Publications
It all started with a proposition for Kim Williams, editor of Local Life Magazine, to come and experience my Yoga Brunch collaboration with Drift Coffee House (which is a popular local Yoga event that happens once a month here in North Berwick) and then write a feature article about us.
After a successful meeting with Kim we chatted more about the magazine and I suggested I might write regularly as a Well Being contributor and we haven’t looked back.
I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO WRITE
I wrote poetry at school and always did well at speech and drama, then somehow life got in the way. I know it’s important to step out of your comfort zone, if you don’t try you’ll never know so in 2008 I attended a residential writers retreat at The Ted Hughes Arvon Centre in West Yorkshire. The Lumb Bank is a beautiful 18th century house once owned by Ted Hughes, English poet, translator and writer. He was also married to Sylvia Plath, a poet and writer I fiercely defended in a ballon debate at school. If you don’t know her you need to, she was a deeply sensitive soul and died far too young.
It was a wonderful experience to be at Lumb Bank, to be around like minded people, especially when at the time I was recoiling from a failed marriage and had my young son to look after. It was a tonic worth it’s weight in liquid gold and I came away with the idea of starting a self help column / blog called; Small Single Mum.
It wasn’t only to be about the trials and tribulations of single parenting, offering humorous light hearted advice on the battles of nappy changing and the realisation that you can in fact, when push comes to shove, pick things up with your toes, but about the hurdles you overcome and banana skins you rarely avoid from a small persons point of view. Rented accommodation, cars, life in general doesn’t really consider the small homo sapiens that still grace the human race. You seem to have to be “middle sized” to fit in. The blog was intended to bring humour and light to an often lonely and degrading situation which I found myself in, not in a million years did I see that life coming and like many, it had a serious impact on my/our quality of life.
Fast forward 13 years later and I am now an Ayurvedic Diet and Lifestyle Consultant, Ayurvedic Massage Therapist,Yoga Teacher and proud contributor to Kims gorgeous well presented glossy magazine
wisdom and knowledge
Small Single Mum didn’t ever come to fruition, she found herself questioning what good would come of writing about silly situations involving the holes in your nose, lego and an autistic son that perhaps only she found macabrely funny but what do I know.
I have no regrets, I can always revisit a time past and perhaps it will be less painful and easier to write. I certainly have more wisdom, knowledge and top tips than I did then. In the mean time, I hope you enjoy my articles you find here and in the next Your Local Life magazine.
