I’ve done nothing, you say? Nothing at all? Tish and piffle. Here’s what I’ve done this week:

• Learnt the difference between a rook and a crow: “If it’s ‘crows’ it’s ‘rooks’. If it’s ‘rook’ it’s ‘crow.’” (The point being that rooks are social and crows solitary.)
• Continued my studies of comparative suburban architecture by dint of walking for tens of miles through various estates, trying to identify the basic ‘house’ beneath years of alterations
• Studied the interactions of homo sapiens sapiens in a variety of habitats: a greasy spoon in a middle-class town, for example, or the chitterings of parents in the back of a small car
• Learnt of the longevity of Fen-management techniques and of the benefits of flooding
• Critiqued a stranger’s décor
• Was judged on appearance and attitude by strangers
• Lay on the floor for a while and contemplated the futility of human existence
• Fought with the NHS switchboard and its plethora of Kate’s
• Led the expedition to conquer the many roundabouts of Milton Keynes
• Was deposed from leadership of expedition to conquer the many roundabouts of Milton Keynes
• Explored the origins and implications of the Tribal Hidage
• Dithered over the costs and benefits of childcare
• Studied mothers and children
• Pined for social media
• Ruminated on the nature and necessity of tact

A writer doing nothing? Impossible. What you may think is wool-gathering, or prevarication, or honest-to-goodness laziness is, in fact, method acting: assimilation of source material; an exploration of perspective. What might appear to be idleness is merely necessary research.

So be wary when contemplating the writer. It’s rare that the observer isn’t also the observed.