#4: A still life
Footpaths • Thursday 19 June 2025
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Mimi wakes me up at six thirty, holding out the Peter Rabbit book that she slept with. “Read it,” she says. So I do. And then we go down for breakfast with the midsummer sun—early and ready for us. Mimi wants her namesake, so I turn on the TV, and we watch Mimi and the Mountain Dragon until it is time to get Zack up.
1,000 words today. Mostly planning, plotting and throwing ideas around. A week today, I am off to Saltburn-by-the-Sea for a writing retreat—just me and this story. Each day now, I know it a little better. But boy, have I questions!
I usually work three full days on Footnotes & Tangents, Monday to Wednesday, preparing and updating the posts, podcasts and resources for our slow reads. But I was sick this time last year, and couldn’t write anything on the interrogation of Mark Smeaton or the arrest of Anne Boleyn. So I’ve done that today. I’ll record the post tonight when the house is still, and the workers drilling holes outside my window have gone home for their tea.
A note to self:
reached out to recommend The Gathering Night by Margaret Elphinstone, fiction set in the Mesolithic, which immediately made me think of The Inheritors (William Golding) and Boneland (Alan Garner)—both of which I would love to slow read with Footnotes & Tangents. Adam Thorpe (of Ulverton fame) reviews the book favourably here.
Books on my bedside table
The Magic Mountain (Thomas Mann), Penelope Fitzgerald by Hermione Lee, A Short History of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart by Terri Ochiagha and John Mullan’s How Novels Work. Last night, dipped into How Fiction Works by James Wood, which seems very good. And, at random, I found myself reading H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. Extraordinary writing.
Omg, I loved H is for Hawk soooooo much. Amazing 🖤
I read H is for Hawk a few years ago and very much enjoyed it. The map of Skara Brae, talk of booksfrom the Mesolithic period and you reading Peter Rabbit to Mimi made me remember reading "The Boy with the Bronze Axe" by Kathleen Fiddler to a wee Andrew. He is now fifteen and at the minute not really for picking up a book, but those times were precious and I do believe the stories and the connection through reading them together will always stay with us.