savourites #59: end-of-summer bumper issue

what I did when I wasn't writing

It’s a Sunday evening, and I am writing. The smear of sirens drifts through the open studio door; tomorrow is a Bank Holiday and so the air is thick with the heightened sense of stolen time. That this is like a Saturday, that this could be the last hurrah of a summer heavy with rain. Meters away, in the nightclub near our house, people younger than me painted in sequins and make-up are rinsing the season for all it’s worth. I’m wearing a jumper, and I am writing.

It feels good. When I took a break from savour a little over a month ago I nurtured secret plans to use the time to get ahead of myself. I have what I think of as a “freezer” where emergency and leftover posts live, and I was hoping to get batch-cooking. Instead, I allowed myself to gently crumble apart. It’s been nearly two months, now, since the baby fell ill and while he is fine I have not been. That has taken some work to identify, and some work to begin to remedy. In some ways, this has been a month of piecing things together, of taking stock, of carving out and making space and going gently. It has been very hard at times. It has been featherlight at others. Some days I have felt like heat rising above tarmac, shimmering and brazen.

So, nothing in the freezer. But I did keep a notes list on my phone when a tasty morsel cropped up - something I wanted to remember when I came to find the time to write this list. And as a result, this is something of a bumper issue of savourites. Good things from the past month. I hope some of them might encourage you to think on what yours have been.