Jennifer Horgan: I’m making my attic a manageable past for my children to inherit

'I’m setting some time aside to hold the gold of my life, rather than leaving it for the next generation to sift through when it’s been reduced to dust by time and grief'

A statue of Virginia Woolf, which sits alongside the River Thames in Richmond, London.

Virginia Woolf famously suggested that a woman, wishing to write, must have “a room of one’s own”. Well, I’ve never managed it. I write at a small brown desk inherited from my parents. I think they bought it in an antique shop in London in the ’70s; it’s pretty writerly looking, to be fair. But it’s also slotted into the corner of a very busy and a very shared sitting room. Marriage, children, and a standard-sized home have conspired to make my ‘room of one’s own’ impossible.

I feel pretty chuffed to report, however, that I am now the proud owner of a fully-floored attic. It wouldn’t satisfy Virginia Woolf, being unlit and windowless and not quite a room, and I won’t be dragging my precious writing desk up there anytime soon. Nonetheless, as well as being grateful to have a home at all, I am very, very excited about my attic.