It's June.

IT'S JUNE.

What in heavens name happened to May and to my commitment to be a good and regular blogger?

Here follows the excuse. Now that I blog (occasionally) I have begun to read other blogs (often) and consequently don't get round to doing the biz myself because I've used up my allocated blog time reading, not writing. This occasionally happens with my 'proper' writing too. Reading widely is imperative (happily) when aspiring to be a writer. I have discovered however that I need to be disciplined in these things otherwise I get carried away. No, wrong. I do not get carried away, I simply get lost in all sorts of alluring places. Ten minutes morph into four or five hours all too easily. I simply don't have built in time-awareness.

Does anyone?

At its worst this sort of time-warp episode can result in chaos, at best it results in the 'to-do' list for the day being shunted into the following day/week/month. But more often than not it results in said list being lobbed into the bin.

Now you may be thinking that I am a woman of lists and time constraints. Notionally I am. The concept helps me believe in my ability to organise myself and in days gone by, when all five children lived at home, it may have been necessary... or not. We survived even on the days that were entirely list-less. And there were many of those because I never found time to write them.

However. I digress.

I woke up this morning (blues riff running through my head; always does when I use those words) and I felt compelled to blog in the light of two 'bed versus shed' matters that came to my notice recently.

Just yesterday a friend, and I'll mention no names, was on Facebook enthusing about the imminent arrival of a shed. This shed is destined to be her writing shed. While I have never, face to to face, discussed the 'bed versus shed' debate with her, I felt... let down. I really had her down as a reclining writer. I'm coming to terms with her revelation. We can still remain friends, I think, I hope. I see her tomorrow. We will broach the subject, I'm sure.

On the other hand I attended a refreshing and entertaining reading by Tessa Hadley yesterday evening. She was introducing her new novel, Clever Girl (now added to my stack of books to read). The Q and A was informative and Tessa's responses insightful and detailed. Inevitably a question was posed concerning her writing methods and processes. Having been a bit down in the dumps about the earlier shed incident, my spirits lifted and my heart sang to hear tell of Tessa Hadley's need to remain, metaphorically speaking, in her pyjamas to write. Her dear, dear husband brings her breakfast in bed on her writing days and, breakfast taken and perhaps a little bit of reading enjoyed, she takes to her writing. How civilised.

To me, our common bond was entirely palpable. I could feel it across the room. Did Tessa feel it too? Hard to say but I'm pretty sure she saw me wink at her.

I made a mental note, there and then, to work on the little detail that separates her experience from mine i.e. the breakfast delivery bit. Until I get that sorted the current arrangement involving a quick excursion to the kitchen by my good self to grab a cuppa and a supply of chocolate Hobnobs will have to suffice.

I can't wait to tell my traitorous shed friend all of this. I will do my utmost not to be smug in my recounting of the details but I'm pretty sure she is a Tessa Hadley admirer so it will have an effect.

That said, I have to confess that my shed friend is also a damned fine writer*. Mmm. This acknowledgement does undermine, just a teeny little bit, my theory that 'bed' is better than 'shed'.


*With apologies to the wonderful Mimi Of-the-Shed Thebo.