More Daisy than Jessica -- Ruth Leigh
When I was a little girl, the answer to the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” was always the same. “I’m going to be a writer.” As I’ve written about elsewhere, life got in the way and it’s only now, in my mid-fifties, that I am a proper author, with a book or two what I wrote. I took the plunge and at the end of last year, we did our last catering function and hung up our aprons forever. “What joy!”, thought I to myself. “No more distractions like quotes for weddings, working out how many champagne flutes a client needs, planning a menu which will suit a party which contains two coeliacs, five vegans, two dairy-frees and a person who can’t abide peppers. Surely, I will be as light-hearted as a swallow, swooping ‘ere closer to the earth.” Sitting at my laptop, with all the time in the world, the words didn’t flow. Not even a bit. I wrote several paragraphs then edited them heavily, sighing as I did so. Where had my creative spark gone? Why wasn’t I raci...