Recipes and old cures - exhibition Chesworth Arts Farm November and December 09



The mistletoe trees in the Vendee are magnificent straggling giants and I've been remembering them as I prepare for an exhibition with Jane Fordham in the winter. We're working on cards and pamphlets loosely based on recipes and old cures - excited by some bizarre discoveries in old manuscripts - and we're bringing an older collaboration closer to reality in the form of a book. Add to all that a seasonal theme, plus cake and tea and it'll make for three great weekends in November and December at a wonderful studio she shares in Horsham, Chesworth Arts Farm.

I'm glad of the project to focus me on writing again. I also start my fellowship at the University of Surrey on Tuesday, thanks to the Royal Literary Fund, so I'll be employed two days a week until next May. Most of September I've been out collecting blackberries or elderberries and making them into jam or chutney. It feels like I've been clearing my mind of whatever silted it up this year but now I need some routine. Paid work's been almost non-existent and at times I've wondered about the increasing divide between my reality and that of people in full-time jobs....

What I've had to cut out is takeaways, impulse shopping, nights out, cafe trips, travel, books and pampering. It's possible to pare spending down to basics and the allotment's helped massively this year - I've only just started to buy lettuce and am still eating veg, although the squash and beans aren't as abundant as I'd hoped. Three massive patches of tomatoes were wrecked by blight, heartbreaking. The raspberries have compensated, though, still producing fruit after weeks of picking, so there are jars of the most delicious jam at the back of the cupboard in the dark which will lighten up February or March.

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