The Art of Tea in Didsbury village is my sort of place. I
spent a pleasant afternoon there recently as I took a day’s leave. What does a
writer do on a day’s leave? Sit and write of course. Busman’s holiday or what?
The holiday bit, I guess is the sitting in a café and
enjoying some expertly brewed camomile tea and a rum slice and people-watching
at the same time as writing. Certainly, being out and about and amongst other
people helps to combat the feeling of isolation. Is that why we writers enjoy
working in cafés so much?
I’m just at the thinking stage of my latest creation, Girl in a Smart Uniform, the third in my
Schellberg cycle, set in Nazi Germany. At that point I like to make notes in a
notebook with a pen in my hand. There is definitely something satisfying about
the connection between the hand and the brain, the feeling of the slight
pressure of the pen in the hand on the paper followed by seeing the ideas
appear in handwriting. Certainly for me ideas always appear more easily when
tea, cake, notepad and pen are to hand.
The ideas have been chasing around in my mind for a while.
Now it was time to marshal them. Since that afternoon they’ve evolved further
as I’ve actually started to write. I doubt, though, that I’d be as far as I am
now if I hadn’t spent that afternoon deeply connected with my story and aided
and abetted by a creative café.
The Art of Tea is a little bohemian, a little grown-up hippy
and certainly vibrant with several lively discussions going on as I
worked. The cake and tea were good and
the rest of their menu also looked tempting.
The Art of Tea is attached to a second-hand bookshop and
look what else I found which is going to be useful for the course I’m teaching on
children’s literature at the University of Salford.
No comments:
Post a Comment