The piece below is something I wrote during the autumn before last - about a special house which proved very inspirational during the writing of Villager - which I’ve decided to repost today as at least 80% of you will never have read it before. I’m getting sooooo close to the end of
I loved this! I could hear the water and smell the cold and damp creeping into my bones. The River house was not for the faint hearted but a creatives inspiration. You paint such a picture I can see it clearly. Thank you.
This is exactly as I pictured the river house when I read Villager. I'd been wanting to get a paid subscription for a long time, but I just can't afford to support all the writers and artists I admire. But today I realized that it's a small price to pay for the joy every post brings me. So I did it.
Your writing is captivating me. Lovely to read about the river house as I am close to finishing reading Villager. I have purposely slowed down in my reading as I just do not want to leave the world of your words. Villager speaks to my English heritage and childhood, reading now on a small island on the west coast of Canada that functions as a quirky village of 400 characters.
Just this Sunday I counted how many places I've lived - 37 (I am 33). This resonated with me wildly. Each new place has shaped me, and even though sometimes I wish I could've stayed in my truck camper with my friends in Colorado forever, I'm so so glad to be the writer who lives in southern France now :).
(Also, for the record, I am 100% a menopausal nest of hair in a kimono. Feeling very seen tonight.)
How utterly marvelous! I'm missing my great aunt who lived in Ascot...she introduced me to so many magical places in England. She didn’t sleep much. I have vivid memories of her in her bed jacket, windows wide open, breezes blowing in. She was always reading late at night. Like me!
Love your writing. Moving to a new house in Somerset on 1st Nov 2023 and enduring eleventy million rainy days since then(until this week) I can sympathise.
On more prosaic matters - do you know what the duck on the right hand side of the photo is? We’ve seen them in the Lakes and Exmoor recently, shaking their extravagant head dresses, but haven’t satisfactorily identified. Any ideas?
I think the best place to sit in the River House would be the balcony to watch the cows in the field and hope that birds join you and perch on the railing. Your writing creates a comforting world in the mind.
It is indeed, beautiful prose Tom. It makes my eyes sweat.
Look, you have over twenty one thousand subscribers; I wish for 10% of them to stop being such tight arses and get a paid sub, then you might be able to buy your own house. Unless, of course, the moving is necessary for inspiration, in which case you could rent it out and go find another crack down rhe back of the sofa.
Villager’s river was a central character I deeply loved, although I’m glad it was you, not I, who harkened daily to its gossipy whispers and raging rants as you tried to sleep deep between the “couch cushions” of your abode in the ravine where the mists of Avalon roil. I had forgotten it was Mardle, and its meaning. I’ve read the book twice now and feel I must go back. How I loved the haint who wrote the last post in “Message Board 2012!” (74th birthday on the 2nd came and went with a homemade sort of cheesecake tart my daughter had made, intended and almost succeeding to mimic my favorite Sicilian dessert, cannoli. Since the pandemic, our recently new tradition is to “blow out” the candles with a ceremonial Chinese fan of .6 meters, to avoid aerosol contamination of our manifest indulgences. Thank you for your good wishes!)
I have to say I understand exactly about the river house, tho it was a few feet from the house for us, with 8 weeks of no sun in winter, oil central heating? a woodburner with a dripping wet stone chimney wall in the front room - but was 'magic' too in many ways! Also, I didn't know moving was a 'thing' for creative folks, explains a lot!
I love your depth of explaining it exactly, and all those conversations going on in the river!
Beautiful prose. The River House and the river come alive and are enspirited. And I love the trees in their socks!
Thanks Sally!
I loved this! I could hear the water and smell the cold and damp creeping into my bones. The River house was not for the faint hearted but a creatives inspiration. You paint such a picture I can see it clearly. Thank you.
Thanks Gaye!
This is exactly as I pictured the river house when I read Villager. I'd been wanting to get a paid subscription for a long time, but I just can't afford to support all the writers and artists I admire. But today I realized that it's a small price to pay for the joy every post brings me. So I did it.
I love what you say about how living in these different places changes you as a writer and a human. And your landlady’s rebellious hair! Brilliant!
Thanks Bonnie!
My new life goal is to grow into someone who can pull off being a riot of hair in a kimono, living near a River Gossip.
Your writing is captivating me. Lovely to read about the river house as I am close to finishing reading Villager. I have purposely slowed down in my reading as I just do not want to leave the world of your words. Villager speaks to my English heritage and childhood, reading now on a small island on the west coast of Canada that functions as a quirky village of 400 characters.
Thanks Jane! How nice to hear. One day I'd love to visit Canada's West Coast.
Wonderful writing, it made me fear for you, living in the River house, not a healthy place, albeit magical in a dark way.
Just this Sunday I counted how many places I've lived - 37 (I am 33). This resonated with me wildly. Each new place has shaped me, and even though sometimes I wish I could've stayed in my truck camper with my friends in Colorado forever, I'm so so glad to be the writer who lives in southern France now :).
(Also, for the record, I am 100% a menopausal nest of hair in a kimono. Feeling very seen tonight.)
How utterly marvelous! I'm missing my great aunt who lived in Ascot...she introduced me to so many magical places in England. She didn’t sleep much. I have vivid memories of her in her bed jacket, windows wide open, breezes blowing in. She was always reading late at night. Like me!
Thanks Linda. She sounds great!
Love your writing. Moving to a new house in Somerset on 1st Nov 2023 and enduring eleventy million rainy days since then(until this week) I can sympathise.
On more prosaic matters - do you know what the duck on the right hand side of the photo is? We’ve seen them in the Lakes and Exmoor recently, shaking their extravagant head dresses, but haven’t satisfactorily identified. Any ideas?
They’re mandarins (the male is the fancy looking one). I posted a better pic of one of the ones that used to visit us on my Notes a day or two ago.
And thank you!
I think the best place to sit in the River House would be the balcony to watch the cows in the field and hope that birds join you and perch on the railing. Your writing creates a comforting world in the mind.
Well, oh dear, fellow author I had never heard before Substack: it appears I will now have to read all your books.
What a nice comment to read on a Wednesday lunchtime! Hope you enjoy them!
It is indeed, beautiful prose Tom. It makes my eyes sweat.
Look, you have over twenty one thousand subscribers; I wish for 10% of them to stop being such tight arses and get a paid sub, then you might be able to buy your own house. Unless, of course, the moving is necessary for inspiration, in which case you could rent it out and go find another crack down rhe back of the sofa.
All the best,
Alan.
Thanks Alan!
Villager’s river was a central character I deeply loved, although I’m glad it was you, not I, who harkened daily to its gossipy whispers and raging rants as you tried to sleep deep between the “couch cushions” of your abode in the ravine where the mists of Avalon roil. I had forgotten it was Mardle, and its meaning. I’ve read the book twice now and feel I must go back. How I loved the haint who wrote the last post in “Message Board 2012!” (74th birthday on the 2nd came and went with a homemade sort of cheesecake tart my daughter had made, intended and almost succeeding to mimic my favorite Sicilian dessert, cannoli. Since the pandemic, our recently new tradition is to “blow out” the candles with a ceremonial Chinese fan of .6 meters, to avoid aerosol contamination of our manifest indulgences. Thank you for your good wishes!)
It is the River in Villager that I remember most. Very much a leading character.
I have to say I understand exactly about the river house, tho it was a few feet from the house for us, with 8 weeks of no sun in winter, oil central heating? a woodburner with a dripping wet stone chimney wall in the front room - but was 'magic' too in many ways! Also, I didn't know moving was a 'thing' for creative folks, explains a lot!
I love your depth of explaining it exactly, and all those conversations going on in the river!