Churchill and Vita Sackville-West
31 July 2009
A recent child-free weekend took my husband and I to Kent, to visit Chartwell and Sissinghurst - both inspirational places for writers. I almost wept with envy at the sight of Vita Sackville-West's writing room - the desk! the view! the little fireplace, the sofa, the cushions and rugs and paintings! Above all, the isolation! I share my little office with a landscape designer, and I am going back to Sissinghurst with her in the Autumn. More and more, thanks to Claire (said designer), I am beginning to consider gardening as a form of art, of which Sissinghurst is the living proof. What fabulous materials to work with! Organic, living things, which spring from the imagination of the gardener but take root in real soil, grow a life of their own, mature and develope in accordance with sun and rain. Could one draw parallels with writing, thoughts which are born in the writer, which flower on the page to mature in the minds of the reader? I think so. You make your own luck, but even so, I think Vita Sackville-West - the VS-W of Sissinghurst and gardening and poetry - must have been one of the luckiest women alive.
As for Winston - well! 538 paintings, x number of bestselling books, three wars, five children, twice prime minister, saviour of the free world... I am going to pin a photograph of the man above my desk to shut me up the next time I moan about not having enough time...
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