Writing in troubling times…….












Water, water………..

Last week the temperature dropped and the well froze. This meant that for a few days there was no running water in the house. Like many people, (living in the places I do) potable running water is something we take for granted – when we turn on the tap we expect to receive hot or cold water.

Frozen water
Frozen water

When there isn’t any……life is changed. I was shovelling snow to melt on the woodburner, using it in as many ways as possible. It became a creative endeavour, it became a different way of thinking. It was a reminder, an awareness. And it became possible to do without something that is usually an almost unconscious part of life. It’s an interesting lesson in resilience in fact.

Journal prompt: What happens when you, even temporarily, have to do without someone or something that you consider part of the very fabric of your life?  How do you adapt? How resilient are you?


In terms of the landscapes of people’s lives I think people are either mountain people or water people – which landscape feeds you most? Water has certainly provided inspiration for many writers and poets. Wallace Stevens said  ‘perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake’, but rivers are particularly  celebrated from Wordsworth’s  series of sonnets on the River Duddon to Alice Oswald’s narrative poem Dart.

Unfrozen water
Unfrozen water


Journal prompt: What is your relationship with water? What are your most evocative memories of water (good or bad)? Write from the senses – smell, sight, sound, taste, touch. Write in prose or poetry.