Reflections on a Writer’s Gift

 There were so many things about Agde that were a writer’s gift, not least the sheer uninterrupted time in which to do nothing but WRITE or think or talk about writing. Already, although it is wonderful to be home I find there are so many things that distract – some of these, most of these, are good things, enjoyable things as well as the chores but all take up time and take time away from the writing.

I miss the way time was in Agde – the way the only thing I had to be was a writer.

As well as this gift of time Agde also offered up the gift of the new – the way that being somewhere new and exotic floods your senses and sharpens your thinking, the way it makes you look. There is so much looking and seeing and that it is good for a writer.

Being somewhere for two months also brings new knowledge and a growing sense of  the different communities who live there. One may only observe from the edge but in time one begins to feel a sense of belonging – of being a small part of this place – still guessing but learning all the time.

I came away from Agde knowing much more about it than when I arrived

I know…where to buy the best croissant and how the price of cherries alters according to the day –  where to eat moules frites and delicious plat du jour …  the clarity of the light, the way it falls on the water and beneath the trees …the roads the fisherman cycle home after a day on the canal…the fields where the bee eaters live… how to find the shepherds hut, the oreilles’ wood… the way to the sea past the banks of thistles… the walk to La Guingette and how good their house cocktail with coconut tastes… the girls who serve in the cafes, the postman, the librarians, the swifts that fly at the window… the roof terrace with plants and naked man…how the one way system works, where the kerbs are too steep to lift your bicycle onto the pavement…. where there is a dog with three legs… how the voices of the Gitane echo through the narrow streets… where a bike is being slowly dismantled, a wall built, the architect lives… where a barge is moored that sailed from England, a beautiful house by the river with roses and jasmine in the garden… where to buy the bargains on the linen stall on market day …the colours of the shutters and doors… the silence of the afternoon…the way the language sounds but only some of what to say…that one day I will go back

But most of all I came away from Agde knowing that I was indeed a writer and maybe even a poet – after all who else but a writer would go off for two months and come back with 80,000 words?