There are eddies in a house, places where things collect. I’ve come home to the river needing clearing. The chattels from my mother’s death take up a wall in the sitting room still wrapped in bubbles and held in bags collapsing. Round the corner in the office is another heap belonging to my brother. The kitchen dresser has become loaded with notes and pens and pieces of string that need moving on. The sofa in my bedroom is piled with dresses I no longer wear that I’ve promised to send to a friend. I ache all over. I’m not ready for the new working year to begin yet I am home, France behind me and so it has.

The garden is an explosion. My diary is already full till November. Somehow I’ve got to edit a novel for serialising by mid September and deliver the first draft of a new one by Christmas. I can’t imagine how I’ll manage any of it. In France I feel light, alive and capable. In England, everything closes in and heaps upon my head. I want to lie down, hide, say no, I can’t do any of it. Returning to England is always such a shock.

I know the rules. One thing at a time. Unpack. Clear the eddies. Get my house in order. Begin work on Monday. This is the first year of no school; B & J leave home and I’m going to change my practice to something more sustainable than 4am starts. Not that I didn’t sustain it for over a decade, but it made evenings tricky. I’m going to shift the creative ring fence to midday. The world shall not encroach until after lunch. No emails, not even this, my diary. If I can preserve mornings for writing novels, maybe I’ll get somewhere.

I’m resisting using the o word. It’s not a war zone, it’s just me facing up to my ambitions. All that I want to get done. What was the gift of this year’s summer? To hold the work lightly. As we left yesterday, the car winding quietly down the drive, the guy at the wheel stopped and pointed. Lapin. He meant lièvre; we looked, and there she was. The hare. Listen. Easy does it. Be light on your feet.

Eleanor

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