ipods at work). I love hearing the story of someone who has taken risks, jumped right in and is leading a truly creative life and is willing to share all she has learnt.

You can listen to Marisa's podcasts here at Creative Thursday.

What words are you listening to? 

The power of words

Last month I was excited to have a piece published in The Guardian's family section. It had only submitted it a week or so before and I by chance found an email in my junk folder saying it was going to be published the next day. 

I wrote it anonymously because it was a bit of a sensitive subject and I didn't want the people involved to read it. And I thought they never would. But by a weird twist of fate, my uncle happened to be with my mum when I texted here to tell her to go and buy the paper. She did, and began reading it aloud before she realised what it was about. I was mortified, and although my mum assured me my uncle wasn't, I felt so embarrassed to think he had read it. 

As I begin to write more and more this is something I wonder about. How much of the personal do you put into your writing. I know that when I write, the personal has a way of weaving itself in there. I can't shut it out, and I don't want to. But it can get me into trouble. Tonight I've been working on another piece about a friendship. Again, it is sensitive and I wouldn't want the person involved to read it. I will keep it anonymous and if it is published, it will be in a magazine I doubt she'll have even heard of. But even so, I feel slightly anxious about laying this story out on the page. 

Do you struggle with this too? What do you do with the personal stuff - leave it in or leave it out? Has writing ever got you into trouble? 

You can read my Guardian letter here.

Tonight I said no

Tonight I said no to going out for a drink

No to an evening of making small talk when I craved small silences

No to letting another evening drift by without writing

or giving myself space to think, or breathe.

Instead I said yes to a night to myself

Yes to a run along the seafront with the wind whipping away a stale day

Yes to the rough sea and the kite surfers playing with the elements

Yes to turning up my music loud and dancing

Yes to turning off the TV and thinking

Yes to an hour of writing, and feeling myself again. 

Summer threads

Summer has truly arrived. I unpacked some of my summer dresses and hung them outside to air, which led me to thinking about the stories these pieces of fabric hold. These days I don't buy too many clothes. As much as I love clothes, I try and buy second hand or buy less and make sure they last me. I like the thrill of buying something new as much as any girl, but I also love like pulling 'old' clothes out of storage too. It's like meeting up with old friends you haven't seen for a while. The green silk dress reminds me of a lovely day in Kensington, of hot summer weddings and drinking pimms barefoot on the grass, and a visit to Lucca in Tuscany last summer. The blue dress started its life off as bright pink, bought for a birthday party which didn't quite work, and niether did the colour of the dress. It lay ignored and unloved in my wardrobe until I tried dying it blue, which gave it a new lease of life. It reminds me of sweltering week at the Avignon theatre festival in the south of France, and a night of dancing, drinking and hilarity, one of those nights that cements certain friendships and that you talk about years later.

The blue bird skirt I picked up on a holiday to San Francisco a few years ago, my first time in America and probably my best holiday ever. One day I wandered off by myself to the Mission district and found this in a thrift store. I would love to know who wore it before me. Its twin sister is worn by one of my favourite bloggers too. The red dress is a vintage Marks and Spencers dress, bought as present on a rainy day in Suffolk last year at the end of the summer. Its first outing is yet to come. I wonder what memories it will hold by the end of the summer?

What are your favourite summer clothes?

Step by step

I started running with a friend  a couple of years ago. At first we couldn't stagger for more than about 10 minutes but slowly, step by step, and week by week, we got fitter. I now go running down by the sea twice a week. Like writing, it is something that I sometimes love, sometimes hate, but that I always feel better when I've done it. Like getting out your pen and paper and writing your first word, the hardest part of going for a run is putting on your trainers and getting out the door. The rest of it is almost easy. Like writing, you just go with it.

Running gives me time and space to think. Ideas come to me, things work themselves out. It is great to go for a run when you have been hunched over the keyboard and you need something physical to get you out of your head. My favourite time to go is first thing in the morning before the world has awoken. I went out yesterday morning under a blue cloudless sky.It was already getting hot. As I ran through the streets I could smell wafts of roses and jasmine in people's front gardens and hear the sounds of children getting up for breakfast. The sea was as still as a lake. 

Do you run? If you don't, you should try it. Believe me, I was never the running kind but now I love it. Or what else do you recommend to get you out of your mind and into your body?

Space and solitude

Yesterday a couple of friends and I trekked through the fields to see Anish Kapoor's C-Curve. It was beautiful: a strange object that looked like it had been left by aliens. It reflected back hyper-real images of ourselves, the fields and the cows, like a mirror into another world. Adults and children posed and giggled in front of their reflections like in a funfair hall of mirrors. Cameras clicked and flashed. Voices rang out louder in the quiet of the fields. I found myself wishing there were just a few of us there, or that I was alone, to really take in the experience, to drink in the peace and the clouds above me with no one but the cows for company.

Perhaps this is because I have been craving space and solitude recently. I have been longing for a Virginia Woolf's room of one's own. This is a luxury I, like many of you I'm sure, just can't afford right now. A private study is some years away for me. Instead I write at the kitchen table, or on my bed. Where ever I can get peace. This is hard sometimes. I am not the Jane Austen type; my ideas dry up when people and noise flows around me. I need quiet to reach down and hear those words inside me. 

I have the flat to myself this weekend and I am revelling in the peace broken only by my tapping fingers and a ticking clock, and the muted sounds of the neighbours lives. 

How do you carve out your own solitude and space to create?

To see some stunning photos of the C-curve, look here.