Advance, retreat

I'm sure this is usual for writers; you reach a point of real progress with a story and you begin to lust after a place of retreat, somewhere you can hide away with your notebooks and just... think, read, write. I don't mean a cottage in the woods or the wilderness (although the Coach House at Gwydir? Bliss!). Just a room would suit me. Or a garden shed, as long as it had a few home comforts. Hmm. Milly Molly Mandy's jam pantry would suit. I hunted for images and failed to find any, but I did find some cute contemporary illustrations in the same style, here.

Remember when Jane Eyre hides away in the window-seat behind the heavy velvet curtain? I'm coveting a window-seat. I saw the perfect one in a house in Painswick at the weekend. It was a bit more than a window-seat, more like a first floor bay, about five feet deep with oblong panes on all sides to let the sun in. This is now my retreat; last thing at night, or in the bath, I go into this room, shut the door and curl up on the low sofa in the bay. In the winter, the room is lined with tapestries and rugs. In the summer, it will resemble a ship's cabin, bleached wood, sunshine and a truckle bed in one shady corner.