Where I go to get away from it all: Kate London, crime novelist
My husband and I are incompatible. He loves the city – cinemas, cafés, theatres, art galleries – and hot weather. I love hills, rivers, mist and rain. There’s nothing better than a storm. Sometimes I escape to a cottage near Ludlow on the top of a hill. When the wind blows it feels as though the house might be torn from its roots. People often ask me, “Don’t you find writing lonely?” My guilty secret is that I love solitude. In Shropshire, I can walk for miles without bumping into anyone. If I’m lucky I might disturb a hare zigzagging across the rough ground. Housman was right: the distant hills look blue. The sky is always changing. The light moves across the landscape in shadows and pools of sudden brilliance. If my writing is flowing I hunker down with my laptop and dog in front of a wood fire, writing at my own pace early morning and into the night, interrupting myself to pull on walking boots and jumper. When I was a detective I used to fantasise about retiring there, wearing my smart court clothes in the garden, letting the trousers get splashed with soil and the brogues thick with earth. This year there has been an important addition to Shropshire’s rhythm. When my sister died I felt like slurry was sitting in my veins like sediment. The only thing that helped was swimming in natural water. It made me feel intensely sad but it dispelled the slurry. Beginning in August I swam; as it got colder, I continued. Now I walk along muddy country paths to hidden peaty ponds. You shouldn’t swim alone but I do, sometimes. At other times a swimming friend accompanies me. We met when we were both dipping in the River Teme and she called to me across the water. I have swum in fog, ice and once when the snow was floating down, disappearing softly on the water’s misty surface. But I am dishonest to blame my husband entirely for London. Part of me needs the city too: its life, grit, energy and hunger. My novels are set in its streets. I once joked with my publisher that I could write a murder detective’s guide to the cafés of London. So, returning to the city I have the Hampstead Ladies’ Pond to go off grid – only five miles from Oxford Circus and there are kingfishers and herons! Early morning I lift the rope tie on the gate and walk along the shaded path. In London or Shropshire, I take a hot water bottle and a flask and complete my swim by sitting by the always changing water. I shiver in three jumpers, two pairs of trousers and two hats – one of these, a ridiculous affair with ear flaps, given by my dear sister to my eldest son. You can’t swim for long in cold water. You have to leave. It reminds you that however beautiful something is, it is temporary. There is a now and it is precious.