You and I could have a quite dull debate about whether my writing is any good or not. It would definitely be dull because you’ve got your own writing to be thinking about and anyway mine is definitely getting better one pixel a year.

But what we couldn’t debate, I think, is the fact that for good or bad, I believe I can write anywhere. Certainly in newsrooms, back when those were the noisy places they should be, and certainly on trains, tapping away onto a phone.

I think I’d have said to you that I like how I can be divorced from my surroundings and concentrate on the work. I think that’s true, but that I do also enjoy the kind of environment that is not conducive to concentration or writing.

Only, I’ve been spending the last few days in a cottage. This morning, while everyone else was out exploring, I did a short radio appearance and then didn’t take my backside off a kitchen chair for a couple of hours. Total concentration.

In total silence.

It was the picture-perfect idealised version of what it means to write for a living, and damn if it wasn’t good. Previously I’ve opened windows and stuck my head out just to hear some traffic noises, but this time, this was peaceful.

Seems wrong, somehow. But in that cottage and a few months back in the already forgotten 2025, I wrote in Paris. I can’t say I wrote any better or worse in either place than back in my own office, but I think I may have written differently.

I have to go back.