6 facts about Me
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From age 15 to 40, I didn't know where Paul was or what he was doing. Paul was a boy I went to primary school with - and in 2009 we got married!
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I have climbed all over North Wales. I love to dance and to race a mountain bike through puddles.
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The Thailand Tsunami in 2004 made me live for every day.
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For 10 years I worked for a corporate as a chartered surveyor and then I progressed to outdoor instructor.
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I passed my driving test on try 6 - I won't give up.
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The best experience of my life was Paul's 50th birthday, I've never seen so much love for someone.
formal Bio
1967, when I was born, my parents lived on a small farm near Moretonhampstead in Devon UK and I have a treasured photo of Dad with his plough horses, Blossom and Pleasant. He could work an acre a day, and B and P knew to stop if the plough was about to hit one of the many rocks sticking out of the ground.
Later, we moved to a farm, 30 miles away, near Whiddon Down and kept a small dairy herd. The farm never made money and my parents eventually sold up. Dad then worked in a local cheese factory, a massive change in his fifties but he said he loved the regular wage, lack of worry and set hours. I think he loved the camaraderie of his new work mates most of all – it's lonely on a farm sometimes.
I studied for my degree in London and had a career with Lloyds Bank in London, Bristol and Taunton working as a Chartered Surveyor but in 2000, I followed a dream to North Wales, training to be an outdoor instructor, teaching rock-climbing, canoeing, mountaineering, and even skiing. I climbed everything I could in the beautiful national park.
Next, I moved to Somerset to teach in an outdoor education centre. I ran additional programmes for children excluded from school and children in care, instructing many different activities including archery, rifle shooting and mountain biking– and ended up managing one of the centres!I loved watching the non-academic children shine and the activities allowed teachers to see some pupils in a new light too.
When, in 2008, I met my husband, it wasn't fair to expect him to put up with my all-consuming job. He is the best thing that has ever happened to me – and I gave up teaching and came to live with him back in Devon – Home at last! By the way, I had actually been in primary school with Paul but I hadn’t seen him for 25 years when we met up again!
Today, I work as a gardener, eat cake, drink tea and chat. Many of my customers have lost their other halves to cancer and I feel what I do now is wholly appreciated. I run too so I can eat more cake. I have completed the London Marathon 4 times but won't do it again until I'm 65 when I hope I've forgotten how hard it was last time!
In winter 2016, I started blacksmithing to earn some money when there wasn't much gardening to do. I created organically inspired items for gardens (sundials, bird feeders, arches etc.) but that all stopped when I woke up one morning with a story in my head that I just had to write (Fox Halt Farm).
And now I garden most of the year and write whenever I can. I love writing and by book 7 I hope to have discovered what I'm supposed to be doing. My debut novel, Fox Halt Farm was published in 2017, Culmfield Cuckoo its sequel in 2019 and the final part of the Fox Halt Farm Trilogy came out in May 2021.
I’m currently working on my 4th novel, featuring one of the characters from the trilogy with 2 stories running in parallel, one beginning in 1941, the second 2021 – and I’m working too, trying to get my border terrier x jack russell to win a placed rosette at agility while he tries to make up his own course with as many visits backwards and forwards through the tunnels as possible. To find out more simply message me