Back to school

It’s that time of year again. Autumn leaves crunching underfoot, nights drawing in. Everyone’s back from their holidays and back to school or work.

For me the break has been longer than most. Partly because we’ve only just returned from a fantastic jaunt to sunny Spain and partly because my baby boy has recently turned one and, finally, after a nightmare year, we have his health problems mostly under control. My last blog post hoped for a baby who slept from six weeks old; no such luck! Instead Douglas has a rare condition known as Eosinophilic Gastro Intestinal Disorder which basically means he’s allergic to just about everything (including breast milk!) and which has kept him up for most of the night screaming with pain for much of his little life. Thankfully now that he’s on a ridiculously restricted diet of butternut squash and potato along with some helpful medication he’s a happy boy and I can get back to work.

But then there’s the question, how to start? The world of Tag and Lorna seems a long way away now. The worlds of young people, agents, publishers and literature professionals even further away. I’ve spent more time in hospitals than libraries over the past year and the only books I’ve read have been about food allergies. To add to the feeling of dislocation, the landscape in the arts has changed in fairly major ways, leaving me wondering (along with much of the British population) whether I’ll ever work again and slightly worried about the state of my finances. So, I guess I just need to begin putting one word after the last and see where it leads me.

This is me committing to that process again in some small way. Wish me luck!