New Day, New Start
It all began with making marmalade. Well, actually it didn't - it began
with the news that, along with a great many others, my services were no
longer required. For the past few years I've been writing freelance and
one of my regular customers has been my local newspaper. The writing, so
to speak, had been on the wall for a while now. Many of us had been
told to cut back on our submissions, full-time employees were being laid
off - it was clearly only a matter of time. And sure enough, yesterday
as it happens, the axe fell on my last remaining contribution. Now
normally we writers - particularly the freelance ones - have fragile
egos. Our professional 'worth' horribly yo-yoing from week to week but,
given the times in which we live, and the cut-backs every industry seems
to be struggling through, my ego has remained, more or less, intact.
After all, it was one knock-back that was more of a redundancy than a
rejection.
So, as I started to regroup I returned to my personal
therapy of choice - cooking. Being a freelance writer means I'm used to
the ebbs and floes of work, to the intensity of producing a book and the
contrasting calm in between times. For me, it's often time in the kitchen
that fills those gaps and finds our pantry piled high with preserves,
the freezer topped up with pies and the fridge laden with soups. The thing about that kind of cooking is that it requires attention, it
occupies your mind and body, it isn't particularly difficult, and it
reaps wonderful, delicious rewards.
Of course all that stirring
gives you time to think and, by the time I had finished over my cauldron
(there is, after all, just a touch of magic in cooking!), I had put all
the day's disappointment behind me and begun to see, not a loss or an
end, but a new, fresh beginning. And jars and jars of marmalade!