Maria Donovan

Where I write

My favourite place for writing is in bed. When up and dressed I sit in a doorway.

The doorway leads from the kitchen to the utility room in my first floor flat. The seat, a folding garden chair, is sturdy, with improvised lumbar and neck supports; the screen sits on the worktop and the keyboard on my lap. It’s the most comfortable position I can muster. Both writing places are clean and out of the way of building work; both have a distant view on which to rest my eyes when I look up. Such things matter when you spend hours at the writing job.

The View

Allington Hill is the focus of the picture in the window. The distant treetops are stroked into shapes by the wind. The outline of the hill against the sky reminds me of the upturned face of a sleeping giant lying on his back. I say ‘he’ because I think he looks like Homer Simpson, sleeping with his mouth open.

I love to see the changes: blossoms; the clothing and unclothing of the trees; the disappearance and appearance of nearby houses, the sky between the branches, the bones of the landscape.

Here is a gallery: 12 photos of the view from my writing window – just one from the many taken each month. Round and round go the seasons, the months of the calendar and all the writing days of the year.

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