A Writer's Journal

1 to 31 July 2026

Monday 6 July

I’ve been listening to David Suchet reading Genesis (David Suchet, New International Version, Old Testament, Audible), or The Patriarchy Handbook. Many of the stories in it I’ve known, in various versions, since I was a child at Sunday School, where on Palm Sunday we made green crepe paper streamers to wave, and on other days we coloured in drawing-book-blue-eyed Jesus. I wonder if they told us little girls about Lot offering his daughters to be raped instead of two male guests (though in the RSV this is not so clear as in the NIV)? Or explained concubinage and prostitution, so often indulged in by the men? Or why there are so many daughters and wives without names? Or discussed Hagar’s story – the slave Sarai gave to her husband to sleep with, and treated badly when she got pregnant? Or or or…

These stories and more have all, of course, been studied and written about by many feminist scholars, but still they puzzle and revolt me. With Lot and his two men, of course, it’s the fact that they are angels (messengers of God) that was (and is) made the focus of the story. But I wonder about those two daughters, and that most baffling story of how they slept with their father. And I wonder what effect these stories had on a little girl sitting in Sunday School hearing cute tales of multi-coloured coats and olive-branch-bearing doves.

I finished The Tapestry of Fate, Shannon Chakraborty, last night. What a wonderful heroine Amina al-Sirafi is! And though I know it isn’t fair to nag authors to write their books, I do hope there’s another one soon.

Tuesday 7 July

We watched Yellowstone, I thought it was really good. There was a scene set in a lap-dancing bar which went on for too long, and I began to wonder if the women were cast as “Gyrating bottom 1”, “Gyrating bottom 2”, and so on.

I had a second attempt at reading Le Guin’s Always Coming Home. I still cannot like it and gave up. Dare I whisper that I found it boring, the fake language tedious, the poetry awful?

I said I’d do a talk about suffragettes and spiritualists at Hawkesbury Upton Literary Festival in September.

Wednesday 8 July

Lots of domesticity in between working on the novel and then the Biography – washing, ironing, baking a cake. The bins haven’t been emptied for three weeks, just what you need in a heatwave.

I started The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak, I like it very much. I love the way all the chapters are named for food, the characters are great, and the plotting – the way the characters come together – really good.

Saturday 11 July

Here we are in Anglesey. We were travelling all day yesterday, with stops for coffee and lunch. A too hot day for the car, especially when the air conditioning isn’t working properly. Funny how come the summer it never is.

Sunday 12 July

We walked down to Beaumaris yesterday, looked in some shops, I bought a pair of very lightweight trousers because all the ones I’ve packed feel too hot, they’re the sort you can wash and dry overnight. We went for a coffee afterwards.

I finished The Bastard of Istanbul and started The Warden, Trollope, last night.

I woke up early this morning. I could smell smoke and wondered if someone was burning rubbish. It turned out to be a wildfire on Conway Mountain. I could weep for the damage to the world, the dead and dying animals, plants and people.

We went to Din Llugwy, a Romano British village. We parked on the lane and walked across a couple of fields, through some trees, and there it was. Absolutely fascinating and atmospheric.

Then we had lunch in Moelfre.

Monday 13 July

We went to Plas Newydd for lunch. Very pleasant walking through the garden.

The smell of smoke was very strong in the night.

I started Ken Follett’s The Evening and the Morning, what a page turner! Though he does recycle some of the same plots from The Pillars of the Earth – the lovers of different social status, evil bishop, trial of an innocent, the ambitious monk who wants a library or a priory or a church or a cathedral or whatever.

Tuesday 14 July

We had a lovely time at Oriel Ynys Mon, what a lovely gallery. Disappointingly, though, the Kyffin Williams gallery was closed. There was, though, a fascinating exhibition – Trysor – about various archaeological finds on Anglesey. Beads, coins, brooches, some wonderful stone heads of deities, enigmatic, time-worn faces.

Wednesday 15 July

I finished The Evening and the Morning. Then I read Priestley’s Benighted, set in Wales, which had a rather stagey feel to it with its set piece speeches and characters explaining themselves, for example in the scene where they play a “truth” game – which consisted of simply having to answer a question truthfully, these were of course revelatory and meaningful – but I couldn’t see the usual trappings of a game about it (competition, scores, winners, losers, skill or chance). The standard trapped in a country house tropes – storm, isolation, darkness, decaying house, weird family, the secret in the attic, threats along “mad axeman” lines, people wandering off to make sure they put themselves in danger.

We had lunch at Red Wharf Bay. The waves were jumping over a low wall, instigated by the wind, a churning, irritable bay of water today. When you drive down to Beaumaris the water is blues and browns and greys and white dashes, very lovely.

I went to a bookshop in Church Street for emergency supplies – I should have packed that extra novel! I got Katherine Arden’s The Unicorn Hunters and Cat and Mouse by Christianna Brand (mystery set in Wales).

Thursday 16 July

What a good start to the day when the lid fell off the bloody cafetiere sending coffee everywhere. Holidays are all very well but holiday accommodation gets on my nerves. Battling with crappy ovens, flimsy ironing boards with covers that don’t fit, feeble clothes airer which falls over if you burden it with with two shirts, kitchens that look well stocked but are always missing something you want, such as baking trays and decent grills. Petty annoyances but annoyances.

Mopped up the coffee and went to Cadnant Gardens for a stroll and lunch. I had a lovely piece of cake – honey and lavender. In the evening we went out for meal, I had pizza, disappointing, it arrived with mysterious blobs on it which turned out to be tomato paste. How bizarre as well as unpleasantly flavoured. Gerard enjoyed his mussels and frites. Sticky toffee pudding was ok.

I read Cat and Mouse, well plotted but bonkers, with ridiculous and inconsistent characters – I particularly loved the idea of a woman who thinks she has stumbled on a terrible crime and that her life is in danger (as anyone would who’d been drugged and locked in a bedroom) calmly sitting and reading a book in the house of the possible murderer. He’s so revolting it’s hard to believe anyone could be drawn to him, and so she spends half her time trying to run down a mountain to escape him and the other half running back up in the hopes of falling into his arms. And what a shockingly cruel crime it glibly imagines against a woman. As I often do, I wonder why so much so-called classic crime fiction (including golden age) is actually pretty mediocre.

Friday 17 July

I got about three hours sleep last night. The journey home was long and hot and exhausting, but we had a nice stop at Wightwick Manor for the beautiful pre-Raphaelite works, the de Morgan gallery, and lunch.

Our garden is a wreck. I could have wept standing there and looking at the casualties. The pond is half gone and there’s nothing living in it. I was hysterically tired and fed up.

Saturday 18 July

I felt better after a night’s sleep, cleaning the house, starting the washing, watering the garden.

I did a bit of work after that, on the suffragette recordings, then read through the next chapter of the Biography. I made a quiche for supper and how nice to be able to cook something in a kitchen where I have what I need!

Sunday 19 July

I spent the morning tidying up the garden as well as I could. I cleaned out the pond a little, the water level being so low, and topped it up with the rain water I’d collected when we still had rain. Many dead plants.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the projects I’m working on and what I want to spend my time on from now on.

Friday 24 July

Gerard’s birthday! I made him a Dundee cake as requested. We went out for a lovely meal in the evening (Little Hollows pasta in Chandos Road). Such nice staff and though it was a bit of a challenge to find something I could eat (no meat, no fish, don’t like garlic, don’t like spices – the worst kind of restaurant eater!) the waiter was really lovely and helpful and suggested two starters as a main which turned out to be delicious. Also they do a lovely non-alcoholic sparkling rosé which came in one of those wide little champagne glasses they have in James Bond films.

I’ve been rereading Dorothea Brande’s Becoming a Writer. I read it years ago, it was never one of my favourite writing books though it has some interesting things in it. But her suggested way of working – of chasing the muse – doesn’t suit me. It’s interesting to be reminded of how many of the ideas in it were developed by Julia Cameron – morning pages, avoiding reading, repetitive activities. But advice to make an appointment to write leaves me cold (I write everyday!), and I’m longing for the day I find an advice book of any kind that doesn’t tell me to meditate.

Sunday 26 July

I started Dr Thorne, Trollope, last night. I am so enjoying these Barchester novels.

Wednesday 29 July

Today I joined the Biographers Club. Their events are all in London but I may be able to get to some if they’re interesting.