Although writing is my passion, I've also had fun in my time being a painter, ice skater, hypnotherapist, life coach and singer of mediaeval madrigals. I am happiest writing in a crowded café with as much life as possible going on around me. My writing time is balanced by long tramps round the lovely Hampshire countryside. ‘Never live more than five minutes away from a bottle of milk,’ was the helpful advice given to me when I moved eight years ago to the beautiful Hampshire town where I am lucky enough to live. I took the advice and found a cottage minutes from the village centre, backing onto trees and a lake where birds and wild-life abound. Coincidentally, at the bottom of my garden is a little gate leading into the garden of the pub next door, a fact greatly appreciated by my three grown-up sons when they come to visit.
I was born in St Kitts in the West Indies and moved to Mauritius at the age of seven, where I ran about barefoot and blissful until condemned at the age of thirteen to shoes and boarding school in England – a cultural shock it took years to recover from. Escape came in the form of interior landscapes and imaginary people. I wrote my first full-length novel, ‘The Treasure Hunt,’ aged ten, sitting on a beach in Mauritius listening to the waves lapping the shore. The book, hopelessly badly written but huge fun to write, had a large cast of child characters who kept me company in my rather solitary life.
I studied English at St Andrews University, followed later in life by a degree in fine art at UCA leading to a long period of working as a painter. But writing, then and always, continues to be my first love.
I can mix a mean Negroni, too.
I was born in St Kitts in the West Indies and moved to Mauritius at the age of seven, where I ran about barefoot and blissful until condemned at the age of thirteen to shoes and boarding school in England – a cultural shock it took years to recover from. Escape came in the form of interior landscapes and imaginary people. I wrote my first full-length novel, ‘The Treasure Hunt,’ aged ten, sitting on a beach in Mauritius listening to the waves lapping the shore. The book, hopelessly badly written but huge fun to write, had a large cast of child characters who kept me company in my rather solitary life.
I studied English at St Andrews University, followed later in life by a degree in fine art at UCA leading to a long period of working as a painter. But writing, then and always, continues to be my first love.
I can mix a mean Negroni, too.