Natasha Pulley – Favourite Things
Each week Reaction Weekend brings you Favourite Things – interviews with interesting people about the skills, hobbies, pleasures and pastimes that make them who they are.
Natasha Pulley is a British author. Her book, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, was an international bestseller, won a Betty Trask Award and remained on the Sunday Times bestseller list for much of summer 2016. Pulley has lived in China, Peru and Japan while researching her books and teaches on Bath Spa University’s Creative Writing BA. Her latest book, The Kingdoms, will be published by Bloomsbury on 27 May.
These are a few of her favourite things…
Sailing the Pelican
I’m absolutely nobody in the sailing world, but there is nothing quite like belonging to a ship’s crew, even for a little while. Pelican is a tall ship, and I’ve sailed with her twice. Sailing is the total opposite of writing: it’s full of things that have an obvious start and an obvious end. Watches last four hours; you paint a shelf; you set sail. It’s a punishing life, but it’s full of the most extraordinary people and one of the clearest ways of living I’ve come across. I love nosing around the bosun’s locker (don’t tell him). It’s full of Potential – capital P, paint and turpentine and brushes, and tools.
Baking with my brother
My brother is a rabid-keen baker, and when he gets going with a recipe, he turns into Gordon Ramsey; I get ordered about and squeaked at. It’s brilliant because it’s something to do together, and usually, of course, if you’re making a cake, it’s for something special. My brother’s younger than me, but I’m kind of afraid of him, and kind of envious, and always in total awe, because he’s much cleverer than me. Doing something simple like separating eggs or sifting flour makes me feel, briefly, like we might be standing on even ground.
The hearth at Gladstone’s Library in Wales
It’s an extraordinary place with a hotel attached to a library, and every year, they have a fantastic literary festival. I live by myself, which is marvellous, but now and then, humans need other humans. One of my happiest memories is arriving at the library after quite a long drive, feeling very stressed and tired because I was doing a big workshop as part of their events programme. Arriving at festivals is usually anonymous because so many people swarm in at once. But, as I walked towards the front door, my friend, who directs the whole thing, leapt into a bay window, hammered on the glass and yelled, “PULLEY! YOU’RE HERE!” and I’ve never felt so wanted or welcomed in my life. It’s one of my favourite places.
Languages
I love languages. I speak Japanese and Spanish, but nothing’s ever enough. I go through phases; I’ll geek out over Egyptian hieroglyphs, or Russian, or anything. English is such a peculiar, patchwork, cobbled-together language that can give you a bit of a weird idea about what language is or even how to think about the world. I think more than anything else — school, university — looking at various languages has been an education. This is, of course, very pretentious, and once when a friend did an impression of me, she went, “Ooh, I’m Natasha Pulley, I speak eight languages,” but I am very happy to be mocked.
My travel bag
I’ve never lived anywhere longer than a few years for my whole adult life, and some deep-down part of my soul is sure that something horrendous will happen if I ever own more stuff than I can fit in that bag. No waiting for suitcases at airports, no overpacking; just the one bag will do. It’s tartan, and it’s about ten years old now, and it’s the reason I don’t really have any furniture or any things. I have some clothes and some shoes, but no trinkets, keepsakes, interesting objects, nothing — the point is that I could walk out the door whenever I need to and stay gone for months. This is probably a very unhealthy way to live, but I take a self-destructive sort of pride in it.