There are encouraging whispers about another book contract  –  calm down, that girl at the back. It’s not in the bag yet   –  but in the meanwhile I’m still rather conveniently in publishing limbo and therefore available to nurse my injured husband. And move furniture.

I’ve been in my current study for five years and  realised only recently that I was perching in it, like an office temp. It is the repository for all on-going (and half-abandoned) projects, and frankly it had become a dispiriting mess. I have written four books looking at the same wall and the same framed poster for a show I once directed.  A poster I didn’t even particularly like. So that got tossed earlier today and, stiffened by that small achievement, I began moving furniture.

The first thing I did was rotate my desk by 90 degrees. Window behind me, door in front of me, I’m sure a Feng Shui counsellor would be hugely impressed. I now await the arrival of one strapping son-in-law to carry upstairs my new chair  –  not really new at all but one of the nicest chairs in the house and yet rarely used. I’m on a roll. Who can say what creative juices this nesting flurry may release?

I find myself wondering why I didn’t do it sooner. Actually, I think I know the answer. I began my writing career at the corner of a kitchen table, competing for working space with the cold fish fingers and orphaned plimsolls familiar to every mother of four. I guess it just got to be a habit. To have a whole room to myself feels, even now, like a luxury. But don’t worry. I can get used to it. There is no turning back. The way things are set up now I could sit behind my desk and interview someone. Not sure what for, but still… Wellness Coach? Body Double? Someone to nip down to Spar when we run out of teabags? I’ll think of something.