Full Circle

I haven't written anything on my blog for ages. The reason is that I've been totally preoccupied. My younger daughter, Kathleen, her husband, Alex, and their one year old son, Theo, have been staying with us while they have work done on the new house they've just bought. So, I'm spending a lot of time with Theo, doing stuff like playing with building blocks, reading picture books, singing along to The Wheels On The Bus and visiting the park.

In addition, my other daughter, Emily, has just had a baby. It happened this morning at about twenty past five. I've just been to see him. Parking was a nightmare; the maternity ward was so hot I could hardly stay awake; and Emily looked desperately tired - it was a difficult labour with a few complications. But Noah knows nothing about any of that. He has red hair and clear blue eyes out of which he gazes solemnly and appraisingly at me.

Surprisingly enough, I'm managing to get a decent quota of writing done. In the last seven weeks I've written forty two thousand words which isn't bad at all considering that I have to work when Theo is asleep, or when someone else has taken him to the park. But I find my productivity has increased hugely. Whenever I do get a bit of time I write frantically, the words just pouring out of me without pause for thought as if I am transmitting something that someone else has already thought through.

It reminds me of what life was like when I wrote my first novel nearly thirty years ago. Then Emily was three years old and Kathleen one and I was working as a school teacher. I wrote in the evenings when they were both asleep and dreamed of a time when I could do nothing but write all day long. That time has come and gone, it seems.