Jennifer Pittam

Last Few Days in Cornwall - photo Jennifer Pittam So I'm here in Cornwall for the last few days before I have to pack up and go back home to London. I am fascinated to discover that the Alverton was once a nunnery - the Order of the Epiphany. An epiphany (from the ancient Greek) is, apparently, a manifestation, or an experience of sudden and striking realization. The Hotel Was Once a Nunnery One of the manifestations I want to see whilst I'm in this beautiful land is more writing.  It's not that I lack will-power as such - I write copy for yoga mats and running shoes with zeal and application. Yet, in the year since my mother died I've found it so hard to get back to my historical novel.  The book is based on a story she told me; one of those from London's East End. When she went, my inspiration seemed to take a dive, in spite of encouragement from friends and attendance, rather erratic, at JoJo Thomas's Creative Writing Workshops. JoJo Thomas...

Setting off  For Cornwall Like most writers I have to perform a juggling act. There's  the creative writing that comes straight from the heart, the copy-writing for rubbber gloves and wrinkle creams, and the fascinating work I have as a Clerk of the Court in London.  Trendy people call it a 'work portfolio' and talk rather pompously of 'income streams.' If I'm honest, I don't care what they're called. Each brings its own mix of fun, despair, creative satisfaction and, well, money, in varying quantities. This month one of the 'income streams'  brings me to Cornwall.  I have not visited that enchanted place since childhood. I remember it as a goblin-land - mysterious, beautiful and much warmer than London. Terrified that it won't be like that now, I book a ticket from London Paddington to Truro.  The Cornish Riviera Express - it doesn't disappoint and transports us at an unruly speed as far as Plymouth. After that, we m...