After reading some of your intros, fellow steemers, I realise that I’m a good deal older than most of you. So the theme I’ve chosen for my first scribblings seems appropriate: ‘Doing Things Differently’. I realise, looking back, that I’ve avoided the conventional path all my life yet somehow maintained my sanity. I live in a beautiful part of England, evocatively called The Peak District. In my early life I lived in London, where I was a square peg in a round hole, but then I carved out a square hole for myself and have been happily at home in it ever since. That involved giving up a secure job with a pension (teaching) in order to express myself in my own way, through writing. I did eventually achieve success, and now have many published novels to my many pen-names! I’m driven by curiosity about how things – and people – work, and I’ve joined groups to study Science, and learn French and Latin. I also sing in a choir, and go on longish walks with others in the glorious countryside that surrounds our historic spa town. Recently I started recording oral history interviews, and this is now a passion of mine. I realise that I enjoy listening to other people’s stories just as much as I used to enjoy making up my own. Somewhere along the way I gave birth to a son, who now lives in Australia and has produced two lovely grandchildren for me to enjoy ─ mostly at a distance, but that gives me an excuse to re-read to them the books I loved as a child. My partner is quite a bit younger than me, which no doubt helps me avoid being too much of an old fogey, although I do have my ‘senior moments’ from time to time. Fortunately they are far less frequent than my ‘junior moments’. I guess that’s enough for now, because you will soon get to know me better if you follow my posts and discover just why, and how, I ‘do things differently’.
