In early summer of 2021 I thought I was recovering from more than a year of Long Covid. I’d been on sick leave from my job for nearly a year, but was slowly increasing my capacity, able to do more, and beginning hesitantly to think I might be able to return to work in a few more months. Over the previous year, creative activity had become even more important to me: as something enjoyable and fulfilling I could do while most of the other things I loved doing were unavailable because I was so sick; and as a positive force in my restricted life, giving me a way to express some of the really rough experiences of being ill long term. And so I came back to the 100 days project Scotland with relief and enthusiasm.

I made a dedicated book for the project with 100 pages from a stack of old editions of the London Review of Books, which a friend had passed onto me, painting white gesso over the existing content. I assembled a box full of scrap paper for collaging, and each day sat down to fill one page. There was no theme and no plan; each day I used whatever papers I found in the box, and my feelings or thoughts, as guides, creating intuitive, messy collages. On each collage, I used a crude wooden dip pen and ink to add a word or short phrase that said something of what I was feeling at the time.  

The collages became a reflection of my tentative steps that summer back from the kingdom of the sick towards the world of the well, the normative world, as I tested my health by doing more and going further; as I liaised with my employer about a return to work; and as I eventually started a phased, part-time return to my old job, while not being recovered – just less ill.