Kitchen Journal

Sometimes I make a note book and I just want to keep on going, playing with it, dressing it up, shoving things between the pages, seeing how much it can hold and building it up to see when it bursts.

Then I remember. It's not my book.

What I really hope I've stitched into that book is the spirit of play.

I want you all to have that spirit with your notebooks. Just throw your cautions to the winds and enjoy yourself with crayons. It will do you good, believe me.

Drink a cup of tea and splatter your pages with the tea bag. Crush your pages together while they hold sprays of fresh flowers or leaves you collected from the walk. Add post-it notes and scribble and doodle and torn bits of magazines - see how the colours and shapes change your book.

Don't come to me and say, 'Wah! It's too nice to write in.' PAH. You can make it a lot nicer. You can make it Yours. Go on, claim it for your own.

Consider the notebooks a piece of collaborative art. I make the frame and you do the pictures. I offer you the format for your poem and you find the words. I give up the baking tray and you pour in the cake mix. You get the idea. Just give it a go. You can only make your note book more beautiful, because you're making it expressive of You and what could be more beautiful than that?