These crocuses have burst out over the last weekend, and the birds are chasing each other over the garden. There is more birdsong every day, and I had washing on the line yesterday. So clearly, there are changes afoot.

The first is that I submitted the manuscript of The Well of the Moon yesterday, and there will be news of publication soon. It feels like this book has been like an owl pellet, building up for what felt like ages, then coughed up all in a lump, and I’m still looking at it, wondering what it’s made of! I’ll be talking more about the many random things that somehow got tangled up in it over the next few weeks.

The next is probably going to be much more of an upheaval. Both my husband and I have lifelong health conditions which make our current house less suitable for us, and after almost forty years, we are planning a move to be nearer our children. I am preparing the garden for other people to look after, and wondering how we will deal with all the books, cds, kit for hobbies and memorabilia we have managed to accumulate over the years. There is a lot of outgrown stuff to shed, as we go forward, more than possessions. Lockdown has given me a chance to think more about the kind of life that works for me, and being on buses and trains so much to see friends and get to poetry events isn’t part of it. I’m going to have to cut back on the things I get involved in, but hoping to be able to commit more deeply to those I choose to keep.

I am researching good places to live, near green spaces and public transport links, and making plans to get to know a whole new territory, with its different microclimate and wildlife, new trees and rivers. The herbs are coming with me, of course, and the writing will go on, prose as well as poetry. I’m looking forward to the new perspectives change and rooting somewhere else will give us. And I look forward to being able to welcome people to the new homeplace we create.