The blue room didn’t start out blue. It’s the only room in our house without a proper name — part office, part playroom, part storage solution. Originally the back of the house, a generous extension by the previous owner left it sandwiched awkwardly between our two busiest spaces: the kitchen-diner and the living room. It lacks natural daylight. But during lockdown, when it became my full-time workspace, I gave it a makeover. Painted in ‘Denim Spirit’, the room now lifts mine.

When I sit at my desk, the garden stretches out to my left. Above me, Lowry’s At the Seaside reminds me to look up and imagine dipping my toes into the cool blue water like the figures in the painting. I missed the sea during those surreal months of 2020 when everything stopped.

Just right of this view, an Aperol spritz print — my favourite drink, also calming in its own fizzy, bright orange way!

On my desk there’s usually a cappuccino from the kitchen coffee machine (also lockdown legacy), and a notebook with Van Gogh’s Almond Blossom on the cover. It mirrors where I am with my fiction — still awakening, beginning to bloom. Inside: scribbled phrases, scene fragments, characters I’m not sure how to name yet.

Sometimes I write in a café. Sometimes I wander around the house, laptop in hand, snatching sentences when the kitchen gets noisy. And when the English weather cooperates — not raining, not too hot, not too cold — I retreat to the garden, for a greener writing space.

I write in bursts. Around work, around my family. Mostly short stories. I gravitate toward everyday relationships, quiet moments of intimacy, connection or misconnection. I’m always trying to join the dots between people. I love the micro-escapes short stories offer — for the reader, and for me.