Category Archives: Places

Writing Heaven

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The walls of Balliol College Oxford are too thick for wi-fi,* they tried it and it didn’t work. How do I know? I got it first hand from the porter.

Inside Balliol

Before Christmas, I went to Oxford with my friend, writer Wendy Robertson, for four days of writing. We stayed in rooms in Balliol which fronts onto Broad Street, and sits right in the heart of the city, only minutes from the Sheldonian and the Bodleian.

Being free from everything domestic so close to Christmas felt dangerous and delicious. It worked!  We wrote whenever we pleased, did whatever we pleased. We had four days of glorious blue sky, intense winter light, immaculate lawns and breath- taking architecture. We explored the city’s lanes and cobbled streets, its ancient gates and doorways:  glimpses into hidden worlds. Breathed in the immaculate gardens on our doorstep: tree ferns flourishing in sheltered corners and cyclamen flowering on the lawns under the beech. And at the end of the day we had impromptu readings, as well as on one occasion, a glass of champagne in The Randolph!

The Bodleian

It was all fun. I even did a spot of Christmas shopping in Blackwells. But we came to write and write we did. For what more does a writer need than a room of her own, a desk and chair and of course her best writing buddy with her – someone as obsessed as she is, who wants to talk writing into the night over a bottle (or two) of red and a plate of cheese and biscuits? (There’s a handy Sainsburys only minutes away.) You could say it was heaven and you’d be right.

* If you want to hook up to the internet you can borrow a cable from the porter for a £5.00 deposit – there is a connection in every room. As it turned out I enjoyed being internet free.

Balliol Lawns

 

Finding The Story In A Cornish Garden.

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Cornwall is like another country, with its wild coastline, turquoise seas, subtropical gardens, estuaries and creeks, its dampness and warmth. Then there’s its belief in the sustainable and renewable, its wonderful locally sourced and organic food, its generous celebration of the arts.

We had a great trip around Trebah guided by the lovely Dan a former Assistant Head Gardener. He and Peter converted the seriously stylish but homely barn we stayed in, (highly recommended) as well as rescuing the nearby garden now known as The Potager (ranks as one of my favourite gardens ever) and a dog called Obie.

The Potager

Everywhere we went people were friendly and relaxed – they had time. But as always, everywhere we went, I was looking for the story. I found it at the bottom ofTrebah Graden on the beach where 7,500 of the 29th US Infantry Division embarked for the assault on Omaha beach, where many died. Like stories do, it played around in my head and connected with a beautiful blog post I’d read by Theresa Evangeline  from Minnesota,  about picking grapes. Then I found some names and the story began. It’s still in first draft in my notebook.

Here’s the beginning…

Growing Grapes In Minnesota

Alice Trego knew the chances of Duke Maynard turning up after sixty seven years were probably about the same as her making a decent return from Ladbrooke’s on a Super Yankee Special. What she hadn’t bargained for was Marvin Spinoza.

Every year the Major held a service on the beach and every year Alice attended, even though Roger had been dead twelve years. The nearest Sunday to June Ist Alice was there along with the decreasing number of those who remembered. They were mostly gone now, probably Duke with them, if he hadn’t died a lifetime ago. But something, other than common sense, told Alice he hadn’t died. Something made her cling to the notion that Duke Maynard had survived and that he was seeing out his time growing grapes in Minnesota, just like he always said he would…

Inow Barn where we stayed

Off To Cornwall

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Off to Inow in Cornwall in what promises to be a very special place – take  a look here.Trebah Gardens are very near, so this is real Orchid House country. I’m looking forward to visiting the gardens and am hopeful of some good weather but if not I’ve got my Kindle ( uploaded 2 new books) – and my favourite A3 size purple notebook with squared paper, so what more could I ask for? Bottle or two of wine… log burner to sit by….beautiful scenery… it’s all there and waiting.

Our Ancient Woodlands

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Our ancient woodlands are our rainforests.

They are magical places: thin places where the boundaries between real and imagined blur, places of fairy tale and mystery. As such they should be close to our writers’ hearts, to all our hearts.

The Government has started a consultation over the future of the forests in England owned by the Forestry Commission, including plans to sell many of them. A campaign has been launched: Save England’s Ancient Forests. Please support it by: Signing the petition

Small Stone January 30th

Chenille cloth

fern moss

green lit

Zen and the Art of Blogging

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This week I was intending to launch a new blog  -not to replace this one I hasten to add, but a blog of short daily inspirations, quotes, thoughts, writing ideas/workshops – all with a distinctly zen feel.

However it was not to be as I found myself  looking after someone and that was more important. I am now off on holiday with my father – to Egypt, and my – On The White Page blog will have to wait until I get back. Click here for a sneak preview of how it will look www.onthewhitepage.com

On Thursday evening at the launch of The Romancer – Kathleen told me that my blog is not allowing her to comment. Apologies for this to all – will get on to it soon.

But now – its out of the snow – lying quite thickly here – flying to Egypt – Cairo – then to Luxor from whence down the Nile with notebook, camera – I want to write some of this experience in renga verse -  so good for capturing the essence of things.

See you when I get back

Writing in Durham

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Durham is such a beautiful city. Lately I’ve taken to parking at the Park and Ride (Elvet Hill?)  near the Oriental Museum and walking down into the city and up through the Bailey to the Cathedral. (Be warned although you walk you must buy a bus ticket otherwise you are parked illegally and liable to a fine!) I work in the Cathedral, either in the Library or the coffee shop – fabulous scones and cakes.

Yesterday morning  the sky was blue, the paths were frosty and a low mist hung like smoke on the river. Like I said, beautiful!

The cloisters Durham Cathedral

Marrakech – Mopeds and Minarets

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Cloth dyed with Indigo drying in the Dyers Souk

Marrakech was fabulous! – A vibrant, chaotic city where gardens and quiet terraces offered welcome shade and respite from the crazy, overcrowded streets teeming with life: with people – people on mopeds, riding bicyles, driving carts and mules, caleches and taxis, people offering to sell you their services – to henna your hands, shine your shoes,  or sell you a myriad of goods especially in the impenetrable souks, where we invariably got lost.

It was an assault on the senses and cannot in anyway be sufficently conjured up through images alone, there was just too much noise: the  antiphony of the call to payer echoing around the rooftops, the insistent drumming in the square, the snake charmer’s haunting flute, rowdy taxi horns, horses hooves, early morning songbirds, the voices of the storytellers…and then there were the smells; sandalwood, jasmine, engine oil, horse dung, shoe polish, spicy tagines, mint tea, cumin but most of all orange blossom – it was the season – and at times it seemed to me that the whole city was drenched in orange blossom…heavenly!

I didn’t write – other than make a few lists- but I read a couple of great books, especially What I Loved by Siri Hustevedt – a book I lived inside for the whole time I was reading it and somehow did not want to finish. John laughed out loud as he re-read Catch22

We visited several palaces, drank tea (all we could afford!) in the gardens of the most expensive hotel in Morocco – the fabulous La Mamounia, wandered the souks, ate harira – a spicy lentil soup with lemons and dates on the side, and ate fabulous pastries and ice cream in the Argana Cafe in the main square.

It was warm, no it was hot! hard work at times but exotic and rewarding -  an absolute gift for any writer… and I have to admit  another beginning did just drift across my mind…

Herbs, spices, pot pourri

Le Jardin Majorelle - Yves St Laurent

Across the rooftops to the Koutoubia Minaret - visible throughout the city

The terrace of our riad hotel - Jnane Mogador - at night

To Marrakech…

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I am off to Marrakech!! I’m looking forward to doing nothing other than wander the souks and gardens of this extraordinary city. Of course I will be taking my camera but the only writing I will be doing is making lists in my notebook - lists like artists’ sketches make brilliant starting points for writing both prose and poetry. After this long winter I’m hungry for Morocco’s vibrant colour and its heat.

Yesterday at our RoomToWrite day the heat was turned up as we sat under glass in the elegant conservatory at Whitworth, looking out onto the  snowdrops and deer. It was a beautiful morning – the sun shone for us once again – there is some kind of magic at work here I feel-  and there was magic in the conversations, the intense and complex discussions and in the writing that continues to grow and develop. There was great comaraderie too and we were delighted to welcome Colleen all the way from Chicago via London, and we were sad to miss Erica and Anne – hope we will see you in November.

So much good writing – some of which will appear on our website in April, so make sure you take a look. I leave you with something I like a lot from Kate Mosse:

There’s only one difference between published and unpublished writers and it is this – the first group see their work in print on the shelves of Waterstone’s or Tesco or online at Amazon; the second group are yet to have physical evidence of the hours, weeks, years spent fashioning words into their patterns. You are already a writer.

A Conversation with the Sea

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Scallop - Maggi Hambling

I am about to spend a week away with friends in Suffolk, and I’m really looking forward to it. East Anglia is a place that holds real resonance for me. I went there as an undergraduate many moons ago and more recently I lived in Norwich for six months.

The flatlands call to me – perhaps they remind me of home and the Somerset Levels or perhaps it has more to do with how I felt when I left home and a whole new life opened up before me – I especially loved those four years I spent there from age 18 – 22

The cottage we are staying in is on an estuary – with great views to the sea, so I will be in my watery element. I am also feeling optimistic having had some unexpectedly good feedback on my new novel. There is still a long way to go but I’m keeping my fingers crossed and I’m enjoying the praise and positive vibes while they last – I’m beginning to be a great believer in celebrating the small successes and not worrying too much about the future.

I’m particularly looking forward to seeing Maggi Hambling’ s Scallop again, on Aldeburgh beach. The edge of the main shell is pierced with the words, “I hear those voices that will not be drowned” It makes my skin prickle just thinking about it!

I’ve been thinking for some time about setting a novel or some stories in East Anglia so I’m hoping very much to hear some of those voices and have my own conversation with the sea.

Music is an abstract art, but we cannot help being struck, as we approach the sculpture from shoreward, by the anguished cry from Peter Grimes: ‘I hear those voices that will not be drowned’. It is immediately visible, written by light on the rim of the shell. These are words bound to intensify our sense of hearing as they suggest we listen for reverberations of another kind on the marine air – echoes of ‘the still sad music of humanity’. We remember at once the essential humanism of Britten’s music, its expression of the total range of thought and feeling, its empathetic capacity to celebrate and to commemorate, to praise and to mourn.

Mel Gooding

Notes: Maggi Hambling referred to Scallop as ‘a conversation with the sea’.

Mel Gooding is a well-known writer on art and architecture. He is Research Fellow at Edinburgh College of Art.

Magic, Inspiration and Sparklers

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deer

There was something magical about driving up to Whitworth Hall on a sunlit autumn morning –  deer chewing on the damp grass, spilling their breath into the cold air,  a wet crust of coppery leaves on the gravel paths, lipstick red berries, melting frosts, a promising blue sky. If we had orchestrated the weather for the first RoomToWrite weekend we could not have done better and the morning was a gift that made our exercise in Close Observation, Wendy’s brilliant idea that subsequently yielded such beautiful writing, all the more inspiring. The world outside our round- tabled conference room sparkled.

In the evening, we were joined by our illustrious guest writers; Elizabeth Gill, Pat Barker, Sharon Griffiths and Fadia Fakir. We enjoyed wonderful food and great conversation, and drew our first day to a close with the dimming of lights and the lighting of sparklers -an inspired touch by Gillian.

sparklers

But perhaps what sparkled more than anything over the course of the weekend were the writers themselves and their writing. So many thanks to; Jackie, Judith, Michael, Anne, Erica, Mary, Eileen, Norma, Alison, Hilary, Linda, Lisette, Kathryn and Geri –a great list! – for making it such a brilliant weekend for us and to John from HPM. Thanks for all your hard work and for your great sense of fun, enlivened of course by the odd G&T.

Whilst we hope we enabled and inspired we were truly inspired by you. We felt the magic and I certainly came away believing that in the coming months I will make my writing an absolute priority – finish my current novel and start a new one (that’s exciting) – there is so much still for me to do in the world of writing – so much for all of us – and I look forward to hearing how everyone’s work and plans progress – I look forward to seeing some published novels too– the world’s our oyster now we have HPM to help us publish – so Good Luck and Keep Sparkling!

Do take a look at the feedback and lovely photos courtesy of Geri now at   RoomToWrite

whitworth

Whitworth Hall