Bio
Born in Kent, England, these days I live in Cuenca, Ecuador, with my partner, Ron. Life has certainly taken me a long way from where it all began.
My working life has been anything but conventional. I’ve been a chemical broker in the City of London, a masseuse on a cruise ship and an English teacher in Indonesia and China.
After a move to Australia, I found myself wearing safety boots rather than walking shoes, working for a road surfacing company in Perth, Western Australia. I oversaw ground crews and spent my working days involved in projects stretching from Kununurra in the north to Bunbury in the south-west.
Perhaps it was all in preparation for what came next!
In 2007, I met Ron, a Scot from Glasgow. Two years later, we retired, put our belongings into storage and bought one-way tickets from Perth to London. We had visas for Indonesia and China, but no itinerary, no deadlines and no real idea how long we would be away. We simply planned to keep travelling until we got fed up.
Our adventure became a three-year journey across five continents.
One of the places we visited along the way was Cuenca, Ecuador. We liked it so much that we eventually decided it was somewhere we could see ourselves retiring to. Several years later, we returned – and Cuenca became home.
It was in this diverse, cultural city that my journey into writing began, rather unexpectedly, when I attended a memoir-writing class. With plenty of encouragement and helpful tips from the established writers who ran the course, what started as a writing exercise eventually became my first memoir, No More Cups of Tea.
Writing and self-publishing No More Cups of Tea taught me a great deal. When the time came to write again, I had a much better idea of what I was doing. Two Backpacks became the sequel, this time written with the encouragement and support of fellow members of the Cuenca Writing Collective.
I’ve discovered that I rather enjoy writing – although I’m still not entirely sure whether I chose writing or writing chose me!
As a child, I always enjoyed sketching. My father painted with watercolours in his later years, and I still have two of his paintings hanging on my lounge wall.
As with my first writing class, I saw and advertisement for watercolour classes in late 2023, and on a whim signed up.
Under Albert Soriano’s watchful eye, I discovered a love of colour, blending and the freedom of brushstrokes. What started as an attempt to explore something I remembered from my father has become another creative outlet of my own.
Two years after I picked up a paintbrush, I participated in my first exhibition.
These days, I’m experimenting with acrylics, loving the freer, more creative style and enjoying seeing where it takes me.
I’m currently showing six new canvases in Colores de la Vida exhibition which runs until the end of October.
And perhaps that’s the thread through my life. I’ve never been particularly good at knowing exactly what comes next – but some of life’s best adventures seem to happen that way.
The Spark & Heritage
My fascination with storytelling began with my grandmother’s vivid tales of her childhood in India. Discovering that three generations of my family served there inspired a deep curiosity about my heritage—and ignited a lifelong passion for exploration, culture, and capturing the world around me.
Healing & Empowerment
Life isn’t always a smooth path. Through periods of isolation and self-destruction, I found solace and hard-won insights in the creative arts. Writing became my vehicle for healing, a raw and brutally honest process that ultimately resulted in my first powerful memoir, No More Cups of Tea.
The Great Adventure
Alongside my life companion, Ron, I chose to ask “Why not?” and take a giant leap of faith. Packing our lives into two backpacks, we moved to the breathtaking heights of Cuenca, Ecuador. Today, this expat journey fuels my travel blog, my sequel memoir, and my vibrant acrylic canvas paintings.