Living Life to the Max

Twenty Things That Make Me Who I Am

How I live life to the Max

1. I was born in England but travelled to Canada as a small baby with my parents.
2. My father served in the RAF and my sister and I visited many countries as children.
3. I knew about iguanas, cobras, and wolf spiders but not blackbirds or hedgehogs when I returned to England at age 10!
4. I was a competitive swimmer and a County champion in Lincolnshire in my youth.
5. At school I was encouraged to be academic and scientific but although interested in medicine my first loves were poetry and music.
6. I passed all my exams but my heart wasn't in studying so I worked for a time in a shop when I left school.
7. Later I trained as a teacher and earn my living teaching to this day.
8. My creative projects were put on the back burner for many years in favour of earning a sensible living, home-making and doing what others wanted.
9. Being made redundant for the second time in my life made me take stock of what I really wanted to do with my remaining years.
10. I studied complementary therapy and aromatherapy for two years after losing my main job and passed all my course except the business plan!
11. I also worked part-time as a medical receptionist and taught music privately during this time.
12. I became involved with the Liberal Democrats for a time and stood as Parliamentary Candidate for Westminster and the European Parliament.
13. I became involved with Persian cats and this led me to the Care 2 network.
14. Friends at Care 2 encouraged me to write from the heart at a difficult time in my life and I rediscovered my childhood dreams of writing and composing.
15. I have published three volumes of poetry, most of it written since 2004. I have also written a book about the composer Vaughan Williams.
16. I compose and arrange music, some of which I offer for sale and some of which I share for free on my guitar website. I have published this in book form too.
17. I have played in various musical groups in my life in a variety of styles, this keeps me interested in all sorts of music.
18. It is still my unfinished dream to record and mix a CD, the project was put on hold for a while but I want to return to it.
19. I discovered Squidoo more or less by accident and thought it a good vehicle for sharing what I know can be done with other people.