Jack’s guest blog on a place he loves

We love to head over to our log cabin in the backwoods of Tennessee whenever we get the chance. It nestles inside 12 acres of  densely wooded surrounding hills. When it rains the run-off feeds the pond in front of the cabin and keeps our tame carp and catfish happy.

Built along with seven others, in the early 1970s at the time of the Knoxville World’s Fair, it has seen its ups and downs – particularly when we rented it out at various times to some very dubious characters. The last of these left the place in poor condition, and we called on our good friend and excellent carpenter Guy. He not only completely replaced the floor in the original half of the building, but proceeded to replace the shingles, construct a spare room in the attic, add an extra two rooms and a laundry, and install a wood-burning stove.

Over the last five years or so it has become our ‘bolt-hole’ and is the perfect antidote to the pressures of our regular lives. It has no internet, no phone, no cell-phone reception and no TV, and our dogs, Zora and Bert, can run around to their hearts’ content with no worries about traffic. Wendy gets a LOT of writing done.

We were there all last week for just that purpose, and I was intrigued (as I always am) by the complete change of pace and the time it takes to adjust to it. We fall into a new pattern of “just live, just write, just eat, just relax” so quickly.

The cabin has no TV, but contains a radio and it’s only when we’re there that I get the chance to hear my show Celtic Clanjamphry on WETSfm. The rest of my time is usually spent foraging for fallen branches and cutting them into logs for the stove (amazing how time consuming that can be) and taking care of various bits of maintenance that always seem to be needed. That and the reading I never usually have enough time for back at the bookstore (funny that).

We do let friends rent the place whenever they want and now we’ve had the driveway re-graveled it looks more inviting. (It’s a steep drive.) We have a one degree of separation rule: if we know you, and you know someone who wants to use it, that’s okay.