I am not Virginia Woolf

I am writing to you from my bed. Albeit a comfy winter sun drenched bed. Virginia Woolf and Mark Twain both wrote in bed at one time or another. Right?

Winston Churchill famously dictated from his bed. He went to bed - just didn’t sleep much.

Frida Carlo and her paintings - bed.

I am in lofty company. But. I am not Virginia Woolf. I am poorly. And, frankly, unable to string more than five or six words together. Coherence is optional this morning.

My room is full of cold sun. My sick bed is in my studio and is surrounded on three sides by cold snow. Even the birds are quiet this morning. The light is bright. It slices through the windows and across my open half unpacked suitcase. Sticking its chilled sundog fingers into my open toilet bag. Reflecting my bad housekeeping back to me. See this? See this? The light catches in cobwebs and the musical notes of floating dust stirred by impatient drafts and reluctant ghosts. I dare not look in the mirror - this incandescent light will be there too. Glaring cooly at my neglected self. Best I stay safely in my bed.

I have a story drafted for you (I start writing for Sustainable Sunday on Tuesday) but it has not hit its stride: (that moment when your writing begins to write you). I won’t publish something that’s just not ready. Writing too fast and under pressure and from one’s bed is not always a good thing. You can feel it when you read a piece of work that has been forced out the door.

Life just has so much stuff in it. So many people. So many things happening. So many words. So much news. So many pictures. So much meanness and cruelty. So much change when we least expect it. So much to assimilate and align and digest. So much hidden good. Golden and obscure. So much rushing and grappling and chasing. So, we need to listen to our bodies when they say, our bodies that is, when our bodies say; go to bed.

Lots of so’s. Lots of much’s . Lots of many’s. Lots of apostrophes where they do not belong.

Which all goes to say; there is no story today. And as I said coherence is optional.

(Maybe I should write like this more often. It is quite liberating not having to worry about making sense).

My ribs ache from coughing. Do you know that feeling? I am so seldom sick that it makes me irritated. I am not one to bother doctors or use medications preferring to rely on the general health of my body, and hopefully the general health of my mind, to overcome this little bug. Drown the bug my mother used to say. Water is key.

I probably won’t be in bed for long. I might drift across to my couch. But. I am going to write some lists before I get up. I am going to be doing a lot of travel in the next few months and I have challenged myself to do it all with one carry on and a lightly filled hand bag. (My last week of travel was a trial and it worked). I am going to need to be healthy and organized. And my farm needs to be healthy and organized so I can leave it. Healthy and organized. Two of my favorite objectives.

And lists are so calming. Don’t you think? Even if I seldom refer to them and almost always lose them. They are lovely to create in that linear succinct form a list generally takes. They are art.

I used to collect grocery lists abandoned in grocery trolleys in London supermarket car parks - I was going to make an art work from them. The lists. But that collection has been lost to the mists of time.

There I go. Wandering off into my addled over heated brain again. Taking a metaphorical side road.

Have a really lovely day. Be kind. Don’t believe everything you read in the news, triangulate your information. Go down the side roads. Clean your petri-dish phone screen. Delete all that bullshit out of your inbox. And if your body says: take a break. Take a break.

There you have it.

Celi

TKG Take Ten Farm is roaring back to your screens on Monday. With images of the farm. TKG Take Ten Travel (in California) was so much fun!

TKG Take Ten is still free to all but not for much longer. I ran an experiment to see if Free for Everybody would attract a little more funding for the farm but it has not.

My 27 paid subscribers are basically supporting hundreds of free readers. And I love you for it. But trials have finite terms.

And to be fair the blog at thekitchensgarden.com has always been and will always be - Free.

So - from February 25 - TKG Take Ten will only be FREE on Sundays and (some) Wednesdays. Upgrade at any time for the full 5 days a week farm or travel experience. Just $5 a month. Because! Drum Roll! Starting on the 21st of March we have almost two months of travel to Canada and Australia and New Zealand. (All with one carry on!).

Join us!

It is going to be amazing!

And share. Maybe you have a friend who needs this.

PS What shall we call ourselves. Paid subscribers sounds so cold. The Club? TKG Team? The Tenners? (I kind of like ‘The Tenners’) YOUR SUPPORT is funding my writing and my rescues. Thank You.