A few years ago when my daughter was about
to leave school, I moved into town. I had a plan. Molly was going to go to
college and I was going to travel more and write as I went. I was in my late
30s, divorced and had just moved into a small two-bedroom flat in the city
centre – the kind of flat upon which you can safely slam the door and head off
into the sunset. New York, Paris, Istanbul. It was all ahead of me - a well
laid plan.
Within a couple of months however I
inadvertently met my second husband, my daughter, who had rented a place in
Glasgow, where she went to study came home again and that footloose, fancy free
novelist who was going to go wherever her heart dictated was back in the box.
The box was too small – we later built an extension.