Summer's patterns

It's been a week of hay fever and as a consequence, nights coughing, days of trying to suppress a cough.
I've coughed my way through Birmingham's streets, eaten nearly two packets of cough sweets and drunk flasks of a garlic/thyme/lemon/ginger and honey concoction.
I've wandered into Muji and stood in front of diffusers for temporary relief. I've held my head over a bowl of steam infused with Olbas oil.
In between I've been in training for an exciting new job from September - running a reading group for a child and adolescent mental health unit. I am one of five other writers, all of us former Royal Literary Fund fellows, who will be rolling out a fantastic scheme piloted by novelist Babs Horton in Plymouth.
The RLF has run reading groups for several years but Babs decided to run one for young people. Her initiative has been so successful that six more writers are helping to roll it out in England and Wales.
Despite my hay fever, the constant cough, my shuddering shoulders and fear of disrupting any quiet moment, two days of training in Birmingham, led by Babs with support from novelists Katharine McMahon and Kerry Young was inspirational.
It's good to feel inspired again as I wind down from the work I've come to rely on. Good to have something to look forward to - as good as visiting Ludlow Jane, afterwards, taking a train sideways across to the borders to sit in her garden, to feel on holiday for a day, to meander around a quiet town with castle walls, a market at its centre and pick up dress patterns in its charity shops.
We talked about Jane's new coaching work and our children.
And as we walked along the river in the green, trees hanging over the water, ducks behind us, giant hogweed looking magnificent, a wren darting into undergrowth, a thrush flying up from the path, I was back to my own adolescence in Surrey, when I'd ride to the River Wey on my bike with friends.
So when it came to returning to Birmingham for Josephine Corcoran's book launch - What are you after? - I had to read a poem about the summer I was 15 when everything in the universe was just right for a moment.
And that was the time when I was also learning properly how to make clothes. So I feel I am back at some point on this big circle when I am meeting myself again. The tea dress is one of three patterns I found in a forest dog charity shop in Ludlow and this week I'll be at Fabricland, looking for prints.