Powerful incentive for a real writer

OPINION: Be thankful that I don't call the shots, writes Patricia Soper in this week's And Another Thing.

A blank screen is like a blank page. It has a dreadful magnetism, expectancy, as it waits for you to inscribe it with sincerities, dark humour, whimsical observations and dazzling witticisms. Fat chance in this heat. I am inert. Still, when inspiration flags I can usually summon some sort of discipline by recalling the resolve of Katherine Mansfield – a real writer. Racked with consumption, shunned by her weak-kneed husband and staying in chilly Continental pensiones she honed her craft and left us a legacy of unforgettable short stories. Terminal TB must be a powerful and inspirational incentive. I'm suffering from a heat-induced headache and a cracked thumb from scraping new spuds. It doesn't have quite the same dramatic impetus.

No, no. Readers want political observation but Parliament is not sitting, and even if it was I doubt there would be much to inflame my passions. Prince William has come and gone. No streets lined with cheering children waving Union Jacks, no glitzy dos, just barbecues and casualness and rather forced bonhomie. The prince seems a pleasant young man with an easy manner and a youthful smile. The coltish bearing reminded me of Princess Diana. Showing the flag in far-flung colonies must be a thankless job. I'm sure he would rather be shooting deer on a royal estate or having a beer with his mates in some quaint, discreet village pub where the press never ventures. It was an occasion that etched the past into contrast; a time when we lined the streets six-deep, cheering wildly, invariably seeing little more than the head of the person in front of us, let alone any royal personages. How we have changed as a nation. Ironically, on a night Prince William was here, TV1 screened The Queen. At the time I hoped he wasn't sitting in some plush hotel with his feet up and, while channel-surfing, happened upon a re-run of his mother's death. A coincidence, but poignant nevertheless.

Summer has made a late debut. The garden is limp with the heat today and my white phlox are browning. Things will need a good watering tonight. Some of my friends find my "watering" fixation a mystery. I bear them no malice; after all, there are things that I, too, find incomprehensible; the Big Bang, peristalsis and our nation's enduring love affair with sandwich makers, to name just a few. But summer and I have an on-again, off-again relationship. At the risk of seeming outrageously precise, I like warmth but not searing heat. I would happily exist in perpetual autumn, so it's just as well I don't call the shots.

» Athol-based Patricia Soper is a food and feature writer, columnist and retired public speaker.

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