Middle-aged, Free and Single

58 and Counting

‘Who am I?’ and ‘Where am I going with my life?’ and ‘What the hell happens next?’ – nothing forces you to answer those questions quite like a husband walking out on you when you’re 58. It’s 4 months ago today since he told me he was leaving, and it also happens to be our…

Kitchen Designer – me!

I started this job just over 5 months ago. I’m a kitchen designer for a major DIY chain. It’s the job I’d applied for but didn’t get here. It’s my 26th job. I’ve always been interested in kitchens – in the way they’ve evolved from basically a fire in the middle of the floor. I…

A Working Spoon

I own a tablespoon. I’m not the first person to own it. It came to me from my Grandma, but she wasn’t the first person to own it either. It isn’t a particularly special spoon – it isn’t silver. It feels like it’s made of quite a cheap metal. That makes sense – my grandparents…

Want to Start a Blog?

Fancy writing your own blog? Do you look at this one and think ‘I could do that’? If that’s you, all I can say is – go for it. If I can do it, so can you. Truly. This post isn’t about the technical side of setting up a blog. Dearie me no – my…

Try Not to Worry About It

Seriously? Is worry something you can try not to do? Really? I certainly have a lot to worry about – since my husband left I know that we probably can’t continue to run our business together, I’ll probably have to sell the house, and there will be less money around during my retirement than I’d…

Safe as Houses

Last night I heard a noise – a noise that shouldn’t have been there. A single footstep, upstairs. I don’t scare easy, and once I’d been upstairs and checked, I decided it was probably just a strange effect of the wind outside, or maybe a radiator expanding or contracting. I don’t feel lonely, and generally…

Veganuary – how's it ve-going?

Are you doing Veganuary? I decided I was going to eat less meat. I’m not going to go full-on Veganuary – but I’m going to eat less meat, and less red meat in particular. And it fits perfectly with my overall plan to eat healthily but cheaply. Good for my health, good for my bank…

You'll Feel Better For It

I don’t go to the gym to get fit. Well – I do, but that’s not the only reason. Exercise does far, far more than that. And it doesn’t have to be the gym – any sort of exercise will do. You do you. Exercise helps your mind as well as your body. If you’re…

What Do I Think I'm Called?

I’ve been researching my family history for a good few years now. I’ve found skeletons and I’ve found mysteries. But sometimes it’s the ordinary things that are the most interesting. The things that continued for generations, that no-one particularly thought about at the time. The things people accepted as normal. On my mother’s side, my…

A Certain Age

How old are you? And do you tell people? Time was, a woman simply wasn’t expected to admit to her age. Admit. An interesting choice of word – we also admit to mistakes and we admit to being wrong. Are we expected to feel guilty for getting older every year? It was like that for…

Me Day

Yesterday, it was one year since my husband told me he was leaving. It’s been a very quick year. It was a pretty ordinary day – I took the car for its service, bought some milk on the way back home, spent the morning hoovering, did some work for the business. I even spoke with…

One year on – what I've learnt

That was a quick year. It will be one year ago tomorrow since my husband told me he was leaving. Was that the end of something? Or the beginning? It felt like the end, to begin with. There was the initial shock of course, but then the realisation that I wasn’t really surprised. It had…