Happiness is new for me

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always focused on the next challenge, and never celebrated success. Perhaps the only exceptions were getting married, and the births of our two children in the 1980s. For the past 40 years, I’ve never celebrated success, just pressed on with the next challenge.Moving to Leiston is an opportunity to change that.

This week has seen my latest book reach its crowdfunding target, and the exchange of contracts on the sale of our Norfolk home. The book is one I’d always wanted to write, but until I enrolled on the UEA’s creative writing MA, never quite found the time or right structure for the book. Now I am months away from holding copies in my hand, and I hope hearing from readers how they’ve found the book. This marks my shift from business writing, to writing about people and place.

This week also saw us exchange contracts on the sale of our Norfolk home. We’d been there 25 years, so in some ways will be sad to see it go, but our new home is fast taking shape and it’s now possible to stand in what will be my study and see the view of our badger sett from the window. They say that selling a house is second only to divorce in terms of the stress it causes. We’ve spent six months in conveyancing limbo, so to bring that to an end is monumental.

It’s Easter weekend, with two concerts and a talk at Snape to attend. I think I might just manage to allow myself to feel happy.