AL Kennedy talks brain fog, her bare knuckle boxer grandfather, baking her own bread, card sharks, a toxic head, chaos engineers, what writing means to her health and the power of Nature.

A successful broadcaster, stand up, Guardian blogger, A. L. Kennedy is best known for her dark, emotionally intelligent award winning novels, She is famous for not suffering fools,  However, in person, wearing her bright yellow lifejacket, Alison Kennedy is less frightening to meet than you might think. She kindly paddled from Essex to Somerset and moored her beloved Kayak outside the Shed not for so much as a Shed Talk than a wee shed chat.