Snow Country

Sidney Sussex College Cambridge is a good place to be in a cold snap –  the generous sized rooms are warm day and night and Patisserie Valerie is barely a couple of minutes away (and there are many more wonderful coffee and tea houses.) We spent one particularly mellow lunchtime in a wine bar, which I’d first spotted from my window, sat near a blazing fire with plates of olives and pate and the obligatory glass (or was it two?) of Merlot.

The air in the city was thin and icy and the lawns and trees of the Master’s Garden were frosted white. I took a spectacular walk along the Backs, through Trinity’s immense iron gates and up its tree-lined path, crossing the Cam where punts idled slick with ice, skirting the college and making my way back, along Trinity Lane.

Even the Fitzwilliam was hosting, ‘Snow Country,’ an exquisite exhibition of Japanese woodcuts printed on paper whitened in the japanese snow bleaching fields.

Mostly we did what we’d come to do which was write. We were also thinking and talking writing, and in this wonderful space, free from any domestic concerns it was possible to make great leaps forward, not just in the number of words achieved but in the creative planning and decision making that is so necessary to any work of fiction. Writing is about so much more than just writing. And going somewhere new and different inspires new and different ideas. It also offers up some great new locations and I will definitely be using Cambridge – I’ve got my notes and lists – in one my new stories.

Read Wendy’s account of our Cambridge days here: Playing Truant in Cambridge