It’s the little things that make me smile.

I’ve just spent four days in Glasgow with the lovely Anny/Toni (I am not sure how weird it is that even I’m not certain what my default name for her is, it appears to change every time I am asked!). She was an excellent tour guide, far better than she gave herself credit for, and I had a brilliant time exploring Glasgow, Edinburgh and the shopping opportunities, even if my credit card now hates me.

However the moments that will stay with me the longest aren’t seeing a castle or being in Scotland specifically (notwithstanding hearing someone pronounce police as “polis” like in Taggart or my new adoration of the word wee!), no those moments were great and Scotland was incredibly welcoming, but the things I loved the most were those which just involved sitting.

I live my life all in a rush, with people and things to be dealt with at all times, a work laptop that is almost constantly on and a blackberry that wakes me up in the middle of the night with things to do. Yes there are periods of time when I am doing very little, but these are usually tinged with the guilt of not tackling anything on my mammoth to do list.

Don’t get me wrong, that ever lengthening list still exists, but for the past four days I knew I had earned a proper break with no guilt attached to just sitting. And sit we did, in fact I am sure we made quite an art form out of it.

There were the four hours in Wetherspoons on Thursday afternoon, the two in an Edinburgh café and a further three in a restaurant on Friday, the few hours in various bars on Saturday accompanied by two more in a restaurant and the three and a half hours on Sunday back in our favourite haunt! I doubt we spent more than the cost of a reasonably priced meal and drink in any of them, put it this way if everyone did what we did the food and drink industry would fast go out of business.

If either of us had been concerned we would have nothing to say to each other I think that worry was quickly dispelled too, because when I say we were sitting what I mean is sitting in a comfortable environment chatting like we had known each other forever. I mean yes, we have spoken on twitter and via email constantly for over a year, but that doesn’t guarantee how you will take to someone in person – although I had no doubt in my mind that I already would feel at home with Toni. So despite this being our first physical meeting, I don’t think that stopped us talking about anything.

If I had my way my main conversation topics in life would be about writing or television dramas other people were writing, but there are few people in my life that I could ever speak to about that. It isn’t that people would dismiss me, more that it isn’t a topic that interests them or that they understand. The madness in my head that is script or fic ideas or complicated elaborate back stories for characters I watch on TV would be just that to someone else – absolute madness. I knew that this was one person I did not have to hide the crazy from, but I don’t think until we had spent time together just sitting and debating Casualty, fanfic, scripts and our own fictional musings I realised quite how much I would value that.

Or how inspiring it could be!

Somewhere along the way last year I stopped writing regularly, or at all really, perhaps in part down to the amount of work hanging over my head and then not helped by the weight of expectation I felt coming out of the scriptwriting course I recently participated in. However based on the time spent chattering all around the houses I’ve already written and edited a one shot, become all excited about finishing my two ongoing fics, reinvigorated my love for my Sophie story and planned enough writing to keep me going all year. I am scheduling a day each week to write, I will stop procrastinating and I am going to find more time to sit because it really does make all the difference.

I can only hope that I gave Toni half of that inspiration in return, because she is certainly the most incredibly talented story creator and story teller I’ve ever known and just being part of that for a few short days was the most amazing experience.

So what do I want to say? I want to say thank you to Toni for being the loveliest tour guide / hostess, for all the laughs we shared, advice you gave and the time we just spent sitting – putting the world to rights, fictional or otherwise. You made me feel comfortable to just be me, all my weirdness and all, and you have inspired me to write again. And sit, a lot more. Thank you for the friendship, for just understanding the madness, for the memories and for your time – oh and roll on Wales 2014. Just think how much we will both have written by then and how many more stories we will have to tell when we spend some more time just sitting together.

Oh and I promise I will finish Sophie, just for you. And collect a Café Nero hot chocolate every day when I go through the station to remember the smiles. You really are one in a million and you’ve given me more inspiration these past few days than you could ever possibly know. Thank you Toni, for everything.