Week 3. Day 3. Getting lost to get found

I am known for having a very poor sense of direction. You know when people say, “You can’t possibly get lost on that route?” I take some pride in being the person who absolutely can get lost on that route. Once, I got lost on a canal. Sometimes, my lack of direction...

Week 3. Day 2. Compassion for ideas

Long before Alan Garner was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, he wrote novels which informed the imaginations of a generation of British children. And after The Owl Service and the Weirdstone of Brisingamen were published, Garner wrote other books. While he wrote, he...

Week 3. Day 1. Getting back on the horse

My father was a horse breeder and breaker. Riding was to him as natural as walking. I was the fifth child, the youngest by far, so by the time I came along my father’s bones were already beginning to wear. But when I was very young, we would drive to Stroud to watch...

Week 2. Day 7. Make space

Your seventh day is a day of rest, a day or replenishment. Sometimes, too, it can be a day of creating space. With silence, with solitude. Or with preparation.   I have a friend who spends her Sunday evenings cooking batch meals for the week ahead. A big pot of tomato...

Week 2. Day 6. Improvisation

During this week of curiosity, we’ve pondered the magic of the phrase ‘what if’. There are two other phrases that have a creative power to them. (I’m sure there are scores, but these are my special two).   The first is the phrase beloved of TheatreSports...