Welcome to my world

I remember loving the series a couple of years back in a weekend newspaper on writers' rooms.

I was fascinated, I longed for a room of my own, one dedicated to writing and books and creativity, where you get to be a REAL writer.

Well guess what? I have my own now, and here it is...

This is where I go to "work".

And it both is, and isn't "work". I don't get paid by the hour. But I do make money over the year. Some bits I love, some bits are very tedious, or soul tearingly hard. But this is where I come, for two days a week and do my thing - with words, ideas, paints and the (intermittent) internet. And this is where the flow happens. Sometimes!

As you will see, my desk chair is an oversize deck-chair with big soft sofa cushions. The table is polished rough cut natural wood. It feels absolutely nothing like being "at work". Which is truly wonderful.

This is a Japanese style tea house - at the bottom of my Dad's garden, a fifteen minute walk from our house. Through the glazed sliding doors, there is a panoramic view of a little lake, the bog and the sea and woods all around me. I walk down a meandering path between bamboo to get to it, the same path I walked with my husband almost seven years ago to our homemade marriage ceremony here. The same path that we walked to bury all three placentas. The herons swoop down from the trees to fish in the lake. Migrating birds stop over in the bog.

The heating isn't working so it's flipping freezing, and whilst it has an open fire, I can never manage to get it going properly, so I work in three jumpers and a coat for as long as I can then race up to the cafe for tea and hot soup, before heading down to work once more.

You see my desk? Full of books. Books have always been my life and now they are my living in so many ways: writing them, selling them, reviewing them, reading them... So we have three piles. The tallest pile includes The Artist's Way, Creating a Life Worth Living and lots of other titles to reference (including, most satisfyingly, my own, Moon Time book - oh yeah!) in the Creative Rainbow Mama book which I am getting back to writing. The smallest pile is for the Feminine Power course I am creating with my dear friend Tracy in Cork in April and the pile further back is my review copies for JUNO - this is only some of them! The net couple of days are full of book reviewing.

And then we have my (not-so) trusty laptop with the dodgy power cable which beeps endlessly. I took this picture whilst I was finishing off my feature on Ina May Gaskin for the Examiner. I have so much good stuff that I won't be able to use there, or for JUNO that I am going to put together a blog exclusive of the best bits.

And beyond it you see my painting table, with a couple of paintings visible. This is where I go first thing in the morning - and just before I have to do some boring admin! The painting flow has slowed down a little - but did some more today.

And the big bongo drum and a stack of CDs for mad moments, because dancing, yoga and singing are "work" too... right?

Have you got your own creative workspace, or do you long for one? How would it be?