Slowing down and finding comfort
even when it feels like a self-indulgent pleasure
Yesterday evening, I glanced out of my kitchen window and spied an enormous ripe fig in the lower branches of our fig tree.
We planted the fig tree over ten years ago, the first summer we spent in this house. So far, although there have been promising nubs of green each year, none of the figs have ever grown large enough to ripen. This summer has been unusually warm and dry. We already have a water shortage and hose pipe ban here in North Yorkshire. And here, on our fig tree, is the result.
I ate it for breakfast this morning with my coffee and savoured every sweet mouthful. (I’m the only fan of figs in this household, which meant I got to enjoy it all to myself.) 😊
The fig represented a moment of slowing down and noticing at the end of a difficult week. It reminded me that it’s OK to notice and give thanks for all the abundance in my life – the simple, everyday joys – even in the midst of the horror and injustice and challenge all around us.
In fact, maybe it’s essential for us to do this, if we’re to keep going?
Last night, as I carefully watered my garden (with cans of washing-up water from my kitchen sink), I took time to notice all the colour: the scabias and sage, the glossy mint, the geraniums and delphiniums. I admired my beloved white hydrangeas (‘Limelight’ and ‘Annabelle,’ for all you hydrangea-lovers), which had survived yesterday’s sudden thunder storm and began to glow like lanterns as the light faded.
I breathed in the air, scented with jasmine and honeysuckle.
My garden has been there all week – and yet I have not. I have been much too busy, desperately trying to finish things, ticking off lists and tidying things up. I have been too occupied with worry about the world/ my life/ my family’s life.
Writing Invitation
What do you notice when you slow down for a moment? How might you describe it in words?
Think about writing a still-life of the scene outside your window or under your feet.
If you can, go outside and touch the world around you – the bark of a tree, a single blade of grass, a fence, a pavement.
Breathe.
Give yourself time and space to sense into the sounds, colours, sensations, shapes, patterns of light. Hold a pebble or a leaf in your hand.
Look up at the sky and notice the temperature of the air on your skin, those little changes in pressure or texture, inside you and outside you.
When you’re ready, experiment with finding words that fit these feelings. They might be single words, phrases or full sentences. Begin there. Find out what happens next. Keep your hand moving. Keep writing.
Writing in Color Retreat 2026!
Join me for a very special writing retreat in a spectacular private estate in the Dordogne region of southwest France, from 30 May to 6 June 2026, with my friend and international writing expert, the amazing Helen Sword.
For a long time, Helen and I have been fantasising about bringing people together in a nurturing space for writing, creative rest, delicious food and conversation. And now it’s happening.
30 May to 6 June 2026
Stay in an historic 25-acre estate near Bergerac, France, rented for our exclusive use.
Receive small group workshops, relax by the private heated pool, enjoy indoor and outdoor lounge areas, beautiful gardens, terraces, a private woodland, and a natural pond.
Immerse yourself in colorful, playful and pleasure-saturated writing techniques – including collage, zine-making and observational writing. Leave with a beautiful handmade keepsake notebook of your words and ideas.
Experience gourmet food, local wines (should you choose!) and guided writing excusrions to medieval villages in the Dordogne region.
Find deep creative inspiration and build lasting connections.
Read more and sign up here.
We’ll begin each day with a sumptuous breakfast followed by writing rituals designed to help you to find your creative flow. Helen and I will share colorful techniques and approaches that will infuse your creative practice with pleasure and support you in honing your craft.
Whether you’re just starting out on your writing journey, working on a current project or simply looking for new ways to revitalise your writing, we’ll hold a supportive space for you. We’ll explore collage, zine-making, observational and embodied techniques – and you’ll leave with a beautiful notebook full of writing and a clear plan for developing your ideas when you return home.
Read all about it here.
When we’re not in the writing studio or outside in the spacious grounds of the estate, we’ll be taking trips to the medieval villages of Issigeac and Beynac-et-Cazenac and the local market at Eymet, seeking out more color and inspiration.
We’ll share conversations together over delicious chef-prepared meals – and even a wine and cheese tasting of the Dordogne region’s specialities.
Helen and I are so excited to be able to share all of this with a small group of creative people.
Questions about booking?
To make sure that everyone has an amazing experience, we are partnering with UpTrek, who are experts at organising creative retreats.
Take a look at the booking page that we’ve put together with UpTrek. If you still have questions, you can reach out to UpTrek directly at contact@uptrek.com and they will be able to offer you advice and help.
Helen Sword is an internationally renowned writing expert and teacher, who helps writers of all disciplines around the world through her brilliant books and articles and her online WriteSPACE community.
Helen and I first met ten years ago, when I wrote to her after reading her extraordinary book, Air and Light and Time and Space: How Successful Academics Write. (Hint: This book is definitely not just for academics!) Her highly practical, rigorously researched and inspiring approach to writing has always resonated deeply with me and her latest book,Writing With Pleasure, is my all-time favourite.
Helen and I passionately believe that writing can be fun. We want to help you to reconnect with everything that is delicious, sensuous and joyful about writing. I could not be happier to be able to work with Helen on this Writing in Color retreat.
This is a unique retreat experience. As Helen and I live on opposite sides of the world, we’re not sure if or when we’ll manage to coordinate our schedules again anytime soon. If this retreat speaks to you, please do save your spot before we offer places out to a wider audience.
I really hope you’ll be able to join us for Writing in Color:
https://uptrek.com/retreat/writing-color-retreat-authors-helen-sword-sophie-nicholls-france
With love,
Sophie xoxo
💜 Please feel free to share these details with your writing friends. I’m so grateful for your support. 💜
I had no idea figs could even grow that big! Incredible. In a sweet synchronicity, Richard and I ate the first figs of the year off of our tiger fig tree today. For some reason, the figs this year are all bright green instead of their usual variegated stripes of yellow and lime, but it’s still something wonderful to walk into the back yard and eat something sweet that just grows right there.
Since my house is a celebration of the sacrament of everyday living, I’ve devoted the back yard to the sacrament of the sabbath, and so I don’t allow myself to do any work there at all (other than in the tending of the space, of course), and I think that forces me to slow down and find comfort. It’s a visual reminder that I see every morning when I open my curtains, every time I walk to my car in the garage, and every time I look out any of the back windows. There’s something powerful about having a space entirely devoted to rest. I can actually feel its pull sometimes. And even though it is hot here in the desert, this evening I just had to sit out there for a while and listen to the birds. I thought it would only be a moment, but it ended up being probably half an hour or more, and so I got a late start on making dinner. But that was okay. The rest and comfort were more important. Especially now.
One last thing: about thirty years ago I saw a movie called The Scent of Green Papaya, and while I don’t remember much of what the film was about, I remember being enchanted by the scenes of the lush tropical garden. I lived in Florida at the time and worked the night shift while in college, and so I got home a few hours after midnight. My apartment had a huge front yard (for an apartment, anyway) and a hose, and the manager allowed me to landscape it myself, so I decided to put in a garden with almost all white flowers. I didn’t have hydrangeas, but I had a bunch of powder blue butterfly bush and white crepe myrtles with hydrangea-like pompoms that almost glowed at night. I called it my “moonlight garden.” This being Florida, it rained a lot, and your writing about your garden reminds me of the mercurial moonlight dripping off all the leaves after a night rain. Now my yard is all accented with landscape lighting,so while I do have a bunch of white roses, oleander, and yerba mansa, I don’t think I have ever seen them reflecting moonlight. Funny how we forget about pleasures like that. Thank you, Sophie, for the reminder.