Notes from the Cotswolds – September 2015
Anyone who follows me on Twitter (@CotswoldPenny) will know that I have something of an obsession for finding tasty meals that also happen to be Gluten Free. It’s a time-consuming way to live, reading every label and planning meals in advance. It also means that I spend far more time thinking about food than actually eating it!
In the days BC (Before Coeliac) I liked to consider myself quite the chef. Profiteroles and crème patisserie held no fear for me and it was a relaxing, if calorific way, to expend some creative energy. In the years since my diagnosis however, cooking just doesn’t have the same relaxed vibe that it did and has actually become rather a chore. Who wants to spend their weekend analysing ingredients lists and making compromises? Rice flour pancakes anyone? Hmmm.
Well-meaning friends and family have suggested kindly that I am now of an age where gardening might prove a suitable substitute. ‘You’re creative! You must be good at gardening!’ they cry. Nope.
They steadfastly ignore the truth of the matter: firstly, that I am a notorious plant-killer – even idiot-proof cacti and spider plants defeat me – and secondly, that I simply cannot persuade myself to care. Not for me, hours toiling in the flowerbeds, thinking about planting patterns, when I could be reading in a hammock instead.
Despite their kindly advice, it also turns out that I am really rather rubbish at compiling the family photos into tastefully annotated albums, packing light or streamlining my bulging cupboards into a capsule wardrobe.
I had considered that the issue of motivation may be behind all this – do I really need my jumpers to be stacked according to shade? Or my flowerbeds to provide a constant riot of colour? – until, that is, I sat down to edit my novel. It was only then that I belatedly stumbled on the truth:
Sometimes what you leave out is actually more important than what you leave in.
Be it gluten-free cooking, a cull of the thousands of holiday snaps languishing on my hard drive or simply asking whether twelve identical white shirts is ten too many. It’s a skill I need to master in many areas of my life!
Luckily for me, when it comes to the important business of writing, I have the wonderful insights and guiding comments of my fabulous Editor and terrifyingly frank Agent to give me a push in the right direction, should I wander off-piste. Even knowing they are going to be reading my work with an eagle-eye for the superfluous, is enough to nudge me to self-edit as I write. A ruthless approach with a big thick marker pen seems to take care of the rest. It should also be noted that there is no shortage of motivation on my part either – sorry Mum, but books beat plants every time!
So now, as I head into the kitchen to make a gluten-free, dairy-free (hopefully not taste-free) lasagne, I can at least be reassured that, despite its inherent frustrations, living a Coeliac Life might actually be making me a better writer.
As a post-it above my desk now reminds me every day, ‘It’s all in the edit.’
Penny Parkes 