I find this very difficult. To do nothing. Switch off. Be in the moment. I’d like to get better at it. It’s been a busy year, and mostly for wonderful reasons – visiting my family in Melbourne at the start of the year, then the excitement of launching and promoting London Undercurrents, the poetry collection Joolz Sparkes and I had been working on together for five years. And devising and running a poetry workshop on endangered species, reading, writing, and not doing my accounts. On the downside, not sleeping well, taking ages to recover from a virus, only to feel ill again a short time later. Maybe my body is trying to tell me something?

I was looking forward to a quiet August. But then my local community garden got funding from Wandsworth Council to run a programme of events for the community over the summer holidays – hurrah! The only catch being that we had a very short period to organise everything, promote the programme, deliver it – with a small team of volunteers. August has been busy. And stressful at times. Anyoldhow, I am trying to ease off, and to learn to do nothing once in a while.

And it just so happens, one of the “activities” on offer in the garden’s summer programme is a Do Nothing Club on Thursdays 4-7pm. Nick and I came up with this idea a while back, walking home one evening and discussing ways of trying to get more people to visit the garden. I recalled my first visits to the garden, bringing veg scraps for the compost, and not knowing what else to do, though I loved the place and the idea of a community garden. Nick talked about feeling uncomfortable sitting reading, for example, while others are working in the garden. How about promoting the idea of Doing Nothing, a time to simply enjoy being in the garden without any pressure (real or imagined) to do something. Of course, doing nothing as a valid and important pastime is not original. I spotted Jenny Odell’s book, How to Do Nothing, in a bookshop window recently. I’m sure there’s a plethora of texts, theories and ancient wisdom on the topic. But sometimes personal experience is the best teacher.

So on the first Thursday of the Do Nothing Club, I headed over to the garden around 5pm. I took my journal with me. I sat in a favourite spot, on a bench in the herb maze, and the quiet, polite leader of the Club, none other than Nick, brought me a fresh mint tea, then left me in peace. I stretched my legs out, sipped mint tea, wrote an account of my day in my journal. Listened to the bird song – swifts, I think. Noticed a ball of string tucked between branches of the gorse bush. Left it there. Gazed at the weeds growing between paving stones. Left them alone. Spotted Nick picking blackberries. Decided that must be okay, since he’s the Leader. It was hard, doing nothing, but got easier. I felt the joy of being in that unruly beautiful urban space – simply being there. Practice makes perfect, I guess. I’m off there now, for the last session. And soon, a week away in rural France. Où je fais rien, peut-être.