Another good day with the Essex Book Festival. Today, a hotdesk at Chalkwell Hall, the Essex site of Metal – they describe themselves as setting up cultural community hubs. Sneer and jeer until you get here, it is a fabulous place in a lovely setting.
Anybody can book a hotdesk – there are two, right at the top of the building (there’s a lift if you aren’t able to climb two sets of narrow stairs). I’d seen the picture on the EBF website, but when I was led into the Beth Chatto room and saw the view across the estuary – wow. It wasn’t a great day, weather-wise, but I could see Southend Pier away to the east, and the tide rose and began to fall while I was there.
I didn’t spend my whole time watching the view. I got stuck into a project I’ve been putting off for months, and made good progress on it. But in between writing and sketching out a decent structure to the piece, I read the copy of Beth Chatto’s Garden Notebook (left on the desk), took photos and looked out of the window.
Down in Chalkwell Park, there was an outdoor fitness session, a small wedding with a lot of cheering and laughing and people just walking around the park. It’s a great place, and I wish I lived closer – close enough to walk there would be favourite, given the traffic.
One whole wall was painted as a blackboard and Metal had left each room a small pot of chalks in different colours with a note that we should scrawl on the wall – notes to drive the work forward, diagrams, a snippet of the work. I couldn’t resist. I gave them a poem on a person falling off their pushbike and into a ditch (and finding what the irises there were growing in), a short poem on how I had given the cafe and the view plenty of attention but hadn’t done any writing and a poem on how I was thinking of setting up a blackboard wall like this at home. By the time I left, the whole wall was covered. I hope they have a laugh while they’re cleaning it all off.
I had also set down about 4,000 words and got a much clearer idea of where the project was going. I left early to beat the traffic rush (didn’t quite succeed) and count the day as a real success.
If you want to book a hotdesk… there is one day left in July. Be quick. And try the chalkwall.
Julia Chalkley 