Who is Behind The Blog?

I’m sitting in a hotel room at Heathrow airport, with the alarm set for 4 a.m. so we have enough time to shower and grab a free breakfast before heading to the terminal and the start of a new adventure!
I seriously cannot wait. The run up to this point I often find a bit overwhelming, making sure I’ve packed everything we are likely to need, that all the plans I’ve researched and put in place are ready to rock and roll and we have those three key important ingredients: passports, money and a sense of adventure 😊

I’m sat in bed busily creating this next post, looking forward to receiving comments from readers around the world and hopefully some “likes” without those who give up their time to do this actually knowing a lot about me. So who is behind the blog?

Well I was born into a hard working family, in a beautiful Cotswold village, living high up on a hill overlooking the fabulous picturesque valleys below.
My life actually began in a caravan in my father’s field with my parents and my older sister.
I think I was about 4 or 5 when we moved into our family home on what is now known as a “social housing” estate. but back in my day was “council housing” so called because the local council built the houses and then rented them out.

At Junior School (in the UK that is aged 4 to 11 years) I excelled and willingly fought to keep my place at the top of the class.
It was also at this point in my life that I started to learn to ride and then very quickly caught the equine bug and fell in love with horses.
My Dad rented a farm so stabling came free. He was incredibly supportive which sometimes I don’t think I ever really thanked him for. It was a way of life that allowed me to be alone with my thoughts and negated the need at times to make friends. I was never lonely and became very independent, a characteristic that stood me in good stead many times later in life.

I’ve chosen pictures of flowers for this post taken on my travels

Passing my 11+ exam I then found myself at the Stroud High School for Girls. Suddenly I was no longer top of the class but surrounded by other “clever girls” and being fed an ethos that “we were the cream of the crop”.
This was also my first taste of a divided world, surrounded by girls from middle class backgrounds whose fathers were bankers, solicitors, directors and doctors and whose Mums stayed at home to bring up the children and “keep house”. A social stigma that I have already talked about in a previous post Navigating Midlife: Personal Opinions and Social Prejudice

I left school at 18 with good qualifications but university wasn’t an option for me.
My Mum had died at 55 when I was only 14 and my home life was emotionally and practically difficult and it was time for me to go out into the big wide world and earn a living.
With four job offers in retail management I chose to start my career with a large well known retailer as a Trainee Manager in Basingstoke, Hampshire. I was moved around the country every six months as my training and career progressed. It was a nomadic life style and one that I ultimately decided was not for me.

I left, settling in London and worked initially for a smaller fashion retail chain before joining a gaming and entertainment company. It wasn’t a job I envisaged taking but I desperately wanted to get out of fashion retail and so two days before my twenty second birthday on February 11th I started what turned into a 30 year career!

Apart from the work experience, promotions and sometimes good bonuses this job delivered, it allowed me to come into contact with all aspects of life. From the Mum spending her child allowance betting on the spin of a fruit machine to the thousands that could be bet and won on a roulette wheel along the demands that were listed on a “rider” for a visiting well known singing group or individual artist. Some of these entertainers were down to earth, speaking to you and treating you like a friend whilst others were full of their own self importance and happy to lord it over you.

I loved the fact that I met people from every walk of life, every level of Management and a multitude of nationalities. I listened to true life stories of refugees forced to leave their homes and countries of birth from Sri Lanka to Uganda, Cambodia and beyond.
People who left behind all that they knew to start again in the UK without even the ability to speak the language.
I met people who left their countries on ships from the Caribbean or as internet brides from Russia and the Philippines intent on finding a better way of life for their future generations or the family they were forced to leave behind. I saw bravery and unbroken spirits in these characters who did what they had to do to make a better life.
It was a real eye opener and made me definitely appreciate the country I live in and the freedom we often take for granted.

In February 2002 I began the next stage of my personal life as a single Mum with two mixed race children making hard but rationalised decisions to ensure they had a stable upbringing. It didn’t come without it’s challenges, some from within our family unit and others from the world outside. They were and are still my pride and joy.

2015 was a massive year of change for me.
Just after my birthday in February I found myself out of work, with an NDA, having given 30 years of blood, sweat and tears to a company who no longer valued experience. A company that seemed to all intents and purposes to be set on culling those who added the most expense to their payroll in favour of a cheaper, younger labour market.
Despite this I left with so many happy memories, more life lessons than I will ever be able to recall and a wealth of commercial experience and transferable skills.

With a mortgage still to pay I reinvented myself and for three years worked in the funeral industry. Initially alongside my commercial ability I utilised my hospitality skills to run a crematorium and open their first ever hospitality suite.
A year later I was training to be a funeral celebrant and ultimately used my creative writing ability to write funeral services and eulogies whilst happily standing up and speaking publicly at funerals.

In July 2015 I also met my now hubby. We had known each other previously when we were 19, had dated for about 18 months and then split up amicably. It was just too hard to conduct a relationship when we basically lived at opposite ends of the country!
30+ years later he decided to come looking for me and having found me on line decided to email me one Sunday night completely out of the blue. His research and ultimate belief that we belonged together turned into marriage and a life long love.

With the success of my business clashing with our personal time together, with only two weeks notice I decided to retire early, in February 2018, whilst hubby went on to work for another four years. No doubt you can see the pattern of how the month of February has dominated every major stage of my life thus far.
With on structure or work life I found myself at a complete loss. What was I now going to do with my time?
It took me until September 2020 to even begin to work it out and I probably didn’t reach the finished retired article until the end of last year, 2025!
There’s been a few curve balls thrown in along the way to test my endurance and to knock me off course but I seem to have an inept ability to brush myself off and find my way back to my own personal yellow brick road and finally a life of happiness, enjoyment, adventure and occasionally rest!

Does all this life experience qualify me to write a blog? I think I’ll allow you to decide that and will look forward to your comments………………..
In the meantime I will listen out for that alarm tomorrow morning and get myself to the airport 😊