This was all well and good when I had a deadline: when I had a manuscript to finish before the end of my MA, when I had edits to finish before moving overseas.  But, in the three years since I moved to London, I haven’t had that sense of urgency.  And as such, novel number two remained largely untouched, month after month, six months after six months, a year then another.

My friend Caitlin had been to an Arvon Foundation course in the past and recommended it.  She’d even been inspired to set up a writing group with other course participants on her return, and invited me to join in.

So, this year, as a birthday present to myself, I booked onto a course entitled ‘Work in Progress’.  It was going to be held at Totleigh Barton in Devon from October 26 – 31.  This was at the end of January.  By the 25th of October I’d written perhaps another chapter or two, but the word count remained at around 25,000 and I didn’t know how the novel was going to end.

One week later, I’ve survived train cancellations, giant cows, two nausea-inducing taxi rides and the trauma of reading unfinished work in public.  I’ve learned to poach salmon, I’ve got my hiking boots dirty, found the small village Sheepwash. And most importantly, I’ve finished the first draft of my novel.

And some of that has to be down to the environment you find at Totleigh Barton – a pre-Domesday manor house, at the end of a long driveway and miles from anywhere.

There are a lot of places to write at Totleigh Barton: long wooden tables, window seats, libraries and lounges, a shed in the garden, a barn with its own bats, the desk in my room.  Despite the fact that my work-in-progress is set in the city and online, being in the country without an internet connection provided the hours and quiet to get the words flowing.

There was also such a productive atmosphere at Totleigh: from the workshops in the morning with Paul Magrs and Stella Duffy which made me re-examine my characters and the choices I make when writing, to the long afternoons when I’d find a spot to write and know that all around the house, the other course participants were writing or cooking or attending individual tutorials as well.  When you’re struggling to finish a difficult scene, there’s something immensely comforting – and also motivating – in hearing someone else typing away at the other side of the lounge, working on their own literary endeavours.

There’s also something comforting about a well-stocked kitchen, endless cups of tea and wine in the evenings, the opportunities to talk about writing as if it wasn’t a strange thing to do – but something that is part of a life, something which could even be enjoyed.

Tonight I’m back in London.  There’s football on the radio and cars on the street outside.  I’m putting words in a box which will become a blog entry.  I still love the web, but I’m going to miss Totleigh Barton.

I’m going to have to create a writing environment here.

Tash

We’ve witnessed word play and physical comedy, identical twins, star-crossed lovers and women dressed up as men, the American Civil War and the Trojan one.  We’ve endured hours of standing, resting my chin on the stage, trying not to pay too much attention to the pain of my feet or my back.  And, with the support of friends and family, and buoyed up by the energy that can only be gained from a Pizza Express two-for-one deal, we’ve done it.  May to September.  In rain and wind.  All as groundlings (well, almost all).  Romeo & Juliet.  The Frontline.  As You Like It.  Troilus & Cressida.  Helen.  A New World.  Love’s Labour’s Lost. The Comedy of Errors.  Young Hearts Season 2009.

It was a different experience this year.  We weren’t stewards this time round, so no sneaking in and out during performances.  No tabards.  None of the vertigo of the Upper Gallery.  We needed tickets and frequently forgot them.  We sat down at interval, took photos of the sets, each other, and the rain of Frontline introduced a permanent squeak to our camera.  We had the opportunity to introduce friends – English and Australian – to the theatre.  I had the opportunity to pick ‘Lady’ from the list of potential titles given on the online booking system (which ended up being very embarrassing when we had to get the tickets reprinted at the actual theatre).

Best show of the year – that’s a difficult one.  Probably Comedy of Errors for me, or As You Like It.  Best modern show was Frontline – I was glad to get the opportunity to see the full show this year, after only being in the theatre for bits of it the year before.  I was disappointed by Romeo and Juliet, thought Trolius was an interesting performance of a not-so-interesting play. In terms of sets and visual spectacle, this season seemed to be lacking compared to 2008.  There was nothing to compare with the overhanging nets of Timon of Athens, the glowing inflatable orb of Midsummer Night’s Dream.  But once again, I was impressed by the way that the actors make Shakespeare understandable, by the way I can go to a play not knowing anything about it, and still quickly pick up what’s going on.

And so, our Globe Season has come to an end, though there’s still Footsbarn’s Christmas Cracker over the winter months.  We’ve got other shows coming up – comedians, musicals – but for me, no other London venue quite compares to Shakespeare’s Globe.  After all those years of high school English and drama, after all those essays and margin notes, it’s amazing to be part of it.

We didn’t win this evening, but it was close.  37-35.  I didn’t intend to play when I left home this morning, but I’m glad that I did.  I got out a couple of times; got home a couple of times.  Overall, I still suck, but perhaps I sucked slightly less than usual.  Continue to have issues with things like catching and not running into people.

We played in Hyde Park, Knightsbridge-side, in a strip of softball matches.  Brightly coloured charity t-shirts.  The Albert Memorial in the background.  Plastic bags as bases, and calls that could’ve gone either way.  Perhaps we should’ve won.  Perhaps it doesn’t matter that much. 

Caught the tube home.  Stopped for a pasty.  This is living in London, and yet I’m a tourist observing it still.

It’s easier to collect books in Britain.  They’re less expensive for a start.  You quickly forget things like exchange rates, and £7.99 just seems so much cheaper than $27.99 as the average price for a book.  Then there’s the fact that there’s more Bookcrossers in the UK, more books available locally on BookMooch.  Friends leave the country and leave books.  We travel more too, and it’s hard to resist a new book for the plane or train.

And, then my lovely husband sends me an email at work, saying that the Borders on Oxford Street is closing down.  I think he knew what would happen.  I hope he did. 

The West End is not my favourite part of London after work.  Up around the ‘Silicon Roundabout’, I can sometimes forget the number of people in this city.  Meanwhile in Oxford Street, the pavements are swarming.  But, I’ll brave the West End for books, especially if they’re ‘at least 50%’ off.  I’ll even stay till 8pm, rummaging through the racks, moving down the floors as they’re closed off, joining the long queue for final purchases.  And as a result, I’ve come home with:

• A computer programme called ‘Start Writing Your New Novel’ (£1) because, you know I should really do that sometime soon;
• The Life of Riley, Joanna Nadin (£1);
• Black Boxes, Caroline Smailes (£1);
• The Spare Room, Helen Garner (£1);
• Take Off Your Party Dress, Dina Rabinovitch (£1);
• Millions of Women are Waiting to Meet You, Sean Thomas (£1);
• Everything is Sinister, David Llewellyn (£1);
• An Atlas of Impossible Longing, Anuradha Roy (£1);
• The Great Lover, Jill Dawson (okay, this was £4, but it’s one I’ve been wanting to read for a while).

There’s quite a lot of British fiction there.  And okay, it’s easier to read British fiction than New Zealand fiction because of the relative abundancy of it.  And to some extent, I’ve always read books set in the UK – but whereas I once read them for their ‘other-worldness’, I now read them for their familiarity.  The Great Lover is about Rupert Brooke and the Orchard Tea Gardens in Cambridge.  Matt and I have been there.  I read Dina’s blog, sometimes I read her columns about breast cancer in the Guardian, and yes, I do feel bad about only buying the book now, when it was on sale even though I did donate to the CTRT appeal at one point last year.  

Tonight, the new books are sitting in three randomly assigned piles on our dining room table, alongside a couple of letters which I need to respond to and a stack of leaflets from work.  There’s no space in the bookshelf.  The Borders on Oxford Street will close soon.  There are more words in the world than I can possibly imagine.

One of the most difficult tasks for travel writers must be writing about where they’re from.  I’ve been back in Oratia for three days now and I’m still not sure how to write this blog entry.  I guess I don’t notice the big picture here.  Instead I notice the details: what’s changed and, perhaps to a lesser extent, what’s different from London. 

I notice that my childhood hiding places have overgrown (though Matt and I can still fight our way in), the trees that are missing, the subdivision of the orchards up and down the road.  I notice how blue the sky is, the heat of the sun - but I feel it’s unfair to say the weather’s great here, because I know of so many days when this hasn’t been the case.  I notice how dry the land is, but remember all the mud.  I’m told that, down the back, a cabbage tree has fallen over and that our creek now has a waterfall. 

There’s so much space.  I remember how that space was lonely sometimes.

Mum, Dad, Matt and I walked to the new Farmer’s Market yesterday morning and bought bread, salmon, honey on the comb.  We ate icecreams and there was a band playing kiwi classics in the background.  On the way home, the trees above the Folk Museum were turning red – just as they did every year when I was coming home from school. 

And, even though we might not get to see it before we head to Australia on Tuesday, just being here lets me imagine Piha Beach: the black sand, the violent waves, the cliffs and the windy roads, writing my study notes in the sand while the boys were surfing. 

Today, we’ll drive up to the lodge where we got married, where we planted a kowhai tree, surrounded by bush.  We’ll catch up with old friends and maybe we’ll walk down the back, avoiding the weeds and the spaces where there used to be trees, and check out that waterfall.

I love this place.  It’s hard to be a tourist here.

While Incheon may have seemed the logical city for a short visit from Incheon International Airport, it still took three train changes and over an hour and a half to get there.  That said, the Korean public transport system, especially the new A’Rex commuter train to the airport, has to be one of the best that I’ve experienced.  Those A’Rex trains are wide, there are seats reserved for the elderly or disabled that no one else sits on, the stations are clean, new, and suprisingly empty.  And, if you speak English to the ticket agents or use the English version of the ticket machines, you hear ‘thank you’ as you go through the gates rather than the Korean ‘

Incheon is at the end of Subway Line 1.  However, when all the Koreans got off the train at the stop beforehand, I got the feeling that Incheon itself is largely a tourist destination.  Indeed, rather than being a particularly Korean destination, the small bit of Incheon that we saw seemed to pay homage to two other countries: China and America.

We were worried that we wouldn’t be able to find anything.  We didn’t have the Lonely Planet chapter on Incheon, and were only going on what I remembered reading on the internet the night before.  Luckily, the gate to Chinatown was just across the road from the station – and so we walked up the hill through Chinese restaurants and Chinese characters and shops selling lanterns, swords and slippers.

At the top of the hill was Jayu Park, where we could look out over the city and its port.  One of Incheon’s claims to fame is being the place where General MacArthur and his American troops landed during the Korean War.  He’s commorated with a statue in the park, along with another rather large and spiky monument celebrating 100 years of friendship between America and Korea.

On the way back down the hill, we were invited into a Chinese restaurant.  It ended up being our most expensive meal in Korea (though, on conversion, it was probably only about 23 pounds, 47,000 won sounds so much more).  However, it was probably the best Chinese I’d ever had.  Loved the spicy chicken that Matt ordered.  Also loved the Korean plum wine.

After that, it was back to the airport and goodbye to Korea.  After living there for several weeks all those years ago, it was quite surreal to return as a tourist.  I got the feeling that, despite the palaces and the city tour buses, it was a city designed for locals rather than visitors (which I guess makes sense).  Apart from on the English language tour at Changdeokgung Palace and on the tour bus, it was rare to see anyone else with a camera and a map.  That said, I enjoyed it.  The language barrier and the noise, the confusion over where and what to eat, the cultural difference and the friendliness of the people – of such stuff, novels are made.

Tash

Changdeokgung Palace was built in Seoul by the kings of the Joseon dynasty.  Today, it’s billed as one of the must-see visitor attractions of the city.  So, we went to see it, and then returned on Tuesday when we found that on Monday it was closed. 

For most of the week, the only way to enter the palace is to join a tour.  There are three daily tours in English.  Ours was lead by a young Korean woman with a vast knowledge of the English words relating to palaces, and difficulty pronouncing ‘r’s.  An hour or so into the tour, once we got the Secret Garden, Matt turned to me and asked “is she saying ‘loyal family’ or ‘lawyer family’?”  Giving the context, I can only assume that she was referring to the ‘royals’.

It wasn’t a beautiful palace, at least not in the sense we are used to.  The grounds were little more than dirt, the Secret Garden contained a distinct lack of flowers.  However, I was impressed by the beautifully painted buildings and fascinated by the way the architecture hinted at what life might have been like: the way there were separate women’s and men’s buildings; the way that there was a separate, higher, path for the kings. 

The tour lasted 90 minutes – which was more than reasonable for 3,000 won (especially when compared to the entry prices of some of the European castles).  I was left feeling that there were stories here.  Stories that, if I ever do get around to writing historical fiction, I might like to explore.

Tash 

Because, we soon found that, amongst the stalls and streets and people of Seoul, there weren’t very many places to stop and have a picnic.  And looking around, it seemed that eating and walking just wasn’t the done thing.  In fact, most of the Korean who were eating things-on-sticks seemed to be eating them at the stall.  But we were on our way to Changdeokgung Palace for the 1:30pm English language tour, and didn’t have time to go back. 

We wandered the streets.  Our pancakes were getting cold.

Eventually, we found a park.  Wandered in.  Found a seat.  Ate a few pieces of chicken which burned my mouth.  Looking around, we seemed fairly out of place.  The park was fill of elderly old men, many of them playing baduk (a Korean game with black and white stones).  As we ate, one of the men came up to speak to us.  He asked in English where we were from.  Whether we were students.  And told us we were in a Korean Seniors Park.  I’m not sure whether he was just trying to tell us about the place or let us know that we shouldn’t be there. 

We were running late for the palace anyway.  There were a lot of old men.  We only ended up finishing half a pancake.  Next time, we eat at the stand.

Of course, next time may be another seven years from now, as we’re flying on to New Zealand tonight.  Better go pack the bags…

Tash

I don’t think I’d have the same problem here in Seoul.  After two days in the city, it seems to me that individual shops are less important here than the type of goods sold.  Want stationery?  Go to ‘stationery alley’ in Namdaemun Market.  Want to buy an engagement ring?  We found a street of jewellery stores on the way to the palaces.  On the outskirts of Dongdaemun Market, Matt and I wandered past shop after shop selling fabric and ribbons. 

Of course, being the technology geeks that we are, ribbons and fabric didn’t excite us that much.  We were more tempted by the sound of the Yongsan Electrics and Techno Mart.  That sounded like lots of technology.  Twenty-two markets worth of it, according to the guidebook.  But, after an hour or so, and just two department stores, we walked away feeling that lots of technology was perhaps a little underwhelming.  In I’Park mall for example, there was a camera floor, there was a home appliances floor, a games floor, and two computer floors.  Each floor contained over twenty market stalls – each of which appeared to sell pretty much the same range of product.  Perhaps as a result, there seemed to be many more shop assistants than customers.  We walked between the aisles, frustrated that most items didn’t have a visible price, and knew that everytime an assistant said ‘hello’, he was talking to us. 

Of course, we weren’t actually looking to buy a computer.  If we were, then perhaps the selection would’ve been helpful.  But to me, the whole experience seemed to be lacking something.  For example, I’m not a fan of Mac computers, but I love the Apple Store in Regent Street.  When it’s not too crowded, I enjoy that store: the helpfulness of the staff, the demonstration of the products, being able to touch things.  To be fair, I think the language barrier has a lot to do with it.  If I knew Korean, I don’t think there would be such a separation between store and customer.

Also, if I knew Korean, we may have found the rest of the electronics stores earlier.  We arrived at Yongsan Markets, followed the English signs, ended up at I’Park Mall.  Okay.  So where were the other twenty-one markets we were promised?  We went outside, round the block, round the block the other way, back inside, back into the station, out again, and finally – almost by chance – found a corridor which lead to a raised passage across to another store and the rest of the markets.  By which time, it was 6:30pm and the shops were beginning to close.

So we haven’t bought a computer in Seoul, and we haven’t bought fresh fish or lace or antiques or jewellery or antiques.  But after only two days here, I feel that if I was going to buy any of those things, I’d know where to start looking.  And I guess, in a big city, there’s some merit in that.

Tash

Yesterday was Monday here.  Obviously.  And yet, there were those hours on Sunday which disappeared from my life during the time change on the flight, and I can’t helped wondering what happened in them.  It’s still Monday in the London.

In Seoul, things are closed on a Monday.  This fact was in the Lonely Planet.  However, somehow, we neglected to read the ‘except Mondays’ and the ‘Tuesdays-Sundays’ in the descriptive text.  So we turned up at Gwangwamam station in the Downtown district (after over an hour of airport-shuttling, busing and subwaying) to find a sign which said ‘Monday: day off’.  Fine, we thought, we don’t need a tour bus.  We’ve got legs.  So we walked on those legs up to Changdeokgung Palace.  The guidebook said that you could only explore the palace on a guided tour.  There was an English language one at 11.30am.  We got there just in time.  And of course, it was closed.

However, in a competition between culture and consumerism, the latter would appear to win hands down in this city – so, we decided to give up on the palaces and spent most of the rest of the day browsing the shops (or rather the markets and department stores).  Namdaemun Market needed a map of it’s own, as there was such a variety of vendors, selling everything from kimchi flavoured chocolates to padded coats, street food to pickled ginseng root.  But what I got most excited about was ‘stationery alley’: shop after shop of all the stickers and notepads, poorly phrased English captions and cartoon characters, that my geeky little heart could wish for.

And across the road from the Market: Shinsegae Department store, the Korean equivalent of Harrods, or at least Elys of Wimbleon.  A far calmer shopping experience, but with price-tags which were beyond our reach (even with the fairly decent pound to won conversion).  Later in the day, we also visited Lotte World, south of the river: another huge department store, with it’s own bowling alley, icerink, and indoor theme park.  Amongst all of this, our purchases were some photo stickers from the arcade and a bulgogi burger from Lotteria.

The other attraction we found that was open on a Monday was N’Seoul Tower.  It’s not a hugely tall tower in itself, but it is on top of a rather large hill.  We braved a rather shaky (and crowded) cable car just to get to the base.  From the top, we took pictures through slightly grimy windows of offices and apartment blocks, a palace or two and some historic houses, and evidence of humanity as far as the eye could see.

It’s 5am now and Tuesday.  Breakfast is being delivered at 7am, and then it’s back into Seoul.  Back to Gwangwamam station and the tour buses, to see what this huge city can offer us today.

Tash