New Enterprises

This morning a dear friend of mine (waves to Mama Duck) is waking up in Malaga Spain at the start of – as she says - " a month's work on land, orchard and vegetable garden." This is a stage in her and her husband’s plan to move out to Valencia to live. (That’s move from Dubai where they now live, not from the UK!) There’s plenty of thinking, planning, organizing ahead of her but I wish her every success and happiness with this new venture. And I’m definitely happy that it will bring her that bit closer. Though in Dubai she was my ‘sheikh researcher’ and both Desert Affair and the upcoming At the Sheikh ‘s Command owe a lot to her. In fact, those of you who have copies of my very first sheikh story will see that the book is dedicated to her – though not under her Duck personna.

And moving on to pastures new, fits with a project that my sister has started up in the hope of turning it into a business. Personsdotcom is – I suppose you could call it a meeting service - not a dating service but a way of bringing people together – it has two sections –
Leisuredotcom is an Internet service, which enables members to increase their social circle, by accessing others who share their leisure interests.
Expatsdotcom is an Internet service, which enables members who live overseas (or who are about to move abroad) to access others from their home country.


These two ‘new beginnings’ dovetail together quite nicely – with one of them being a ‘ex-pat’ heading out into a new life in a new country – and the other being a way to bring such people together in their new home country. But I think that what really comes home to me as the point about all this is that both my sister nor my friend are - well, shall we say they’re not in the first flush of youth. They’ve both already had one – or two – careers already. And as someone who didn’t start on this, my writing career, until I had first been a librarian and then a mother, I have always subscribed to George Eliot’s comments that

“It is never too late to be what you might have been."

In just over a week’s time, the BM has interviews for two new Writing Residencies – new jobs, new ventures – at a stage in life when many are thinking about settling back and retiring. (Officially he’s taken ‘early retirement’ from his first career of teaching – early maybe, but you can forget the retirement bit!) And I know that my own life is as active and busy – more so really, certainly more adventurous – than when I was twenty years younger. And the great thing about writing is that writers don’t retire. I can’t imagine not wanting to tell stories so I hope to keep going for a long time yet. And of course, for me, each new book, each new story of a new heroine and hero, is a brand new enterprise.

All this seems to fit quite well too with today’s date – 1st July – the start of the second half of the year. I’ll be honest, I’ve been saying, I’ve no idea where the first half of the year went – (Well, yes I do, it went on one cataract operation and 2 Sicilians!) – but I’d much rather have it this way than sitting in a chair and – as the TV programme once put it – Waiting For God.

So I wish my friend and my sister every success with their latest new stage in life. I hope it brings them every success and happiness, new friends, new satisfaction and new memories for even later in life. And what about you? Have you planned or started any new enterprises recently?

Or if you’re one of my American friends and your only plans are to celebrate the holiday weekend – I hope you have a very happy time doing that.

Just let’s never, ever decide that it’s ‘too late’ to try something new or aim for what we want -

“It is never too late to be what you might have been."