Dreamy Island Day - Eloise Williams

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, and probably again after that – sometimes the endless online business of being a writer becomes too much and I have got to take a break.

I’ve done it again. I’ve taken ANOTHER day off.

I know, I know… slovenly, slack, and absolutely needed.

After chasing up the addresses for books I have already posted, forgetting my father is having an operation, and many fitful nights filled with little sleep and lots of nightmares which mostly consisted of filling in forms, I decided my brain was too addled to be able to create anything.

My husband, who sleeps / doesn’t sleep next to me when I’m like this, suggested a day on Skomer Island and it was exactly the right tonic.

I forget, when I’m sat in front of my laptop all day, that to write well it is actually quite important to experience life well too.

We set off at stupid o’clock this morning, sausage baps in hand (than you Linda McCartney) and furrowed brow beneath a floppy brimmed sunhat in hope of turning my frown upside down. It isn’t all that far from where we live to Martin’s Haven where you catch the boat and as we were there early – because you have to be to actually get a space – we wandered about amongst cows and bumble bees waiting for our turn to board. I managed to keep the frown this far.

I worried about rain. I hadn’t brought a coat of any kind which is an almost deadly option here in west Wales. I hadn’t had enough caffeine before our stupid o’clock leaving time. Thankfully, there is a helpful coffee machine to hand. I would have to do this, that, and about fifteen other things when I got home. Lists ran through my head like Mo Farah on a roundabout. I was careful I didn’t walk too close to the cliff edge in case lovely husband, Guy, decided to put me out of my misery once and for all.

Finally, we boarded. The sun came out. The sea was a clear turquoise blue. A seal swam past us and I cried. It was the seal, for sure. Nature has always been my first love and it moves me beyond measure, but it was also remembering that I am a human and humans need to have a brain break now and again.

We spent several hours wandering around Skomer. Laughing and doing impressions of puffins – I used to be an actor so mine were very much better than spouse’s efforts. Snoozing and snoring (Guy, not me) on the salty, sun-soaked grass. Smiling, laughing, breathing all the air out from our lungs to take a whole new fresh peaceful lot in. Eating apples and ginger biscuits and slugging water back as if it was the most magical liquid in the world – which of course, it is.

And then something happened which I wasn’t expecting to happen. I took out a notebook and started to write a completely new story.

It’s not one I’d been thinking about and I won’t bore you with it here but it was remarkable to me that after only a few hours of what I am now calling a ‘Brian break’ instead of a brain break, my creativity would come back to me.

I’ve spoken about this in previous blogs but I am so quick to forget the importance of getting away from the screen and getting out there, wherever that may be, instead of typing away till my hands are gnarled hooks which I can’t even use to rub at my own square-shaped eyes.

And on that note…  

Eloise Williams

www.eloisewilliams.com