On running away

Bit tricky to know what to put on your OOO when you do a flit

Ideal writing scenario, 2024

The hardest thing about fleeing London to try and get some work done somewhere fifteen degrees cooler and with significantly fewer distractions¹ wasn’t shelling out the money, I made my peace with the flit as a professional investment back in 2024, when I went to France to successfully kickstart the manuscript that was to become Peach Street to Lobster Lane. Though renting somewhere to write felt (and still feels!) outrageously grand and definitely notion-y, it was worth every penny to be able to immerse myself wholly and completely in the US for three weeks (albeit while existing corporeally on Alpine cheese and saucisson).

It wasn’t even choosing the right place at such short notice — I made the decision over breakfast last month after finding even fresh, breezy Penzance too damn hot for most of the day, and booked somewhere, some 400 miles north, but not so far east, the same morning. (Much as I love the Alps, I couldn’t put Wilf through that drive in this heat with my antique aircon. This time, it was jumper on by North Yorkshire, torrential rain as we crossed the Pennines. Ideal, in other words.) No, it was choosing how to word my email autoresponse to make it clear I had a Good Reason for not replying to the many offers and opportunities and suggestions and invitations and complaints which come my blesséd way on a daily basis, rather than (just) being an inconsiderate git.

To be fair, this, at Penzance’s glorious Chapel House, was a great place to write, it’s just going out into that view that was too warm for either of us

Simply saying that I was writing might cause some to wonder what I thought I was doing for the rest of the time given that is my actual job (this is another novel; I’ve already written my columns for the next three months, should you wonder why I’ve been more than usually covered in flour and oven burns recently). Conversely, merely suggesting I was away for two months made it sound like I was on an extended holiday, something which was unlikely to go down well with any of the editors expecting work from me, and which also made me feel rather aggrieved on my own behalf. Mentions of the phrase “writing retreat”, however, implied, I felt, that I believed myself to be up there with Zadie Smith or Arundhati Roy in the Serious Artist stakes (not that I’m aware either of them indulge in such things, no doubt the greatness just flows out of them in humble public libraries², or the top deck of the bus) — but as it was 23:33 and I’d already set my alarm for 5am to get on the road before everyone else, in the end I decided making myself look like a prat was worth an extra few minutes of sleep and went with it. I shall enjoy imagining the mocking responses when news of my retreat hits people’s inboxes.

“You’re too old for a Happy Meal” (a lovely member of McDonalds staff brought that bowl out for Wilf unbidden)

After 11 hours of travel (including a stop for me to drink coffee and eat the muesli I’d brought with me because have you seen the choice, and prices at service stations, a second stop for Wilf to wee and me to slurp a McDonalds banana milkshake while filling up on petrol, and a final stop for us both to eat lunch – serendipitously I found myself rejecting several service stations because they looked too depressing, only to be forced by hunger to finally pull in at Cairn Lodge in Lanarkshire, so you can imagine my delight on discovering it’s part of the Westmorland group! It put even my beloved French service stations to shame; I had pea, courgette and mint soup with an excellent cheese scone and butter, Wilf had some roast chicken and kibble (guess which one he finished) and I then spent so long in the farm shop they thought himself had been abandoned and put out a call on the tannoy for the owner of a little dog called Wilf, I am shamed – WE ARE HERE!

Oh, I’m doing a Guardian live Q&A/ask me anything tomorrow afternoon at 3pm, though this link should be open from 6am tomorrow, so any burning questions apart from HOW MANY WORDS HAVE YOU WRITTEN, this is your chance!

And, though I haven’t actually done any work yet, it feels perfect; proper big desk, adequate wifi, huge windows looking on to the Firth of Clyde and even a little garden for Wilf to escape from (ok if I’m being picky I do sort of wish that were fenced, he tends to follow his nose and will probably end up in a neighbouring kitchen or underneath a Dutch campervan if I’m not careful).

They also do fish and chips, don’t worry

The beautiful blankness of the view; of big skies and open water, is just what I wanted – something soothing to stare at, the visual equivalent of my beloved heavy rain playlists (though I suspect I won’t need them this time, looking at the forecast). Because, while I would sorely love to be the impressive type of person who can write anywhere, any table any chair etc, crammed into the loo at work or in the wee small hours before real life begins, I regret to say I do not have that purity of focus. My muse is flighty, probably because it can be; most people can’t just sod off to the other end of the country for a few weeks (though I note approvingly that Anna Jones took herself on a writing break to Deal recently, as described in her latest newsletter — I’d be hopeless in Deal, there’s too much going on and too many friends nearby).

Of course, I can fire off short pieces on the hoof, I’ve written substacks, nibs, opinion columns, even a whole feature on my phone, but when it comes to books, I cannot multi task, write a recipe column in the morning and a chapter in the afternoon, they demand my entire attention and then I can think of nothing else but the characters and what they’re up to. Well, nothing else except what I’m going to have for the next meal, and whether Wilf is happy (we’ve just been out for a walk by the water, he refused to be dragged on an expedition to find a ruined castle, he’s now asleep on a rug).

That means bringing some food with me, so I always have the basics of a few meals on hand and don’t have to go out every day (a particularly looming temptation in Morzine).

WHAT I BROUGHT THIS TIME (not planned, just thrown in a last-minute panic but quite happy with the selection)

• Pasta x 2 (rigatoni/spaghetti)

• Red lentils (probably for soups)

• Dried beans

• Tinned tomatoes

• EVOO

• Rice

• Anchovies (should have brought tinned sardines too)

• Chilli flakes

• Hot sauce and furikake seasoning (because I had it. Chilli crisp or pumpkin seeds would also have been up for consideration had I had either)

• Soy sauce

• Mustard (the hot Polish kind in this instance, a good halfway house between tangly Dijon and peppery English)

• Lemons

• Kimchi

• Broccoli (travels and keeps well)

• Good tomatoes

• Soft fruit to remind myself it’s summer even when I have a fleece on

• Frozen homemade squash soup (bonus: acted as an ice pack for the dairy)

• Peanut butter

• Marmite

• Yoghurt

• Butter

• Milk

• Eggs

• Parmesan

• Homemade fig conserve

• Potato sourdough (good bread being the foundation of all, hopefully I’ll find some locally too)

• Rye crackers and oatcakes

• Muesli

• Tea (Assam, Earl Grey) and coffee (cold brew and … hot brew)

• Fruit cake

• Easter chocolate, salted nuts, wasabi peas and cheesy crisps we didn’t eat at Wilderness and other things for morale-related emergencies

• low-alcohol beers and shandies, a couple of gin miniatures and cans of tonic, a bag of red wine and a bottle of whisky. Thought briefly about making it a dry retreat but it is nice having a glass of wine at the end of a good day’s work sorry

• I also picked up some radicchio and a frozen venison lasagne and some frozen Gujurati toor dal at the farm shop (probably didn’t come directly from the farm, thinking about it), which will take care of four dinners

And lest you think this very Substack a prime act of procrastination, I spent A Lot of time last night freeing up space on my hard drive so my laptop would allow me to write more than a sentence without spinning madly and infuriatingly (harder than it sounds, operating an external hard drive), but it’s still so slow that I’ve decided to install a software update which promised to take twenty minutes and has so far, and entirely predictably, swallowed up over an hour. When will I learn? (And why does this always happen when I have a book to write?)

All this is to say, I’m away, I’m about to start writing another novel which I AM VERY EXCITED ABOUT PLUNGING INTO, and I’ll be back in September. If macOS Tahoe 26.6 has finished installing by then, obviously.

Wilf

Is also excited, in his case to be away from the heat, and in a new place, though I’ve had to ask a friend to send up his poncho and dressing gown as he had a shivering fit last night after coming in from the rain. He’s clearly gone soft down south.

Events

• 13th September, 2:30pm Chiswick Book Festival (with Bee Wilson who needs no introduction)

• 15th September, 6:30pm for 7pm, The Brown Cow, Fulham (with Claire Nelson, journalist, adventurer and author of Things I Learned from Falling) — not online yet but it’s happening

• 3rd October, 6pm, Henley Literary Festival (with Olly Smith! You know Olly Smith)

• 10th October, Festilitt, Parisot, Tarn-et-Garonne, France

• 15th November, 4pm, Folkestone Literary Festival (with Claire Cohen, journalist, cat-lover and author of BFF)

current view

1. “quick coffees” which end up lasting an afternoon/hydrating the garden with a tiny watering can/obsessively monitoring the terrifyingly efficient and horribly satisfying fly trap IT IS NOT ME I AM NOT DIRTY THERE IS A PLAGUE IT MUST BE TRUE I READ IT IN THE GUARDIAN

2. obviously I just googled it and discovered that Smith and her husband ‘the poet and novelist Nick Laird… often work side by side at the NYU library, Smith facing a wall, Laird in an office or a nearby desk. “I have absolutely given up on the idea of peace and quiet as being necessary to writing,” she said. “I work in the time I have.”’