A Premier Location
I wrote this in a hotel room and thought I had scheduled it to go out at the usual time but in my rush to get out in the sunshine I forgot to hit the ‘publish’ button. But it appears I haven’t been missed so here it is four hours later than usual.
Looking out the window I can see a few trees and if I stand on tip toes I can even pick out the roof tops of a B & M store and a nearby Morrisons supermarket, but beyond that it’s an industrial wasteland. Nowhere to go and nothing to do unless I get into my car again. There is the constant noise of traffic on the nearby dual carriageway which I’m hoping will die down before I need to go to bed. I live in a rural village so unless someone is having a party there’s never usually much sound after 10 pm beyond an occasional owl hooting so background noise is unfamiliar. And as I have driven six hours today it would be welcome to get a good night’s sleep. Funnily enough when we first moved out to South Cambridgeshire from North London I couldn’t sleep for the first week because it was too quiet. I missed the constant background hum of traffic. Not so much anymore.
Not the prettiest view from my window!
It's Friday night and I’m staying in a Premier Inn on the outskirts of a town, a whistle stop visit for a memorial service for my aunt and in 48 hours I’ll be back home again. For various reasons I have travelled alone, and other family members are not arriving until tomorrow so I have several hours to kill on my own, but given that yet again I haven’t written anything for my Substack newsletter, it could be fortuitous. I remember an interview with the food critic Grace Dent on the In Writing podcast, where she said she actually checks herself into a Premier Inn if she needs to get any writing finished.
“I’ve done it a couple of times…there’s nothing to do in a Premier Inn. They’re not bad hotels, but the only thing that you want to do is get out of the Premier Inn as soon as you can. All you have is a desk and a TV that’s too small*. There’s no mini bar and if you want to eat you have to go to the supermarket… the only place you can go is the Toby Carvery next door… (you) almost have a gun at your head to finish your book, and you’ll do it.”
Grace Dent from In Writing by Hattie Crisell
*it’s actually as big as the one we have at home
Fortunately I don’t have a book to finish, just a thousand or two words to get out by Sunday morning but I’m not feeling much inclination to write sat within these four bland walls. A walk around the industrial estate is starting to feel preferable to sitting here trapped in my room typing. In fact the Carvery, or in my case ‘Grill’ next door is calling and there’s a large glass of red wine with my name on it.
Of course Virginia Woolf famously said that a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction, but for me it is less about having the perfect place to write but more about the motivation. Whether it is a room in a Premier Inn, a purpose build writing cabin, an exciting retreat, (which will be happening next month, and I am very excited) or my usual desk in our kitchen, unless I make myself sit down and start it’s just not going to happen. This week the glorious run of warm weather has continued in the UK and this combined with the clocks going forward has made me want to be outside. Instead of sitting indoors putting pen to paper where it’s all too easy to dwell on all that is going on in the world at present, I have been out on the allotment digging and preparing the soil ready to plant out my potatoes next week. I find that it is difficult to worry or over think if I’m outside doing physical work. And so the writing has been put on the back burner... until now when I find myself sitting on a large, surprisingly comfortable bed in an anonymous room that could be anywhere in the country, with nowhere else to go and nothing else to do but write. However, to quote Virginia Woolf once more “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well” so I am off to that Grill next door to find myself some dinner. I don’t really expect to dine well but I’m ever the optimist.
Dinner for one! (In fact, it wasn’t too bad)
It is now Saturday morning and I slept surprisingly well. The bed was extremely comfortable and having remembered to switch off the air conditioning/heating before I went to bed the room was cool and quiet.
It’s not the first time I have stayed here. Two years ago I made the same trip with my Mum but being in August the drive took us eight hours. It was also the first time I realised the extent of Mum’s dementia, which although I had suspected it was a problem for quite some time, I hadn’t any idea of how bad it was becoming. Halfway through our drive down Mum announced the trip had been a complete waste of time because she hadn’t even seen her sister. No matter how much I tried to explain we hadn’t yet arrived and the party for her sister’s birthday was the following day she couldn’t grasp why we had been in the car so long. On crossing the magnificent Tamar bridge she asked if it was the river Thames, hard to comprehend her mistake coming from someone who has always known London so well.
On our first night here in the Premier Inn we had dinner and then I left Mum in our room while I popped out to make a phone call home. When I returned, the curtains were drawn, and Mum was in bed. It was only 8 pm. What followed was like a very long bad dream. All night long Mum was up and down out of bed, switching on lights, rummaging through bags and moving things from one place to another and getting annoyed with me when I ‘interfered’. It was the trip from hell in so many ways, having driven to Cornwall and back over a period of three days with no more than a total of three hours sleep in the room directly underneath the one where I am sitting now. But ultimately it was worth it because as it turns out it was the last time that Mum saw her sister.
Siblings… My uncle, aunt and Mum in August 2023… I love this photo!
Sadly there was no way that Mum could have joined me for this trip as I can no longer get her in and out of my car safely, never mind manage all her medication and care needs on my own. Perhaps even sadder is the fact that she doesn’t know I’m here this weekend and doesn’t even know her sister has died. If she asks after her of course I will tell her, but that is unlikely to happen and there seems little point telling her something that will make her sad when she won’t remember me telling her five minutes later. It doesn’t stop me feeling guilty though.
But enough, because the sun is shining, and I need to get out of this room and be outside. I have discovered it is only a half hour walk into town, so I am foregoing any editing, I’m hitting publish and I’m going exploring.
Hopefully I’ll find some time to stay inside to write something next week, but until then… Arrivederci amici!
Morning Gina. My dad had Alzheimer’s and it’s cruel so I fully understand the problem and heartbreak. But my reason for writing is - don’t tell her that her sister has died. It’s pointless and you’ll upset her but she won’t remember. My dad’s elder sister died and I had to ask his brother- in -law to stop calling because it was fresh grief every time. Then he couldn’t remember that my mum had died, so we would tell him she was still in hospital but would be home soon. It saved lots of tears. It’s an awful time but I found it best to reduce distress, and I hope you’ll find a way through too x
I feel very grateful to people who, like you, share these small, important insights into the experience of dementia.
Hotels are a funny space, you're both free from and captive to your responsibilities. But I'm not sure Premier Inn would inspire me either - glad you managed to write!