OK, so I made it home and now have three piles of books on my bedroom floor waiting for a space on the shelves. One of my favourites is a first edition of Frieda Lawrence's Not I, But the Wind, the story of her life with DH Lawrence, which I picked up in Hay-on-Wye. I didn't explore DH Lawrence country in the end, but did find myself walking in Jane Austen's footsteps on several occasions in Dorset and Hampshire. I visited her house in Chawton and stood in awe at her writing desk, a tiny three-legged round table, where she sat after breakfast by the window. It put me to shame. It was here she wrote her best work.
On the Dorset coast, I walked along Cheshil Beach and relived the memorable story by Ian McEwan. It was only three months since I had lain in bed listening to the audiobook that McEwan recorded of On Cheshil Beach and here I was! Such an unexpected pleasure, and such a clear example of how landscapes can be immortalised in fiction or poetry. And them, in the same day, I am in Lyme Regis, the seaside resort of kings, where Jane Austen set Persuasion and where The French Lieutenant’s Woman was filmed. The author John Fowles was curator of the local museum, now flourishing and full of fossils from the local Jurassic coast, as well a displays about local writers. Among the fossil display I found a 'Cabinet of Curiosities', an absurd fantastical contraption made by my old friends Forkbeard Fantasy, a Brit theatre group I haven't seen for 25 years. So hello, guys, from me in Oz!
Yes I am back here and feeling guilty about contemplating a bigger desk to accommodate my writing needs. Think miniature, think Jane Austen.
