Self-isolation writing exercise

Imagine your ideal hideaway, where you could self-isolate but feel entirely happy doing so. Where would it be? What would it look like? What particular aspects of the place would help you feel at your happiest? Let your imagination flow. Be prompted by thinking about what you’d like to eat, what exercise would you most like to do, would you have pets there? Write in free flow and don’t be hemmed in by what is possible – magic exists in this world you’re creating!

I’ve written my response to the prompt below. I really enjoyed getting lost in this exercise and hope it offers you some creative pondering time too.

The little house in the woods, with hidden surprises!

My hideaway would be a cabin in a clearing of beech woods in a remote part of the UK. From the outside the cabin looks like a humble shack. It is made out of wood and has a little stone chimney. The grass surrounding the cabin is full of wildflowers, butterflies and bees. The woods around the cabin are filled with dappled sunlight and the sounds of birds calling. There are deer, badgers and hedgehogs in the woods but no foxes. I don’t like the noise they make at night. The woods have a force field around their parameter which stops anybody I don’t know or like coming through it.

The cabin has one large room on the ground floor. There is a wood burning stove and a big comfy sofa, with a reading chair by the side of the fire. The kitchen has an Aga and a big Belfast sink. There are curtains at every window in soft cream fabric with roses printed on them. One corner of the cabin is a library full of books from floor to ceiling, with a ladder to get to the higher shelves. This book shelf is self-stocking. Whenever I finish a book that I don’t want to read again it is replaced by a new one. There are books here that I’ve always wanted to read and ones I’ve never heard of. All of them have convincing narrative voices, feature LGBTQA+ and interracial couples and families. The majority are written by women and women of colour, and not one ever uses the phrase, “my heart was beating so loudly I was sure he/she/they could hear it”.

Up a little flight of stairs is a large attic room. The king size bed has a quilted eiderdown on it and a crocheted bed spread. On the chest of drawers, desk and side table are framed pictures of all of my family and friends. At the foot of the bed lies a shaggy dog, a lurcher I think. I know with every ounce of my being that the dog could never attack me or hate me and that it loves me unconditionally, even if I don’t feed it smelly dog food. This dog actually doesn’t need to eat and also doesn’t poo or fart, and it’s fur doesn’t shed. It’s breath smells like marzipan and it hates the idea of licking people’s faces.

Back downstairs there is a trap door next to the sofa. When you pull it up a staircase is revealed. Downstairs is a glass sided jungle room (the cabin is set on a bank, which you can’t see from looking from the front, and so the downstairs is actually the ground floor) with all sorts of tropical plants. The air is warm and humid, and in the centre of the room there is a long swimming pool. At the bottom of the pool is a coral reef with lots of tropical fish and turtles. They aren’t trapped there, the pool is attached to an underground pipe that leads to the sea. The fish and octopuses and turtles never touch me, but I can swim amongst them.

When I’m hungry from swimming I go back upstairs and into the kitchen. There is a never-ending larder of essential supplies, and a lot of baking books. If I ever need a special piece of equipment or an unusual shaped baking tin, it is in the cupboard. In the garden there is a vegetable plot which grows all my favourite vegetables and fruit all year round and I can make fresh, vegetarian pasta dishes from garden produce. There is also cheese in the fridge that tastes EXACTLY like normal cheese but is actually vegan. There is a mango tree which always produces the ripest mangoes. When I don’t feel like cooking I just sit on the sofa, or in the cosy reading chair, and think of exactly what I fancy for dinner. When I look around at the kitchen counter top, my meal is waiting for me. When I’m finished I put my dishes in the Belfast sink, close my eyes and when I open them again the dishes have been washed and put away.

I have an endless supply of paper and black, ball point pens. But I also have a typewriter and know how to use it properly, and how to right any mistakes. I sit at the desk in my bedroom, overlooking the woods, and have all sorts of brilliant ideas for novels and short stories which I never abandon and always execute excellently. There are speakers set around the cabin which are attached to a library of music with compilations of my favourite music to dance, cry, sing along and reminisce to.

In this mysterious reality I don’t know the concepts of boredom or loneliness. Each week on a Sunday afternoon friends or family members come to visit and we spend the whole time laughing, eating cake, swimming and looking at old family photographs. 

Ramesh and the baby live in the cabin with me and every day we have a picnic lunch on the grass around the cabin. The baby loves animals and rides on the dog’s back, and makes friends with little birds and the wild guinea pigs that roam freely in the woodland undergrowth. Sometimes we ask visitors to mind the baby and we go back to bed or for a walk in the woods, holding hands. There are no arguments that last more than ten minutes at the cabin and everyone who lives there or visits feels confident, beautiful, loved and happy.