It’s been over two weeks since I was able to write words in anything other than a trusty notebook, which has left me mildly anxious about not fulfilling on my own daily writing practice. A regular writing practice and a regular online daily writing practice are however two different things and it’s fine to keep things going in a format that works for you. Life gets busy, priorities shift and sometimes that’s just the way it goes.
In my case, thanks to the rank discovery of mouldy blender, bags of porridge oats and a box of Yorkshire tea at the back of various kitchen cupboards in my new place, I’ve had to devote a significant chunk of time to sorting that out. Which means finding the right person/people for the job, getting my head around the expenditure at a time when I’m just finding my feet post divorce, and then embarking on a forensic mission to find the source of the mould – rising damp, condensation, leaking pipes, blocked drains all in the mix – and a high-speed drive to reinstate the kitchen.
Under such pressures, the garden – if you’re lucky enough to have one – takes on a new role as both landing stage for debris coming out and new materials coming in, and for a temporary kitchen set up to be arranged. Thankfully I have a heap of camping stuff from family trips previous and setting up a gazebo under which I could house a cooking and washing up area kind of kept the overwhelm at bay. The arrival of hot, dry weather was also a godsend allowing soaked walls and floorboards found under render and tiles to dry out, and also camping cooking and eating to take place without it being too much of a slog.
Suddenly having another emergency situation on my hands has also reminded me that the garden needs to be as low maintenance as possible for the moment, or possibly for all time. The hot weather also requires much watering to be done, which if done in a water-saving way – using waste water and watering cans – can take time. Time I don’t currently have. I’m grateful that many of the plants I brought with, temporarily housed in the long-side kitchen border, are of the drought-tolerant variety or at least can tolerate periods of drought: catmint, rosemary, lavender, and Mexican daisy.
I’m actually laughing as I write this as no matter what I try to describe, be it mould or family upheaval, the narrative always comes back to the plants. And thus I begin writing the first chapter of my new book today, which also begins with drought. I’m excited to see how each paragraph unfolds, and at the same time deliver insights into how a book gets written and made. The first sentence is always the trickiest but when you’ve nailed that and then set off on the journey, it can be truly exhilarating.
Finding and being satisfied with that first sentence is also a good reminder that you won’t always know what you have to say. Putting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard can be as much a channel for a stream of consciousness or a prompt to go and do some more research as it is the tool for getting the actual words down. And thinking on the job often requires as much backspace deletion as it does stringing sentences together with forward motion, the first line often a hundredth line in disguise.
The damp issue is presenting in a similar way, one step forward, two steps back, the latest news – as I write – that we may have to move out for a bit. But in both cases there will be a resolution. The issue will be dealt with. The book will be written. And did I mention that the greenhouse also needs building at school. I will keep going, one foot in front of the other, and all will be well. I may even look back at this time and thank the mould porridge for pointing me in the right direction
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