Who Are We?

Heya Nicky,

Interesting thread, and interesting person you are! I will say, def not too late to start learning herbalism if that's what you want to do. There are def online courses you can sign up to, then do in your own time. So I would def say to go for it!

As for me, 38, did Animal Biology with animal behaviour, physiology, and psychology at University but didn't finish the course due to personal reasons. So there went my dreams of being the next Dian Fossey or Marty Crump! Ended up falling into Facilities Management as a Facilities Co-ordinator, and ran all of the PPM contracts for the north of England - roughly 3,000 jobs a month to organise. Was diagnosed with cancer at 31, so left the job as my colleagues were twats. After a few years my health looked to be improving so I retrained as a professional baker, patissier, and chocolatier - but my health declined again.

So now I mess about in the kitchen trying to cook low calorie meals for myself, while doing experimental bakes for friends to try, or doing wedding cakes for friends. I sew toys for kids, and I'm planning to now sell what I make as I've run out of children in the family to give things too! (However I've fallen out with my sewing machine at the moment!) I'm trying to teach myself how to crochet so that I can create amigurumi characters as well. I also make use of the space in my gardens, by cramming as many pots in as I can, full of different plants both edible and ornamental.

I've got three cats, but no family locally, and I eat and drink pretty much everything - which is why I'm currently trying to lose weight! lol

Lass

xx

Hi Nicky,

you're right, we know so much and yet so little about each other. You must have nerves of steel to ride motorbikes although I used to love riding pillion with my husband. I agree with Lass, it's never too late so I would look into ways of studying herbalism, who knows what you might achieve.

I'm also a former nurse and worked in Intensive Care in the U.K, Israel and Australia. My husband and I were a holiday romance and met on a scuba diving trip in Western Australia.

My passion was martial arts, I'm (was) a black belt in Karate, switched to kick boxing when my sons started training and absolutely loved it. Sadly the club folded so tried boxing . Loved all of the training but hated the fighting Sadly I'm no longer allowed to do high impact or contact sport and missed it so much at first although that ship has definitely sailed!

I've taught Pilates for 20+ years and credit Pilates for keeping me fit and mobile for so long. One of my vices is white wine, especially Australian Chardonnay, In my perfect world it would come out of the tap.

xx

Hi Nicky

I am a lawyer qualified the hard way as I had a nasty RTA just after my A levels which meant several operations over a number of years so had to defer Uni but did get there in the end.  Until I had my youngest son in 99 I practised criminal/prison/human rights law.  I enjoyed it but my husband wasn't keen on my spending most of my time at the Police station or in Prison.  

So now I do personal injury/clin neg work.  Old habit saying I do it should be I did as I have stopped taking on work now as finally realised life really is too short.  Quite fancy having a go at landscaping the garden which is mainly just grass, weeds and slabs because it was easier with us both working functional but not v pretty although landscaping is probably a bit grand given its size.

We live in a village in the South of England - much further South and you will get wet.  Nice place to live but as I have discovered not very practical when you can't drive your car!

x

Hi 

What a nice idea Nicky Nosher. And what a fascinating group of people with interesting life stories. 

I’m a journalist by profession although my degree was in biochemistry. I worked briefly in labs but quickly decided it wasn’t for me. So I went into journalism, working first as a clinical news reporter for the Nursing Standard and then as a reporter and feature writer for the Nursing Times. This was the 80s and the days of expense accounts and long lunches. An 11am press conference at the Department of Health would have a drinks table at the back and yes, some of the National newspaper reporters would pour themselves a glass of red while they stood around agreeing what the quote was. 

My job description required me to “cover the offbeat in nursing” and I had a double page spread once a month to feature a nurse doing something unusual. I travelled widely interviewing amazing people. The nurse who married a murderer in prison. The nurses who worked the community in Lockerbie and who were in A&E the night of the Piper Alpha disaster. The nurse who spent her free time taking supplies to war torn Nagorno Karabakh and the nurse working in refugee camps caring for orphaned children after the Rwandan genocide. And so many more. It was a fabulous job. I loved every minute of it. 

I went freelance in the late 1990s. My ambition was to write for the Guardian and I achieved it in my first month. I did shift work on news desks and feature writing from home. In 1998 I was invited by the British Red Cross to take on a secondment to the international Red Cross in Belgrade. That was the start of two years spent in the Balkans working across Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania right through the NATO bombing. The crew from the ICRC were the last foreigners to leave Kosovo after the bombing campaign and we were among the first back in afterwards. The stories I could tell you. 

I met and fell in love with a Serbian guy while I was out there. We married in haste and settled back in England in late 1999. I was pregnant, he was a vet and needed to convert his qualifications to practice in the U.K.  It took six years, during which time I had a second child while supporting the whole family as a freelance. 

So that’s my story. I gave up working in late 2016/ early 2017. I was very fatigued from treatment and felt I needed to devote what energy I had to my family. Around that time my husband started an affair with his Serbian ski instructor. I think he just couldn’t cope with the pain of watching me slowly die. He fell in love with her and left the family in early 2018. His girlfriend was pregnant before we were even divorced. Neither of our daughters sees him these days although he’s been helpful during the corona crisis, doing the shopping and picking up prescriptions. 

I coped admirably. It nearly destroyed me but not quite and to be honest I am happy now. I have my home, my girls, an amazing family and lots of  wonderful friends, and I’m supported financially. There are times of sadness, of course. But for the most part, I’m really ok. 

Beyond work, marriage and children, volunteering has always been a part of my life and I’ve been a community champ since 2015. In 2018 I had the honour of representing Macmillan at Prince Charles 70th birthday tea party at Buckingham Palace. 

I keep up a creative side too. I’m no artist but I am a good crafts woman and I knit, sew and crochet. I sing in a choir, the Sevenoaks Philharmonic don’t you know, and I garden. I’m so middle class it hurts. 

I feel I’ve lived my best life. I’ve achieved my ambitions. I have travelled widely and worked on three continents. I’ve raised two wonderful young women and touched many lives through the work I’ve done and the volunteering. These days my eyes and horizons are very close to home. And that’s really a fine place for them to be. 

xxx

Wow you guys, just wow, we should all pat ourselves on the back because my goodness haven't we lived well!

And you are right, I am going to get onto the next online herbalism course, there is one I have had my eye on starts September.

I will raise a glass of baileys to you all this evening...

Hi Daloni

Having read this it has given me an idea for a hobby now I will have time (strange thing to say given the circumstances) on my hands.  There are lots of funny anecdotes and lots of interesting tales to tell of things that happened, people I met along the way and even had photos taken with when I was working in the Justice system so maybe I should put them down on paper.....

xx

Nicky Nosher that's brilliant, good for you!

Deb1E and it sounds like you both have a book in you and have a way with words, I'll be at the very front of the queue at the book launch!

Lass we all come across radiators and drainers in life. You are definitely a radiator so please put me down for your motivational handbook 

xx

What an interesting  life you have had you could write a book.

i am a retired matron 

I qualified as a nurse in Bristol in 1976 and spent a year working in London in neurology then ITU.

i then went to live in Georgia in USA for 10 months in ITU on nights and made friends with the other English nurses.

i bought an old Chevrolet when I arrived there and we used to travel around Georgia and Florida and drove to Mardi Gras. Then Pauline and I saved up and with a 2 man tent drove across the US and back through the southern states to Mexico and stayed in SAN Francisco for 2 weeks with a friend from London.
Then we drove back through the rockies and Canada and to Niagara Falls I flew back from Washington having sold the car in Ohio where we met some boys we stayed with we had met in Mardi Gras.

i eventually settled back in Bristol where I met my husband and worked for 36 years in the NHS and 30 years on the Burns and Plastic surgery unit at Frenchay.

we have 2 grown up children ages 35 and 31 boy and girl, my daughter is a research nurse in Bristol and my son a scientist in London. My daughter is planning her wedding but has to keep changing the date.

i have had a good life and very proud of my kids I have a loyal husband who sticks by me we married in our 30s. we have a lovely black Labrador dog.

xxx

I hoped to have won my Nobel peace prize by now but sadly, it never happened. I chose to leave my job when I was diagnosed as incurable with not many months to live and decided time with my children was the best use of my time. However, I am not defined by cancer so I'll fill you in on a few of my moments in time... 

I am firstly a friend - I love people and all that entails. I'm a mum - this isn't first on my list as although it's very, truly - very, important at the moment, I am trying to grow them into resilient creatures, ready for when I am no longer about and I want them to remember me as a friend to others and an independent soul that they can be sure wouldn't' want them living (and getting stuck) in grief (not meant to sound callous, I cherish those children, but I don't want them defined by my cancer either). 

I studied, then I travelled a little and then I volunteered for a homeless project as a live in hostel member of staff in London before getting actual wages and climbing the ladder in that. Moved around a bit and worked with a whole range of at risk adults. My latest job which I loved and was bereft to leave was as a project manager for a large homeless project for women. I have many funny stories of bizarre occurrences but many more stories of people overcoming adversity and moving on with their lives (some awful fails in that too). 

I also spent quite a bit of my time raising awareness at different events about female issues that are little talked of but hideous and raised sums of money for an anti-human trafficking charity that I'm really proud of.

I can't cook, I hate housework and feeling trapped in the home and now I find myself living like some 1950's housewife where I am well enough to do all these things and now also find myself home schooling my little darlings (hopefully this is temporary - please God). The feminist irony is not lost on me. 

Anyway, will keep going... 

xx

Gobaith

Hi Clare 

I Love your story. It sounds like you’ve had an amazing career looking after the needs of some of the most vulnerable women in our society. I think you should be proud of yourself. I think you probably are. I hope you are. 

What strikes me as I read through what you’ve written is how I find I have defined myself here almost entirely in terms of my professional life. I just kind of stopped in the year 2000. That’s 20 years ago for heaven’s sake. Is it my wish to impress? 

I don’t, in fact, live as though my life’s stopped so I’m not sure how I’ve come to talk about myself in that way. Raising my two daughters has been perhaps the most important job of my life. So why do I talk about it so little? I loved the baking of cakes, throwing of parties, popping little feet into little shoes, the slipping of little hands into big hands. I loved watching them grow and learn and play. I loved combing their hair and all those little things that make motherhood so wonderful. I was astonished at how they loved me. I knew I’d love them but I found their love for me completely overwhelming. Perhaps I have airbrushed over those 20 years as a result of the marriage break down. 

Since giving up work over two years ago now I, like you, feel like a 1950s housewife stuck in a role that I reluctantly have had to take on. These days in fact I spend most my time doing womanly crafts. And I find myself slightly embarrassed  by this. I don’t really know why that is. It bears examination. 

Clare, I think if you’ve put this much thought into raising your kids to become resilient adults then they are set on a good path. Teach them how to say no, how to stand up for themselves, teach them speak about their emotions, and ask that their needs be met. Teach them to be kind. That’s some what I’m trying to teach my children. Nothing will ever make up for our loss as their mothers so we must do what we can, trust the adults we place around them and be kind to ourselves 

much love, dear Clare 

xxx