Self-styled writer Grace Cleave has writer's block, and her anxiety is only augmented by her chronic aversion to leaving her home, to be among people, even for five or ten minutes. And so it is with trepidation that she accepts an invitation to spend a weekend away from London in the north of England. Once there, she feels more and more like a migratory bird, as the pull of her native New Zealand makes life away from it seem transitory. Grace longs...