Creatively speaking, the last couple of days have been wonderful. The house remains untidied, of course - but I have done a tremendous amount of writing.

On Tuesday, my dearest friend and I went to see an exhibition by the artist Halima Cassell. They were weird, wonderful sculptures in porcelain, stone, bronze, and clay - twisting, geometric designs, ethereal and alien, which managed to look both ancient and futuristic at the same time. She is another artist I will have to credit in the acknowledgements of my novel; I did some writing in the exhibition room that I'm really pleased with. Here's a Cassell piece for you to look at:

It really fortified for me the idea that I need to feed my starving soul, and allow my work to be a response to more than my own solitary thinking. The more I fill my soul with art, the better my work is.

I've been devouring poetry since coming back from France - and it's prompted me to start writing more of my own again. I've been dreaming in rhyming couplets. Here's the small beginning of a (non-rhyming) poem I've been working on. I say small beginning - but I think this might be the ending. 

Spring evenings carry the scent of you
from coat sleeves and pillowcases.
The sound of your last breath fills my ears.
I plant flowers in the hole
you left.

Yesterday I decided to take a day off from writing (although I still devoted an hour to editing) and spent it doing domestic things - chiefly, making orange & ginger marmalade with my partner. It was glorious - like stirring a tremendous pot of liquid amber. We made seven jars, and I immediately deposited one with my dearest friend. Another will go to my mum. The rest are for us - and although I say it myself, it's fucking good stuff.