A Woman of Fortitude is the author’s life story. She grows up in a family of 5 girls living a life which was normal for the 1950s and 60s but very different from the life of a child today. She shares her early years with the reader, as her personality develops, and she grows into a creative, sensitive, and thoughtful child, with a positive attitude to life. When she becomes an adult, her positivity helps her deal with a life which is far from normal. She lives abroad for over 20 years, in Holland, U.S.A. Borneo and Canada, as the wife of an oil company employee. Each time she moves her positive nature is apparent as she adapts to different lifestyles, cultures, and faces danger. She gives birth to two sons, one in the U.S.A. and the other in Borneo, two very different experiences. Her husband is sporty; sailing, scuba diving, running, skiing, hill climbing and skating on the Dutch canals, but he takes every sport to extremes and expects her to keep up with him. With courage and determination, she does her best.

After 28 years of marriage her husband has an affair with a young Texan woman. The author struggles to cope with his affair and briefly her positive approach to life wavers. She tries to save her marriage, but fails, and her husband leaves her. Her privileged lifestyle comes to an end, and she is left with an empty space where her lifestyle once was, with no career to fall back on.

She moves back to England and starts a new life. She creates a cosy home and reinvents herself as a professional wildlife, nature, and travel photographer. She travels widely to grow her portfolio of photographs and develops a love for Antarctica which she visits 3 times. Her photographic business flourishes, becomes a lucrative source of income and she makes a name for herself writing for a photographic magazine.

After 10 years of a fulfilled life on her own a pop up on her computer suggests she internet dates. She treats each date as a job interview and gives amusing accounts of dating 17 different men, before she finds number 18, who she marries.

The authors account of her life is descriptive, transporting the reader to countries she’s lived in, and includes a good dose of humour, even in adversity. In writing her story she hopes to encourage others to find their way through life using positivity, decisiveness, and determination to solve, or at least cope with, life’s problems.

Chapter 5 Life in Borneo

The bedroom held another surprise. There in the middle of the floor was a large rat with its throat torn out. This I did find a bit alarming. My husband was not so much concerned about the rat’s presence as to what might have killed it. There was a gaping hole in the wall left ready for an air conditioning unit providing free access for rats or any other fair-sized wildlife.

Chapter 9 Life in Houston

During the night I was woken by the sound of water sloshing somewhere. I thought it must be waves breaking against the hull of the boat, but it seemed too loud. It almost sounded as if the water was inside the cabin. I was on top bunk, so I climbed down the ladder. At the bottom of the ladder, I was expecting my foot to reach the floor but instead it entered water. Was the boat sinking?

Chapter 10 Marriage Breakup.

Christmas Day dawned. It had snowed during the night and the view from the bedroom window was beautiful. With a thick dusting of snow over everything the scene was one of total serenity. I looked at the scene and a mixture of awe and desperation ran through me. I was gazing at a view that was calm and very beautiful but within me my heart was being torn apart and full of sadness. What would be the final day of our happy family life had begun.

Chapter 11 Home Alone

My first task was to create a cosy home for myself in April Cottage. I painted the walls, ordered furniture and had a coal effect fire installed. I also had the window frames and door to the patio replaced. I’d had enough of freezing air rolling down the sloping garden and creeping in around the patio door.

Chapter 12 Internet Dating

Internet dating, for me, was not going to be simply a process of dating random strangers, but a series of serious job interviews. There’s no point in starting a relationship if problems show up on the first meeting. As we women quickly learn if a dress doesn’t look quite right in a shop it will look a great deal worse when you get it home.

Chapter 14 Life with Angus

Each day Angus was rolled into the oxygen chamber for an hour. To me the chamber looked like a glass coffin, with Angus lying in it. It was an alarming sight. I was allowed to sit beside the chamber with the nurse during the hour-long treatments. Gradually the pressure was increased to match air pressure at sea-level and then brought back to the level of air pressure in Cusco.

‘Covid Chronicles in Rhyme’ is a weekly accurate and detailed record of the progress of the Pandemic in the UK with information on its spread across the world. Each weekly record is written in rhyming couplets. Details include the spread of Covid-19, variants of the virus, vaccine development and treatments trialled and used

Weekly records start from the announcement of lockdown in the UK on 23^rd March 2020 and continue until January 2022 when the more transmissible but milder Omicron variant was causing widespread infections.

‘Covid Chronicles in Rhyme’ is packed with facts and statistics which sometimes paint a dark and depressing picture, but the last verse each week lightens the mood with a little optimism, comment or humour.

The seasonal effect on gardens throughout the year is part of the story. Photos of the author’s garden through the seasons are used to introduce each month. Posters and signs which appeared during the pandemic are also used as illustrations.

Week 3, 10^th April 2020

An address from our monarch started this week.
She said ‘We’ll succeed’, as we move to the peak.
‍
Nearly 3 weeks have gone; review won’t go as planned.
We’re in for the long haul, still everything’s banned.
‍
As the pandemic progresses, we try to flatten the curve,
Save lives, protect the NHS and all carers that serve.

Week 4, April 17^th 2020

STAY AT HOME is the message; stay behind the front door.
That’s the way we embrace lockdown week number four.
‍
Boris discharged, at Chequers recovering from his stay.
He thanks nurses who cared for him, says ‘It could have gone either way’.

21^th April 2020

Log on at midnight, but you see you’re already in a queue.
That’s what is necessary here, so that’s what you must do.
‍
Watch the screen till one o’clock, of beauty sleep bereft.
You’re through, hooray! But now you see no shopping slots are left.
‍
With online food impossible, to the shops you must set out.
But Covid-19 awaits, of that there is no doubt.

Week 7 May 8^th 2020

It’s been a week of records, some we could well do without.
UK deaths second in the world - what’s that all about?
‍
Covid-19 is a pernicious disease with so many varied effects.
Asymptomatic in some but can bring organ failure and deaths.
‍
Advice is to take paracetamol, lie prone, take deep breaths, then cough.
Use an oximeter to measure oxygen levels, but is all that enough?
‍
We’ve discovered men and women of colour are twice as likely to die.
We must quickly work out what’s happening, not just sit and wonder why.

The Silence of Lockdown.

So quiet you can hear a tulip petal fall.
A bee buzzes by on its way to somewhere.
A faint breeze rustles the leaves in tall trees.
A blackbird delights with a medley of songs.
A sparrow brightly trills.Silence falls.
The gentle warble of a pigeon breaks the silence.
No sound of voices, no dogs barking.
Not a plane in the sky or a car passing by.
No loud drumming from a car with the window wound down.
No lawnmower droning, or water flowering.
A rare moment of silence in a fresh and fragrant garden.
How can it be so quiet?
You can almost hear the silence.

Week 13, June 20^th 2020

Non-essential shops open, masks popping up everywhere. Week 13 so full of change.
With a massive U-turn, masks essential in hospitals, on ferries, buses, trains and planes.
‍
EasyJet is back in the air, no cabin service but an individual call for your personal slot in the loo.
Loos spread infection so put down the lid when you flush, in public loos, it’s essential to do.

Week 93, December 25^th 2021

It’s Christmas Day and there’s a feeling of optimism in the air. We hope all is as good as it seems.
With no restrictions, we can entertain as we please and have the family Christmas of our dreams.