O is for observation

I had forgotten the potential for people watching that travel abroad provides. How, I’m not quite sure. But there we were, abroad. And there they were: people. People. Just doing their thing. Families, mostly, that I watched. Pushchairs and backpacks, carrier bags of increasing sizes advertising the park we were visiting that day. And yet. …

Interlude 2: is inspiration a found item?

We long for it to be. We believe there is a pearl of great price, whatever other merchants have told us. We hear the story of Harry Potter, walking fully fledged into the imagination of the author, and take our own train journeys, on the look out for a lone character thumbing a lift. We …