Please note this is an automated transcript and as a result it may contain errors

Katherine May: [00:00:00] Good morning from my dog walk where I am accompanying a very slow Fraggle around the streets of Whitstable. I’ve tried to take her to the sea, but she’s not having that at all today. She has an instinct for when the wind is a little too sharp and it makes her ears flap about, and she doesn’t like it. So we’re on the pavements instead, which I find much less satisfying.

But Spring has sprung, I think, or nearly at least, the birds are singing and I’m standing next to someone’s front lawn, which is covered in Crocuses. So it’s a little like being out in nature if in microscopic scale, I hope you’re all well. I am deep, deep into a final round of [00:01:00] edits. I say final round.

There’s never a final round of edits is there of my new book, which I think will be out next year. And it is a wildly frustrating process really because you just need so much time to think there’s no rushing it. If you rush it, you do a bad job. And so you have to let go of all the stuff that we are taught to do to be productive, you know, setting goals, giving yourself measurable targets, and instead you just have to keep going back over and over again to the work and, and seeing if you can make it a bit better.

And sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you do work on it that you then undo later. [00:02:00] Other times you do feel like you’ve generally made it better, but it’s so slow and you’re conscious all the time that people are waiting for you to make the next move. And you’re conscious all the time of your kind of human frailty, really your inability to really take the action that you’d like to take to really have control of the work that is yours.

That feels like you should be completely in control of it. I feel like I am in hibernation. And I’m unable to wake up until this is all done and all around me. The house is decomposing. [00:03:00] Everything is becoming more and more untidy and unruly. Ah, what it’s like to be in an author’s head during edits.

Anyway, I am delighted to offer you today an interview with Daisy Buchanan, who is a marvelous human being. She is the most productive writer I know. I don’t know how she does it, but she turns out an extraordinary number of books. All of them sparkling and witty and wise. I feel like if anyone understands the agony of the editorial process, it is Daisy, but she’s also evidence of how you can overcome it and still keep on writing and not be deterred in the way that I [00:04:00] solve.

For now, she’s offering us a lovely vision of retreat today that my heart yearns for. It is full of the glamour that she exudes. I think glamour being a word that once meant the control exerted over us by magic, and there is some magic to it. It’s just such a delicious conception of immersing in the thing that you love, which for Daisy is reading.

You will hear just how much she knows about books during this interview. And also the idea that there’s always something imminent there, that part of our rest is looking forward to things or recovering from good things. I’ll leave you with her so that you can listen and find out for yourselves, but I think this one will be a bal.[00:05:00] 

Daisy, welcome to the Clearing. 

Daisy Buchanan: I’m so happy to be here. 

Katherine May: Oh, it’s really good to have you here. It’s the, it’s the kind of tired end of the year as we’re recording and, uh, I think we could do with a little hour of kind of whimsical rest fantasy between the two of us. What do you think 

Daisy Buchanan: that I can do? This is pure wish fulfillment for me.

Um, you know, this is a place I, I want to visit. I want us all to be there and it’s kind of, you know, shape shifting and evolving. So let’s see what we can build together. 

Katherine May: Are you someone that finds it easy to rest? Is, is rest part of your repertoire? 

Daisy Buchanan: Katherine, we’ve known each other for while now. No, 

Katherine May: it’s 

Daisy Buchanan: a loaded question 

Katherine May: and 

Daisy Buchanan: I 

Katherine May: know it.

Daisy Buchanan: No, I’m not. I really, really wish I was. And it was funny last night. Um, something I’ve just got very into this year is a reiki meditation, and I’ve been singing a lovely healer called Rebecca, and it started with a gift. [00:06:00] I got a reiki facial voucher for my birthday, to be quite honest. At the time I thought, oh, I’m not really sure.

This is my thing. And I, my idea was that reiki is, they just wave their hands in front of your face and they don’t actually touch you. And so I was feeling a little bit. Cynical, 

Katherine May: like, what’s this gonna do for my actual face guys? Yeah. 

Daisy Buchanan: Yes. Come on la I’ve just turned 40. Could I not have had a voucher for some toxin fillers?

Um, or a mask, big mask? Um, no, no. All faces are beautiful. Aging is privilege. Uh, so, but I went to this place, I went to Rebecca and it took ages to get the appointment booked in as well because she’s very, you know, booked and busy and in demand. And I felt slightly grumpy about that. So with I’ll admit bad grace on a Thursday in August, I slept there to be there at nine o’clock and it was magical and extraordinary and transformative and, you know, lying on the table.

She took me to places that I didn’t expect to go to. So 

Katherine May: Wait, wait, wait. We have to clarify this ’cause that sounded erotic. Vaguely. I just, [00:07:00] just, just because I remember talking to you the day after that and you really felt like it had shifted loads of things in your life, didn’t you? It was really, it was a really beautiful tea.

You talk about it the day after. 

Daisy Buchanan: And actually what happened then is my mind really, really wondered, you know, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to empty my mind with that. I could, but I saw some very beautiful, very positive, very strong, um, imagery. And I felt that I was, you know, lighter and I had this clarity and I felt very safe.

And, you know, Rebecca’s hands get hot and cold and she sort of. Intuitively touches you, not in a way to make you feel uncomfortable and just sort of seems to note with 

Katherine May: full consent. 

Daisy Buchanan: She does these gorgeous monthly sessions, um, in Margate where I live. And there’s a group of us that’s normally 15, 20 of us all kind of lying down under our blankets and we do some breath work and it’s all very guided and there’s a sound bath element.

And [00:08:00] after my session with her, I wanted to go back and it’s always really magical and restorative. And I went yesterday and it wasn’t at the time magical and restorative at all. I was in a foul mood and I was upset about some petty things and upset with myself being upset and I just couldn’t switch off.

And my mind went around and around and around and around. Um, and the more I shouted at myself and thought, stop thinking woman for good, the sex. Like, Nope, sorry. We’ve got things to think about. Um. And so it was almost like, and sometimes I feel I’ve got an emotional version of food poisoning where it’s so dark and so intense, such it feels so endless, such a good, but no.

And when you’re in the pit, you’re like, I’m never going to stop feeling this awful. I’m never gonna stop throwing up. And then suddenly you kind of get to the end of it and you’re like, oh. I’m okay now. Mm-hmm. Um, and that’s what’s happened. So I am trying to, ’cause I would really, really, really love to be a person who meditates.

And [00:09:00] I think I do need to practice being still and practice not being in fight or flight. And as a, yeah, a neurodivergent, anxious woman. That is very much where I live and I have been thinking a lot about how I, I need to practice being calm, calmness. It’s a little, it’s look like writing a book actually, and doing exercise, doing anything and you, the things I need to do, you have to go to it.

It’s not going to come to you. That might be a knock on the door with a, you know, the gift of it. So yeah, I would love so much to have a quieter, stiller mind, but I’m trying very hard to think, well, my mind’s always been noisy and. That’s okay. 

Katherine May: Yeah, that’s great. And I, I mean, I know that you are an incredibly busy, incredibly driven, and I, you know, we often use that word negatively, but we shouldn’t an incredibly productive person.

So to find that space is really important, isn’t it? I think, you know, the [00:10:00] people that survive under the conditions that we put ourselves under do find that space, despite being busy, it’s really, it’s really crucial. It’s not a luxury and, 

Daisy Buchanan: but quite a lot of it is, is fun. And it’s not just worrying. Like the other day I was sort of lying awake at three o’clock in the morning being like, Hm.

I wonder if I could start a really beautifully curated secondhand bookshop and I could do this, oh do this. And I could do these mystery book packages. And I was really, really planning out and asking for myself like, come on now. This is not an idea for four o’clock in the morning. I was like, no, no, no, I’ve got this.

Katherine May: Oh no. That is very characteristic of a four o’clock in the idea in the morning idea, isn’t it? It’s that, 

Daisy Buchanan: you know what, it’s as well since, so I stopped drinking, um, about three and a half years ago. And I think I’ve still got quite a lot of kind of drunken thoughts or not sober thoughts. They, when you’re so, and they’re still spilling out and these are the things where, you know, once upon a time dinner party, I dunno, I dunno what I wanna do.

Um, [00:11:00] completely incomprehensibly. 

Katherine May: It turns out they were real. They weren’t just drunken thoughts, they were real thoughts that wanted to be born 

Daisy Buchanan: very. And I did just, I’m writing, I’m working on, um, a novel at the moment and a nonfiction book, and I’ve just had an idea for the novel after that. And it’s more, to be honest, at this stage, it’s much, much more of a, a vibe than a plot in my word.

I would love for it to become a plot, but I think perhaps because of the reiki and because of the year I’ve had, I thought, and also what’s really, really nice now is being at a point with my writing where I thought, oh, this always happens, doesn’t it when you get to a, but this means that the, the thing I’m working on, it has legs, it’s home and dry.

I’ve got to keep going up and serving that and being at my desk, but, and this is going to be waiting for me afterwards. 

Katherine May: Yeah, I think that’s, it seems to me that new ideas for most alive when you’re quite. [00:12:00] Entrenched in the other, in the other project. And then you realize you have to go through it to get to that next one and it’s, yeah.

Or did you just start, start writing several simultaneously? 

Daisy Buchanan: No. Oh God. But you know, who does, uh, is it Lauren? Lauren Goff who wrote, does she, um, yeah, I read this in a, a New Yorker profile and that’s why’s, that’s so wonderful’s so wonderful. And so kind of, I think she’s a real heavyweight. I like, how are you doing this?

You know, every couple of years you publish something brilliant. But it’s because she’s, um, she’s writing in more, how do you do it? Because, so funny. I think, you know, you have so many, but you have so many different things that you do. 

Katherine May: Yeah, I do like to keep busy actually. And I do, I do actually find that.

Although I, you know, although I sometimes overwhelm myself with trying to do too many things, um, it does help me to have a lot of things on the boil at once. I, it, it’s almost like I can only think backstage, not consciously. And so I have to be [00:13:00] working on another project to do the thinking that I need to do on a different project.

That if I’ve, if I’ve got too little to do, I mean, this is, you know, I, I can hear my mother telling me this when I’m three. Like, if I haven’t got enough to do, I get destructive. I start pulling everything apart. 

Daisy Buchanan: Oh, Matt, that makes so much sense to me. And I had this whole, every time, every, every sorting time, um, this summer I’d met a lot of deadlines and I had.

You know, I had a lot on and I, it felt a bit like I have run myself ragged and where is my parade? And I was really just mentally, emotionally tearing it to myself. Um, 

Katherine May: yeah. 

Daisy Buchanan: You know, picking things to bits, trying to sort of, you know, thinking, oh, but you know, it’s ’cause I’m not getting enough validation and rah and it still felt, and I thought, actually I went in the, you know, so the novel I have finished is out in [00:14:00] June and I was talking to someone about the, the menu books thing, and I thought, oh God, it’s the, the, the public bit of what we do.

Which I, I think I have a love-hate relationship with it wherein, you know, how I, oh, the fuss I make, but how sad I’d be if someone said, right, you don’t have to do it. They’re like, no, no, no. I just, you know, I would show up. I just watch. Very appreciated. But actually it’s the. Making the work. The thing, I’d so much rather be scared about deadlines and thinking creatively and being in the world of the project than thinking about how I am going to promote the project.

Katherine May: Yeah. I, and I, and the problem is that the promoting of the project can take all of your time if you let it. Mm. And I, you know, there was a couple of years there when I really didn’t do much writing at all because I, I just let that expand and I’ve [00:15:00] really realized now that I, I have to honor the writing first of all.

Like, that’s what I’m here for. I’m not here to promote stuff. I will obviously do that, but, you know, yeah. I’m not here for that. I’m here for the, for the actual writing. That’s the important bit. 

Daisy Buchanan: But I think with all of these things, we can’t know that about ourselves until, you know. Having the, you know, you having a, a book that has, you know, really, really like travels and I know we’ve talked a lot about careers where you get the thing that you think you’ve been praying for and then you’re like, oh, I didn’t realize 

Katherine May: it 

Daisy Buchanan: was gonna, like, oh, that was not what I thought was gonna, and 

Katherine May: yeah.

And 

Daisy Buchanan: we, you know, when I say I remember, you know, it may be, you know, when I sort of started writing and, you know, seeing people being at, um, at literary festivals and think, oh, you know, I’d love to be in that. You’re so, I’m so sort of cozy. And I thought it’s gonna be this like, lovely rarefied gang and I join all the authors and then I feel so truly, truly, truly, I [00:16:00] genuinely most, for the most part, I have a lovely time.

Mm-hmm. And it’s really good fun and I’m really, really happy to be there. But I do remember going on a, um, waiting for my. I think this weekend I had to get from Henley on Thames to Redding, to Stratford, to Barry St. Edmonds, back to London. I’d be like, 

Katherine May: that’s horrifying. 

Daisy Buchanan: But you know, but this is a, i, I can’t drive.

I think, you know, if you’re an author, he could drive. You’re laughing. 

Katherine May: Oh yeah. 

Daisy Buchanan: And rereading this brilliant book at the moment. I love it so much. I dunno if you know it’s a mortification. Oh 

Katherine May: no. Um, 

Daisy Buchanan: write stories of their public shame and that writing it 

Katherine May: down 

Daisy Buchanan: makes me feel very, very cozy. There’s the most amazing story in it’s, um, Maggie o’ Farrell.

So this was published in Do, do, do, do I think the 2004 2003. It was first published. So before, you know, Hamlet before everything. Yeah, 

Katherine May: yeah. Before, 

Daisy Buchanan: before she 

Katherine May: truly, when she was a [00:17:00] well-respected writer, but before she completely blew up. Yeah. 

Daisy Buchanan: But, um, Maggie o’ Farrell’s. Humiliation. It’s being sealed into a tiny, tiny radio booth somewhere and being piped into a different radio station somewhere else and hearing, and she was supposed to hear the music that was playing on the radio.

But what she heard was the conversation between host and producer and the host saying, why have you booked this woman? I’ve never heard of her. I hate having writers. This is stupid. And going on and off. 

Katherine May: Yeah, there is. There is so much mortification in being a writer. But anyway, this is why we need to take a rest, Daisy.

Yes. ’cause we need to like escape our own public persona sometimes. So I am gonna land you in my clearing. Welcome. But it’s actually your clearing. Thank you. Having me. So tell me where you are in the world here. What’s the landscape? 

Daisy Buchanan: This is so bougie, but when you [00:18:00] said the premise, I couldn’t stop thinking about.

Stud. We are going to a snowy chalet, um, up in the mountains. 

Katherine May: You’re so fancy. I love this 

Daisy Buchanan: about so fancy. It’s a hotel I was once lucky enough to be sent to when I was writing a feature about not being able to ski and skiing for the first time, which is how I wrangled that one. And it’s part that park grand be the best hotel, I guess.

Oh, yes. And so we get, and there’s, you can see the, um, it’s twilight and the trees are just turning from green to black and the branches are draped in snow and there’s snow in the ground and the snow feels really crisp and powdery. And we’ve arrived by this tiny, uh. Sort of golden train that’s gone all along the mountain ranges, and then possibly come in a holster and carriage where the horses are, you know, very well looked after.

And you know, of 

Katherine May: course 

Daisy Buchanan: [00:19:00] that’s all fine. 

Katherine May: Very happy horse and carriage. 

Daisy Buchanan: Um, in the hotel lobby, um, the fire is roaring. I’m given a glass of magical non-alcoholic champagne that has all the properties of champagne. And, um, my bags are taken to my room and I am invited to, I’m sort of, someone else is checking me in.

Um, and then I’m going back down to, there’s a library and a, a roaring fire, um, that sounds lovely. And a cake trolley and on the premises, a, a sauna, um, of, with an ice bath of course, which I’ll be, of making, you’ll 

Katherine May: be partaking 

Daisy Buchanan: shortly. 

Katherine May: Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. Okay. So. Wow, this is absolutely lovely. I am in kind of fancy Wes Anderson Heaven.

Um, does this hotel contain other guests or do you have the run of it yourself? 

Daisy Buchanan: I was thinking about this and, [00:20:00] you know, neurodivergent woman, neurodivergent woman. Do I want to be. 

Katherine May: I don’t want 

Daisy Buchanan: other people that with people or wanna be alone. And I, what I thought was what I, I like the idea that I am anticipating a grand ball or a party or something.

Something in my immediate future that feels like great fun. Well, I’ll be getting dressed up. But for now, that’s just a delicious possibility. 

Katherine May: Mm-hmm. 

Daisy Buchanan: And I am relaxing. I’m certainly alone in the library where there’s another roaring fire and I think a big soft sectional velvet sofa and a lectin of rugs and blankets and yeah, I uh, I have the run of that cake trolley.

Katherine May: We couldn’t make you share a cake trolley. That would be unreasonable. 

Daisy Buchanan: Imagine. Yeah, 

Katherine May: imagine. Absolutely 

Daisy Buchanan: not. 

Katherine May: Imagine sharing the cake. Truly 

Daisy Buchanan: outrageous. I think that every so often someone sticks their head in and just makes sure there are enough logs on the fly, on the fire and ask me if I’d like another hot chocolate.

Katherine May: Oh, so you have great service [00:21:00] and I wonder if what you really need, because this isn’t a full vision of solitude in lots of ways. Is it? It’s, it’s about being in a, in a really, in a public place that feels like it meets your needs almost. Um, I wonder if there’s a kind of background cast of people being interesting and fascinating and glamorous, but fundamentally not bothering you.

Daisy Buchanan: But I think that’s why I love reading so much. Reading. Sometimes you 

Katherine May: put it with you. 

Daisy Buchanan: Yeah. It feels like closing your eyes and letting the party sort of verbal around you. Deliciously. And maybe in my clearing, that’s, who’s that? I cannot think life of me, what her name is, but I know in, um, diary of a Provincial Lady in the later book, sort of in the war year, she’s got that fantastically glamorous, I think a, a London neighbor who’s always sort of popping, not lady box.

I don’t want lady box there. She’s ll as, um, but the one who’s always sort of having an affirm with two kernels at [00:22:00] once. Um, and there’s this sort of, you know, delicious kind of babbling sense. It maybe as well the, um, the cousins from the Catholic Chronicles. I think they’d be good gear. Yeah. It’d be nice to have around if you, if you lit for heroines.

That’s the vibe. 

Katherine May: Oh, you could have, I mean, you could have the whole Mitford clan. But maybe not fighting. That’d be quite nice if they were, yeah. Maybe not the fascist ones, 

Daisy Buchanan: I think, I think I would rather have the characters than the actual sisters. Now I, that’s fair enough. Now I think of it. 

Katherine May: Yeah. 

Daisy Buchanan: And I’ve always loved, um, Olivia Curtis from Invitation to the Waltz, and if you could sort of catch her at, have you read, um, the Weather in the Streets, which is sort of the sequel about the effect, but that’s devastating.

So sort of a happy Olivia Curtis between two books I think would be nice. 

Katherine May: Okay. Yeah. So we have, and we have the prospect of a ball. So are you prepping for that? You know, are there, uh, beauty treatments and dresses being tried on? 

Daisy Buchanan: Yeah, so I think at some point between the [00:23:00] library, some of this will be me in.

This is, you know, solitude, absolutely enormous bath. Oh, with, I think Florist Knight centered Jasmine or maybe a Suzanne Kaufman Bath oil, um, that I will specify, um, an effective heated towel rail, because in my experience, they’re a bit hit and miss. 

Katherine May: Oh, not the rubbish ones that you can’t actually fit the towels on.

I find those so annoying. 

Daisy Buchanan: I want to, you know, it’s like in, um, in the Great Gatsby and Daisy with the shirts, I want that, but with towels, I want like all the enormous white, fluffy towels, like in the infinite towels. And then 

Katherine May: you could just roll in towels on the floor when you 

Daisy Buchanan: wanna get dry. But maybe later, oh yeah, I think someone’s going to come to give me a, a blow dry.

Katherine May: Beautiful. So it’s that there’s something about the state of anticipation here that’s making it feel so restful and so diverting. Tell me, [00:24:00] do you ski at all during this retreat or would you just not bother with that nonsense? 

Daisy Buchanan: Ooh, I don’t, I think I do. I mean, I do quite like the, I, and I think Bob Mortimer talks about this delightful, about how delicious it is to, to come home from being out and when you’ve gone out and it’s been a bit cold and a bit hard, didn’t really want to, and then when you come in it’s just heavenly.

But maybe a bit of a snowy walk would 

Katherine May: Yeah. 

Daisy Buchanan: Do that. Um, I mean, I suppose what’s quite like as well as if you know conditions that if someone said, better not ski, it’s not safe out there, it’s too snowy. You can have a bit of a walk in the grounds. 

Katherine May: Can it be too snowy to ski? I dunno anything about skiing, but, 

Daisy Buchanan: well, to be honest, neither do I, I would assume that when, if it’s, when it’s falling and visibility’s bad, that’s probably not.

Unless you’re kind of a real, you know, Olympic training ninja, which I’m, you know, even in this fantasy I’m not. [00:25:00] So I would like to be liberated from the obligation of it by someone saying, no, no, no, you mustn’t. 

Katherine May: So it’s a ski free ski break. Um, okay. I mean, that, that just sounds absolutely delicious. And as you know, I’m also a fan of the snowy landscape, so I think, I think I’d quite enjoy this.

Um, we asked whether there was something you’d bring with you from home, some, an item that would kind of comfort you or, so even something practical, what would you bring with you? 

Daisy Buchanan: I found this question quite difficult and I didn’t really know why that’d be, I was thinking about a. A notebook might be good to have.

And then I, I get quite annoyed with note. I dunno that I’ve ever found a notebook I’ve really loved and I’ve been looking. Mm. But it would be, but 

Katherine May: you, do you write by hand a lot though? 

Daisy Buchanan: Yeah. I try to do morning pages. Mm. Um, [00:26:00] I like a hard back a five notebook when it’s available, but, um, and I was also thinking maybe, um, maybe some of my very fantasy silk pajamas.

Does it, does it feel like you’ve got day Barbara Carland on the podcast? 

Katherine May: I see. Yes, it does. And I, I’m not sorry about that in any way. Fantasy silk pajamas sounds wonderful though. Tell me, describe them to me. 

Daisy Buchanan: Ooh, you know what I’m going off on. So, um, me and my friend Youth Ruth at university, that was a Brill.

Um, Freud you’d said was me and my friend youth, my last youth, um, oh, 

Katherine May: me and my friend youth at university. 

Daisy Buchanan: We had some, we, so

we had a moment of watching Velvet Goldmine a lot. Mm. Um, and someone in that, I dunno if [00:27:00] it’s maybe one of Mark Boland’s girlfriends, just a fantastic kind of vivid bright orange silk dressing gown trimmed with hot pink ostrich feathers. And I coveted that, or a version of that. And I think maybe I do want the, the Barbara Cartland special something.

There’s a, um, pajama designer called Olivia Von Hull. Um, and. Though the, the price tags a, a little ripe even for me, for those that sort of, thank God for 

Katherine May: sea retreats. 

Daisy Buchanan: Um, but I think, you know, something that’s that lovely, this idea, a very sort of heavy, comforting, thick silk and a kind of some, you know, a lilac trim with cream mbu or 

Katherine May: Oh wow.

Daisy Buchanan: Real kind of, you know, Jacqueline, Suzanne Starlet pajama 

Katherine May: and the matching slippers as well. 

Daisy Buchanan: Yes, I think so. Slippers, it’s another thing that I have trolled the internet, finding something that isn’t too. [00:28:00] Too twe or too hilarious. And I think if they could look like a sort of fab, like, you know, a a men’s smoking slipper Oh yeah.

But lined in sheep skin or something. Quilted, maybe. A tassel, yes. Yeah. Yeah. So they’re soft and delicious on the inside, but quite, you know, tough, the armadillo of the slipper world. I was thinking of the dime bar advert. 

Katherine May: Yeah. It’s like a kind of slipper unicorn though, because it’s so, like, why does nobody design the perfect anything?

It it, these things seem so obvious to me how they should be, and yet they don’t exist. 

Daisy Buchanan: Prevailing trend seems to be for, you know, slippers are sort of like. As ugly as its possible to be in all areas. It’s like un uncomfy on the inside. Horrible on the outside. Nobody wants this. 

Katherine May: I like a slipper. You can walk down the shops in though.

I have to say yes, I have. I only buy the same pair of slippers every year, which is the German haflinger, which is not even fully an indoor slipper. It’s an outdoor clog, which I’ve [00:29:00] repurpose. But um, yeah, I like to sort of, I just like to live my life in my slippers if, if at all possible. I mean, just shoes are hard work, aren’t they?

Daisy Buchanan: I, I went to a party this weekend and I had a real stop. Let’s be frank, because 

Katherine May: you’ve made yourself sound like you continually throw tantrums since the beginning of this. 

Daisy Buchanan: I’m Barbara Lin. I’m Elton John, and like I just want to be in my silk pajamas having a patty. But it was a real, a situation where I just didn’t have any.

I’m all, I all shoes are uncomfortable. I’ve got really big wide feet 

Katherine May: and will we have any kind of starlet. You know, um, or sorry, yeah. Starlet tantrums as part of this, I mean, is 

Daisy Buchanan: there diva 

Katherine May: behavior? I 

Daisy Buchanan: to this said, you said that I suddenly thought, not starlit, but Yes. I thought that star starlit. 

Katherine May: Yeah, sorry.

Daisy Buchanan: I thought this bathroom where the bath is, I’d love it to be sort of part conservatory. Not so I can just blame myself. So I’d love to [00:30:00] see the snow falling and the stars and actually when, at this amazing place I stayed in Gtad, there was a little a, a wraparound balcony so you could go out and look, which is amazing.

But I’d love to, to be gazing outta them while I’m in the bath. 

Katherine May: So we also ask if you. Want to bring a kind of artifact of culture that will entertain or sustain you during your time there. I feel like I’m about to experience an avalanche of books.

Daisy Buchanan: Well, I did think, and it’s probably already there in the library, but that I would have to bring the, the seated love, um, by Nancy Mitford just because for that cozy clearing feeling of big country houses and fires. Um, and it’s just, it’s a book that I’ve, it’s been in my life for a long time. And I think what I love is it’s, it’s also, it’s very comforting because it’s a book about things not being perfect and lots of it, you know, [00:31:00] everything’s kind of shabby and falling down and you know that the first ball is a bit of a disaster.

Um, you know, when Linda’s living with Christie and the Communist and has that amazing passage where she talks about how wild it is that. They used to, you know, when she went out hunting, they’d have to rest afterwards and be given eggs. But, you know, housework is so much worse and no one gives you eggs at the end.

And then the, you know, she gets to go luxury with Fabrice and like in the Paris flat and this sort of image of her suddenly. And it’s, uh, it’s a bad feminist message. And I don, she’s, you know, she meets this man. She knows that everything’s going to be all right. And of course it’s, it’s not all right. Um, lots of things happen, but also I love that it’s, and I was trying to think of other books in this genre.

Genre where. The narrator is not the main character that it’s Fanny telling the story, but it’s not her story. Right. In her world, we don’t see very much of it. As, you know, she marries knocks with dawn and it’s a bit dreary and a bit [00:32:00] boring and it’s wartime and you know, Linda and her sort of flashes of glamor, alivening everything up.

So I just, I feel that book feels like home to me and I really adore it and it feels like a, a taliman and a very soft place to land and a bit of a comfort blanket. 

Katherine May: When did you first read it? 

Daisy Buchanan: Oh, I think I was 12 and 

Katherine May: Oh wow. So it’s a really long standing. Love this book. 

Daisy Buchanan: Well, and it was right before, um, gosh, I think we had a first school English exams or something, and a teacher, um, Mr.

Heneman said something like, for revision read. Please read a book for the love of God. Just read anything. That’s all. That was just, just a book that I’m not baking. You read, just, just read something and I dunno if my mom gave it to me or if I picked it off up off a shelf. And I, I liked how it was very like, sort of Tatty, orange Penguin paperback, and it was slim, you know?

Mm-hmm. It wasn’t [00:33:00] intimidating in any way. And that, I wish I could remember the first line off the top of my head, which I could do with some prompting, but it’s, it, it’s about the, um, oh, that is it. It starts with, um, Fanny describing this picture of the, of the family, of the Rattles. And it’s a very inviting book.

And I think the, because you know, you are being told the story by someone who’s in the family, but a bit of an outsider because she’s a cousin, it immediately feels like you’ve got her. 

Katherine May: Mm. 

Daisy Buchanan: She’s, she’s on everyone’s side. She’s on the readers side. And I think that was it, that it starts. It’s about their childhood and their teenagehood.

So it felt very familiar to me initially. And then they grow up and they have affairs and it does get a bit sexy and a bit exciting and I felt so guided by it and it’s such a good, I think in a way if it, you know, if Nancy Mitford had been published a hundred years after she was, I wonder if it had been marketed or positioned as ya or something.

And it’s that kind of interesting. Yeah. And it actually go [00:34:00] thinking about, you know, the catalyst, which I came to much later, which really has that feel of. Tenderness and friendship throughout and it’s so funny and it’s always a delicious thing. I think when you read, you know, quote unquote an old book and you think, oh, it’s just going to be quite about, 

Katherine May: yeah, it hard.

It speaks directly to your life and there is this a kind of origin myth for you as a reader then? Were you, were you as big? I mean you are an extraordinarily, extraordinarily kind of wide ranging, but also like passionate reader. You know, you read so deeply into the books that you love and you know them so well.

Were you that reader before this book? It feels like there’s a real, you know, story here for you. 

Daisy Buchanan: I do remember wanting to go back to the same books over and over again for comfort and feeling that there was. You know that you should also read new [00:35:00] books. But the, the difference between now to read a book and that now to, to hold close the thing I need.

And I remember having that feeling with ballet shoes and that was a book I just wanted to be in. And a bit with little women as well, which, and I, you know, I dunno if it was something about like the, the gangs and the women and the sisters noticing different things each time. 

Katherine May: Well, ’cause you are one of many sisters as well.

Daisy Buchanan: Yeah, I’m the eldest of six girls. And I think those books about the strangeness of, of big families where you are not, you know, it’s not all sort of like intimacy and happy secrets and lovely times and giggling. It’s murderousness mostly and 

Katherine May: plotting each other’s demise. 

Daisy Buchanan: I mean, one sort of side plot. And I, you know, often think as well about.

Oh, the, the, the novels I would love to write, which are purely fan fiction, where there’s a character who I would love to [00:36:00] find out more about and take their story. And there’s um, uh, Jessie in the Pursuit of Love, who is all that on Christmas Day when she opens her stocking, the first thing she does is sell everything in her stocking to her sisters and brother to add to her running away fund.

And she’s always worked out. How much is her? She’s got like something like two weeks, three days, and half an hour in a bed sitter in London, including BA ’cause she’s just like, I am gonna run away the soon, soon as I have the opportunity. And no one really challenges her on this. Mm-hmm. And I wonder, I mean, something I do is a lot, um.

Now, you know, the more I know about myself and I think about the books I really love, I’m like, Ooh, like in The Pursuit of Love is also about great Uncle Matthew, a father. And there’s an amazing line where Fannie says something about how, you know, if they’d been, if things had been different and there hadn’t been, you know, the titles and the money, you know, the [00:37:00] children would’ve been taken away from their roaring whacking papapa and put into cab because they were aristos.

It just, 

Katherine May: it was 

Daisy Buchanan: as it goes. And yet there’s someone in my family who is, you know, hugely loving, but prone to mood swings and rages, like never, ever violent rages. But it was a lot to grow up with. I found it very comforting to see that and have that almost made a joke of and made tolerable. 

Katherine May: Mm. 

Daisy Buchanan: And I sort of see it as well in the way that Linda is always seeking something and she’s much married, and these are people who are.

Bored and seeking stimulation. Mm. And you know, I think I see that in ballet shoes too. And obviously, you know, with tro, but, and that mix of kind of, I think that’s why I’ve booked so much because I, I want to be alone and I will accompany and books the only thing of the world that do both, 

Katherine May: there’s that mirror there, but not only the mirror, but also the fantasy of escape, which, uh, is really compelling in [00:38:00] that book for you.

Like, you know, how do we get away? How do we, how do we find escape velocity from the, the families that we grow up in? It’s such a, such a huge question. And most of us never quite manage it. I think they have, they have gravity. Our families don’t they? They, they pull us in. 

Daisy Buchanan: They really, really do. And I guess that’s why it’s such a.

A theme and the, the fiction I’m drawn to and even books like, I mean, another one I love, which I, you know, talk about constantly, and I’m sure Marion Keys is, I don’t think there’s a book that nails the complexity of families and sisters like mm-hmm. Rachel’s Holiday, which is about, you know, Rachel being such a, a lost sheep and she wants to put countries between her and her family, and she’s in New York and she gets dragged back and, but then.

Finds her other family in rehab and I think about that incredible scene where her, um, I think her mom and dad and her [00:39:00] sister Helen come in and Helen’s the young, beautiful one and everyone is in love with her and poor Rachel was so, you know, feels so jealous and just, I don’t think he even jealous, just like less than in inferior.

I just think every time I, especially, you know, at the time of recording, it’s a time for conversations about families and lots and lots of images everywhere about shiny and what we’re gonna do for Christmas, happy and all that kind of stuff we’re gonna do for Christmas. 

Katherine May: Yeah. 

Daisy Buchanan: Um, I don’t know many books that don’t cover in some detail.

Yeah. How complicated families are and how challenging it still is to, to survive them. How we never really finished with that journey. 

Katherine May: Do you think on this retreat you are reading to escape or to heal? 

Daisy Buchanan: Oh. I hope I’m reading to heal. I’m hoping to draw strength from the experience. Um, sometimes though I wish I was a [00:40:00] little better at kind of letting myself escape, I think as a, a sober woman.

And I think maybe, you know, because I turned 40 this year, and the, I’ve really, the being in my thirties was very much about me really learning to confront stuff and trying to be brave and going, if you don’t want to do it, go over there and do it. You know? Um, yeah, 

Katherine May: yeah. 

Daisy Buchanan: Hold the tarantula, grasp the, the nettle and actually, oh wow.

There’s room for, I mean, I, not, not literally heaven know. No, not literally. Um, but maybe it would be nice to, to make more room for escape and to. Recognize that as legitimate, because when I was little, I was, I was such a, a detailed daydreamer. 

Katherine May: Mm. 

Daisy Buchanan: And you know, maybe, I suppose now sort of call it manifesting.

And I was, um, bullied at school and I, [00:41:00] I wasn’t very happy and it’s quite complicated and I wasn’t really able to be in the moment when I was a child. But I was like, well, I mean, yeah, I was planning the Barbara Cartland life. I was like, I’m going to be a I, before I knew what an ego was, that was, I just, I wanted to be Barbara Stre sent Katherine.

I was, you know, going to be like, well, obviously I’ll, I’ll write to the film and I’ll win the Oscar and I’ll win another Oscar for singing the song so beautifully. Which, 

Katherine May: oh, 

Daisy Buchanan: sadly, no. The Peaceful Sing, the Voice is not something I manifested, but, and I don’t, and I think those fantasies made me feel very safe.

But, you know, I kind of. Clunky them. I remember another book I remember reading and Loving so much is, um, the story of Tracy Beaker and when I read it Yeah. Which of, you know, her, her fantasy is that her mother is a movie star and she’s gonna come and get her. Yeah. And she 

Katherine May: has, she’s sustained by these incredible fantasies, isn’t she?

Of, you know, of her future greatness. 

Daisy Buchanan: And I think I’ve read it when I was about seven, and I [00:42:00] did, it didn’t ever occur to me when I was reading it that like, that wasn’t true. I was like, well, of course her mom’s a movie 

star. 

Katherine May: Yeah, yeah, 

Daisy Buchanan: of course. She’s coming for her. 

Katherine May: Yeah. I was, I, we’ve talked about this before, but my equivalent to your MDs is Adrian Mold Diaries, which like, which is interesting because it, it perfectly reflects my life at the time as well being, you know, an only child, a bit of a weirdo, um, you know, parents at war, you know?

Yeah. And I, I fully believed his. Claim that he was gonna be an intellectual one day. I, I thought that was really aspirational. It was only when I was older, I realized it was supposed to be stupid. Um, and I Yeah, 

Daisy Buchanan: I I didn’t realize that wasn’t a job. 

Katherine May: That’s right. Yeah. I didn’t realize it, but I also didn’t realize that it was kind of sad that he thought that, or it was supposed, we were supposed to kind of slightly mock him.

Although of course, I mean, it’s a, it’s a very warm book. It’s, you know, we don’t, we’re not supposed to despise it, but we’re supposed to find it a little bit silly. Um, and I, I found it [00:43:00] deeply aspirational and I kind of thought the same. It’s really interesting that you have turned to writing a book about a big group of sisters then this year that’s coming out in June.

Daisy Buchanan: Yes. So the, um, all grown up is my retelling of, um, little women, um, with a contemporary setting. It’s set, um, just outside Manchester in Cheshire, and it’s really about their mother, Louisa and how. She has been, she had Meg when she’s very, very young and she’s been raising children and now she thinks finally they’re out of the house and she can start to figure things out and, but they all come back.

Um, and I am really interested in, you know, that gap, which I think now and, you know, you are, you are the parent of a teenager. Like how growing up, is it faster and slower than it’s ever been? How difficult It’s everything. 

Katherine May: Yeah. Yeah. 

Daisy Buchanan: You know, prepare anyone [00:44:00] for a, a very strange world. Um, and how these, you know, and I think I, to hopefully to, to comic effect, I really, really wanted to play out how Louis Zer is just so infuriated with her daughter’s, kind of seemed inability to think for themselves and you know, get anything done and how and as well, ’cause Joe is working in publishing and.

Editing but not writing the book. She always dreamed of writing. But the difference between, and then I think my first draft, it was a bit, ’cause you know, it, it’s one of those books as well where you are, you’re just having a lovely time, spending time with the people and you’re like, oh, but they do need to be together to move the story on.

So I’d written these scenes about Joe being the sort of professional powerhouse at work and then, you know, coming back to her family and um, you know, just sort of shuffling about in front of the tv, leaving a trailer of biscuits in her wake, 

Katherine May: which is absolutely what we do, being professional powerhouses [00:45:00] all day.

So, Daisy, it’s coming to the end of your retreat. Woo. I know, I know. It does end eventually, but it only ends when you want it to. So how do you know when it’s time to go? What are the, what are the signals for you that begin to make you think, I think it’s time to go back to the real world? Or is that never you want to live in this lovely, glamorous, snowy world for for good.

Daisy Buchanan: My first thought is, you know, you know, maybe it’s a long weekend and I’m, you know, getting ready to, to go back on Monday. I would love to feel the uncertainty of it, maybe to have a, you know, stay if you know, to, like you can stay as long as you need to and you can figure out what that is. I mean, something I really struggle with myself is even when something is lovely, a bit of impatience and anxiety around getting to the ending.

Um, 

Katherine May: right. 

Daisy Buchanan: A bit of a worry, I think about. Letting go knowing that I’ll [00:46:00] have to, you know, sort of snap back to it and get on. And I think that’s something, I mean, when I was drinking as well, like you just, you didn’t, I didn’t have to deal with that because it was, you know, just, just like numb, I think. 

Katherine May: Yeah.

Daisy Buchanan: I probably, you know, I drank the way I drank and I drank too fast because I just, I didn’t want, you know, that delicious slow, but I just want to rush to that stage of oblivion. Yeah. I don’t know. ’cause I think I probably want to stay for after this party. ’cause I really want a, a kind of restorative, 

Katherine May: there’ll be gossip afterwards as well.

Oh 

Daisy Buchanan: yes. So that lovely. The old, um, a few weeks ago I had a friend to stay, um, she came for a gig. We went to see, we had to sleeper at Dreamland, 40 something Women New night. Um, and I. Afterwards, we were assisting on the safe drinking coffee in our pajamas in the morning. I thought, oh, this is lovely. Yeah, it’s been a while since.

And I, you know, I drink coffee in bed with my husband, but just that kind of studenty feeling of yeah, everyone [00:47:00] in, you know, having a sort of, that, a cozy, cozy morning, the gossip, um, a lavish breakfast. And then, um, I’d probably like a, a big walk in the sun and the snow. And then maybe that’s when I, you know, go to the sauna and do the, the cold plunge.

Yeah. Maybe there’s a, I can have a brief dip in an icy place. Um, 

Katherine May: maybe, maybe there’s a lake for you. Like there’s a mountain lake. That’d be lovely. We cut a hole in the ice and, and plunge in. 

Daisy Buchanan: Amazing. And I don’t think they, yeah, we 

Katherine May: can make that. 

Daisy Buchanan: I don’t think there are jellyfish in lakes. 

Katherine May: Probably some legs.

Fish. No jellyfish fish. No. No. Pike I think. Excellent. Maybe the odd pike to worry about, but I’m sure that’s fine. 

Daisy Buchanan: So maybe a kind like an after party day. Yeah, I can, yeah. No, no Pike. The pike have been, um, 

Katherine May: yeah. 

Daisy Buchanan: Asked to make themselves scarce for my dip. Yes. And then that’s I think lovely [00:48:00] sauna, big lunch, another bath, a nap.

Um, a wholesome dinner. 

Katherine May: Mm-hmm. 

Daisy Buchanan: An early night, maybe a few repeats. A task master. Yeah. And then I think I’ll be ready to, that’s that crucial 20 retreat. Me and my husband just went on this, um, amazing trip to New Zealand, which was like a retreat I 

Katherine May: was about to say. And you were there for weeks and weeks and weeks.

It’s very different to your long weekend. You were there fors. 

Daisy Buchanan: We, uh, got the ferry from Wellington to Pickton and, uh. It was only about three or four hours and I’d booked as a cabin and I couldn’t remember if I’d booked the cabin or not. Um, and it was one of those things where it wasn’t that expensive to do and I thought, oh, is it silly?

’cause you know, we know it’s not overnight, won’t sort of be there that long when I was in there and, you know. A little bed for the two of us and a pothole, and a Kelly and an en suite. And honestly, you know, the online questionnaires and surveys we’re like, you know, are you [00:49:00] autistic? And I just feel like my autism could be measured in the delight about being in that cabin and not having to go to any of the public spaces on the ferry.

And we ate Whitaker’s chocolate and we watched, um, repeat task master on YouTube, and we looked at the pothole and we saw extraordinary things. I’m really gutted because my husband saw many dolphins, frog king, and I couldn’t see the dolphins. Um, 

Katherine May: the dolphins were visible to you. They didn’t want you to see them.

Daisy Buchanan: They were, um, they talked to those pike and they were like, no, sorry, you can’t, 

Katherine May: they’re like, yeah, no, avoid her. 

Daisy Buchanan: That journey, um, is one of the highlights of the trend. Yeah. I was so happy and I was like, I’m watching, um, taskmaster on a little telly that we’ve, um, chrome past YouTube 

Katherine May: sometimes. That’s just all you need though, isn’t it?

I love this. I love this vision of the retreat ending with you watching Task Buster in bed after the glamor of the night before. We are now just, yeah, it’s, and of course [00:50:00] laughter is really important to you. You’ve taken up improv this year, which is incredible. 

Daisy Buchanan: I have, and it’s, ah, Katherine, I just love it so much.

You love it 

Katherine May: so much. I know. I love how hard you love it. 

Daisy Buchanan: It’s so silly. It’s so gloriously, gloriously silly. And what’s absolutely delicious is, I mean, I I love that you can’t do homework, you can’t prepare. That’s the whole point. Yeah. I mean, a state of constant anxiety that I’m, I’ve not prepared enough and I’ve not done enough work.

Yeah. Because I have a hobby that’s like, there is no homework. You, you just show up. You just show and do it. Yeah. But also the way it’s like, I think being on the most tremendous in joke, but sort of instantly, and I would never, ever, ever, ever ask anyone to watch me doing improv. ’cause I don’t think anyone wants that.

But, um, although I think you’ve suffered through a couple of, I’ll come very kind. Um, but. It’s, I think an almost an instant [00:51:00] family feeling that I’m seeking. ’cause if you’ve got people who just want to do it for the same reasons of the, the silliness, the collaboration, you can’t really have any stars. You just gotta like listen and figure out.

And also what I love is, ’cause I do, every time I write, I think, I hope I’m funny to do. I can’t think of anything funny. What if I’m not funny? And then sometimes if you’re lucky, it does just come out. But improv is tapping into that. But you’re not the, the laughter, it’s never sort of premeditated. Yeah.

And it’s absurd what tickles you. And there are some kinds of objectively hilarious things that don’t do it. And it just takes a, a silly noise or a gesture. You’re gone. 

Katherine May: And you’re gone. Yeah. Spontaneous, actual laughter. Mm-hmm. I love that. 

Daisy Buchanan: It’s joy. I think it’s, 

Katherine May: yeah. 

Daisy Buchanan: It’s the most joyful thing I do. 

Katherine May: Well, it’s that, that is a mini retreat in itself, isn’t it?

An hour of just laughing stupidly is [00:52:00] just, is exactly what you need. Sometimes I think crying with laughter is a, is a one of life’s great places. So I’m sending you home. I’m so sorry. Uh, but I know that you’ll have stuff that you wanna get back to. I, I know that you’ll be starting to think about all of the things that you wanna do.

Is there something that you bring back home with you, either an item or an idea from your retreat to remind you of, of the time you had there? 

Daisy Buchanan: Ooh, the pajamas for sure. Of course, of course. And the cake trolley getting that in my suitcase. Yeah. 

Katherine May: Yeah. 

Daisy Buchanan: And maybe it is a, a delicious novel in this, which a source of, I mean, my fantasy would be, I mean, I’m one of my fate and again, that family feeling and the funness and the brilliance, I, there is nothing I wouldn’t give to write like Katherine Heney, but she’s, so, I hate when people [00:53:00] say so unique because I is unique or isn, but you know, she’s unique and brilliant and, um, I’m just, I’m very, very lucky to live in a world where I get to read her.

But that kind of, sort of comedy of manners sounds so, I dunno, Faye and Twe, but that, to write something that funny and that a very. Not quite cozy, but yet to have, you know that the warmth of it in something skewering, but affectionate and I do and also I do find it maybe the escapism is the sort of the setting, you know, that’s the fantasy of the retreat, isn’t it?

I think of like, of abundance, where everything is a tap that will flow freely. You can have, 

Katherine May: yeah, 

Daisy Buchanan: anything and everything. 

Katherine May: Everything you need that you want. Yeah. I wonder if then what happens is that you find an unknown, fantastically good comedy of manners on that library shelf that you bring back an offer to the world.

I feel like that would be the greatest [00:54:00] glory for you. Just like I have discovered this lost classic and it will roar out through the world with your name forever associated with it. 

Daisy Buchanan: Oh, that would be a, a really, a lovely, generous thing to share, wouldn’t it? 

Katherine May: Yeah. 

Daisy Buchanan: There are so many books that I wish were more beloved and more known about.

Laurie Colwin is your favorite writer’s, favorite writer. Um, 

Katherine May: I do not know them. 

Daisy Buchanan: So she famously wrote, um, a sort of food, oh God, I hate word foodie, but you know, a food, a food member, a recipe book called Home Cooking. Another one called More Home Cooking. And she is, I think the vibe is a little bit neuro, it’s very, very seventies New York.

And I think her novels like this non-problematic Woody Allen films, um, 

Katherine May: non-problematic, 

Daisy Buchanan: happy all the time is probably her best known. That’s one of my favorite, favorite books. And that’s just about these two young men, um, Vince Guido and the women, they end up marrying, um, Holly and Misty, and. That’s it.

And [00:55:00] there’s mild peril and the odd bit that gets a bit fraught, but it’s just funny and it’s about the combining of families. And it’s really a story about Misty, a perpetually anxious woman who cannot quite get ahead around the waspy world that she’s been drawn into of kind of. But it’s that kind of a bearable, very, very seventies privilege where there’s, it’s nothing like the wealth and excess that we know today.

It’s just a sort of steady sense that things are going to work out okay. 

Katherine May: Things are okay. 

Daisy Buchanan: Yeah. A 

Katherine May: sort of certainty that, yeah. But 

Daisy Buchanan: then she wrote a phenomenal novel called Family Happiness, which is about a woman who doesn’t know how trapped she is by her family and her marriage and is having an affair and is blissfully happy only she just cannot live with the guilt of it all.

And she’s really, really smart about monogamy and fidelity, and I think that’s sort of. Her legacy is what’s inspiring Katherine Heney. And I think that, I mean, God, that’s also the bliss of being a [00:56:00] fiction writer, isn’t it? Because of the, the lives you can lead and live and the all the wild things, um, that you, so my first novel, uh, it’s called Insatiable, and it’s filthy, and it’s about a young woman called Violet who becomes the third in a couple.

And it’s something I wrote from absolutely no experience beyond being like, what would that be? What would be like, yeah. 

Katherine May: And 

Daisy Buchanan: it’s that you can never know what a couple is like when they’re alone because they, they’re not alone when you’re there 

Katherine May: because there’s so much performance that goes on. Yeah. So you are gonna bring back this lost great acerbic, wicked classic, you know, like the, the sort of the mitford that time forgot has written.

Yes. And you’re gonna bring this back home. I can’t think of a lovelier. End to that because that is something that you’ll then send out into the world. Daisy, you and 

Daisy Buchanan: I, 

Katherine May: um, thank [00:57:00] 

Daisy Buchanan: you. And a blank check for a hundred thousand pounds falls out. 

Katherine May: Oh, yes. There’s also that. I’m so sorry. Yeah, yeah. Start like a, a share certificate for Apple from the first week, you know, but I love, I mean, I’ve just loved all of your recommendations as I always do.

That is you are like a sort of walking curriculum in the most glorious way. Um, so thank you. And I, I hope that your retreat has left you restored. 

Daisy Buchanan: It has. It’s been magical and nourishing. You know, I feel like it has been both, you know, there’s been an element of escape, but also. A, a restorative aspect. It has just been gorgeous.

Thank you so much for hosting me so beautifully. 

Katherine May: Oh, thank you. Please come again. 

Daisy Buchanan: I would love that.

Katherine May: Come on freckle. Come on, come on. Then. The dog is [00:58:00] refusing to walk any further. She is not a dog that looks forward to walkies every day. She’s instead a dog that undertakes it. Somewhat resentfully, and there are a lot of points during our walk. Fraggle, she’s in another dog when I am engaged in the work of persuading her to carry on rather than keeping up with her enthusiasm.

It’s a very different experience to other dogs. Come on, Frank, let’s go this way. Good girl. That’s it.

I am. I be calmed by that conversation. It’s so lovely to roam around in someone’s head, but it strikes me, and I don’t think Daisy will mind me saying this, given that I often interview neurodivergent people, how interesting it is, the different ways that people’s [00:59:00] Neurodivergence expresses itself. When you really dig deep into what it means.

We know that we are not one thing, but talking to Daisy, a fellow autistic woman, you can just really see how there’s this depth of knowledge about the books that she adores about specific genres that she adores as well. That is impossible to fathom for anyone on the outside of that deep love of fascination and adoration.

It’s so often patronized by people talking about it from the outside. You know, this term special interest is used in such condescending tones quite often when actually it’s love and it’s expertise and it’s the ability to hold so much passionate knowledge in [01:00:00] one very curious brain. I hope that doesn’t reduce that interview to something.

It’s not, but it’s so lovely to me to see the expression of all of those features of experience that we talk about so regularly exploding through so many of these interviews. It’s real passionate work, this. Anyway, we are beginning to come to the end of our walk. I don’t think I can urge this dog on much further.

So I’m heading home to return to those edits. I just wanted to remind you something perhaps you already know, but that you can also listen to these podcasts on YouTube if that’s your thing. I know from previous iterations of my podcast that neurodivergent people often prefer to be able to watch so that they can [01:01:00] read the captions at the same time.

So if that’s you, we do put every episode on YouTube to help you along. It’s, uh, easy to find. You just search the Clearing with Katherine May and it should pop right up. And of course you can subscribe to the channel so that every new episode comes into your stream. I dunno, I don’t really use YouTube. I don’t like watching things.

I like listening, which is why I make a podcast. But there you go. We are all different and all a little bit the same. Anyway, please take care. We will be back very, very soon with another episode. But until then, I hope you find lots of glorious, fascinating, divergent ways to rest. See you soon.