A Room of One’s Own – part 4

This is my last Room of One’s Own post. Hopefully by now you’re all feeling at home in my writing room. The photos are of my Stonewylde reference books – such a huge luxury to have them all together like this. I have hundreds and hundreds of books and previously, they were scattered all over the house and in the attic. Since moving to this house, I’ve been able to sort them out. Many are still in boxes in the garage and Narnia (more about Narnia in a minute) as we’ve run out of bookshelves, but I’ve pulled out the most vital ones that I know I may need to consult when finishing the Stonewylde series. This funny bookshelf unit was an old e-bay purchase and is meant to fit under the stairs. I used it at the old house to store the Stonewylde T-shirts and greetings cards, stationary etc but it was never very good for that. Now it’s absolutely perfect for my books and keeping them in categories. I have one area just for information on wild flowers and fungi, for instance, and another for books on herbalism, and so on. It was such fun categorising them all and re-discovering some old favourites. When I’ve finished writing the series I shall treat myself to some serious reading whilst I think about what comes after Stonewylde.

The second photo shows the small door in my room. The picture the other day of my purple throne-chair had a weird amber sparkly thing in the background – this is the door into my room. Our house is a rather strange early 1970s creation – I’m sure it was very avant-garde in those days. It’s built like a great wedge of cheese and has some unusual features, such as four internal doors made of teak with amber glass. When we first saw the house we both thought “Ugh – those will have to go if we buy the place.” But I think we’ve both come to love them, along with some of the other more bizarre features.

The little white door you see above is small – less than five feet high. It leads into a cupboard which reminds me of the dreaded cupboard used for Leveret’s torture (and if you don’t know what I mean here, then you need to read Shadows at Stonewylde!) with a very sloping ceiling, and this leads, through an even smaller door (like in Alice in Wonderland) into a long sloping loft space that runs the whole width of the house. I call this Narnia, obviously, as it’s reached through a sort of wardrobe.

I have a fur coat – which I hasten to add I didn’t buy and have never worn, but inherited when my mother died. She was bought it by my father in the early 1960s when such things were seen as status symbols and almost de rigeur in smart circles. When we’ve worked our way through unpacking the dreaded boxes stacked up in the cupboard, I shall hang this beautiful fur coat in the wardrobe and then Narnia will become real, I’m sure. In the meantime it’s quite exciting sitting here knowing that the little door leads into another world. When I find them, I shall stick many of my special cards and pictures on the white door and it’ll look lovely and even more magical.

Yesterday I nipped out (well, it took ages but nipping out was the plan) to Hobbycraft on the other side of Reading to buy a few big pieces of paper. I ended up buying a huge sketch book as it worked out cheaper – it’s A2 with 50 sheets of heavy grade cartridge paper and thick covers of black board. I’m about to use it now and next week I shall tell you about it (no, I haven’t taken up art-work – I’m useless at drawing and leave that to my clever sister at Helixtree). But before I start using it, I think those plain black covers need a little embellishment. Or is that just a displacement activity?

Have a lovely weekend, dear Stonewylders. Thanks for reading my blog this week and taking the trouble to post comments too; so inspiring and encouraging for me. Now where did I put my silver stars and glitter ….