When I was a child, most Sunday nights – the best ones – were heralded by the opening notes to When You Wish Upon a Star. That music – and the image of the cartoon Tinkerbell shooting across the screen – was a signal for a Sunday evening ritual. Pyjamas. Cushions. The comfort of a deeply familiar television format. Cosiness.

When my own children were young, our Sunday evenings found their own patterns of cosiness – mill teas (boiled eggs, toasted muffins…) and games of Uno. When I spend time with my young godchildren I am once more pulled into that quiet cosiness that children often crave (in this case, playdough and a BBC cooking program). In that end-of-week cosy state, I can see their equilibrium being restored.

Similarly, your imagination needs equilibrium. It needs rest. It may be that it needs a bit of cosiness.

Cosiness is that quality of easy comfort that allows rest and recuperation. It asks nothing of us. Often underrated, cosiness often connects to ritual, or nostalgia, or familiarity. It’s supremely sensory and requires no achievement other than a warm state of ease.

For me – clearly not for all writers – cosiness is connected to writing. My study is a cosy space – not brightly lit, littered with soft blankets and candles. Cosiness is perhaps connected to that Danish word, hygge – though for me, hygge seems to suggest a higher design standard. The word hygge means comfort – but it also means joy. And it also means ‘valiant’. Determined comfort. Courageous joy.

Creativity, yes, requires courage and determination. But it comes from – and breathes into – a place of rest and recovery. It can offer and receive comfort, the comfort of cosiness.

Is there a low-stakes creative play that asks nothing of you and creates a cosy ease? Playdough? Colouring books? Splashing waterpaints on paper? Baking?

What rituals restore you to a sense of cosiness? What are the foods or habits that make you cosy? Dinner on a lap tray? A particular piece of music? A soft blanket? Playing solitaire?

Whatever it is, take some time today, at week’s end, to make yourself cosy. Here, at midpoint, you deserve to rest and be restored.

Your prompt for today:

Write about a ritual