Summer, stubborn and blustery as it is, is upon us and I have always associated it with a slowing down of things. In my newspaper days August was a whispering month where everyone more grown up than me would take their kids on holiday and I’d be left to babysit the teenagers sent in on work experience. Our pagination would shrink. We’d post Edinburgh Fringe reviews. I’d lust for September, a time when I’ve always felt change afoot. 

I didn’t really take maternity leave and now I’ve managed to get my head a little above water since having the baby I’ve had the clarity of mind to acknowledge I need a break. I will be taking one after next week for a few weeks and then again across August, and I’m not yet sure what the shape of savour will be during this time. My relationship with these letters has felt a little weird lately. This might well be a nearing-book-deadline thing, or a been-on-book-tour-for-a-month thing, or a substack thing (the platform you’re reading this on) or, more likely, all three. Substack is growing; there are more of you around here than there used to be, which is cool, but I also feel strangely distant from it all - perhaps it’s the creeping insistence on people “liking” posts for engagement and the endless posts about growing subscribers. I came here to make space and write about things that mattered to me, not fuss over statistics. That’s feeling increasingly challenging.

I’m grateful, then, for the flurry of savour sessions that began this week. The paperback tour of Why Women Grow has come to a pause and I feel very lucky that the final event - for now at least - was a savour session. Talking about the book is a very special thing. It always seems to carry the story of Why Women Grow even further. But talking about the book with one of the women who made it happen in the first place, one of the 45 women I interviewed back in those strange couple of locked-down years, is a proper full-circle moment. It brings me back to the woman I was then and makes me realise how much the whole project has changed me. Last night more than 50 savour members gathered in a pink-walled space in Regent’s Street and shared and listened and met one another. The energy in the room was a very warm and intimate thing; I felt so fortunate that people had taken a punt to come out and gather in this way.

Tomorrow morning, the first seasonal savour x balance practice writing and yoga session will be taking place at Chelsea Physic Garden. I have been working with Erin Taylor for a few months now. She’s helped me remember I have a body after having a baby and has sparked an understanding of it that has been transformative for me this year. She will lead a 45 minute session then I will be teaching some writing outside. We’ll have Chelsea Physic Garden all to ourselves for two hours. This whole thing is free for savour members and we have released a few more tickets - this is how you book. 

I’m conscious that both of these events so far have been in person and in London, which isn’t particularly accessible - I love how many of you are reading this all over the world. So I’m delighted to say that at 7pm on 19th June the mighty Jo Thompson will be joining us for an online savour session. Jo is a garden designer with a clutch of gold medal-winning Chelsea Gardens under her toolbelt, but she’s also an absolute firebrand in terms of smashing the glass ceiling in the industry and the creator of The Gardening Mind by Jo Thompson - basically the only gardening media outlet I actually read. She’s a hoot, and we’ll be talking about gardens and colour and juggling it all and other things besides. We’ll be sending out the Zoom link to paying subscribers nearer the time - you just need to save the date for now.

I really want to make more savour sessions - online and off - happen in the months to come, so let me know in the comments if there’s anyone or anything you fancy doing or hearing from. I’m all here for tasty morsels. 

These past few weeks have felt like a tornado and the eye of the storm simultaneously, so it’s a shorter list than usual - some days I’ve barely eaten dinner, let alone cooked anything good. But I so appreciate you turning up and bringing savour to life off the page; let’s do it again sometime. 

More good things this fortnight:...