We’re all here welcoming a new year, and I as much as anyone waves a fond hello to 2017.

2016 was a strange year for me, I said goodbye to a job with East Midlands Ambulance Service that treated its staff so badly that it’s criminal. I can only hope that things have improved since I left, especially in the way of staff support. Last Christmas I was left on the line for three hours per time in a row (a total of six hours) with suicidal callers. This, I’m happy to say, was addressed with new measures put in place and some training on how to help this specific kind of caller. Though, I do hasten to add that I am yet to receive an apology, and I know that if I expect one than I’m going to be waiting a long time. Just to add insult to injury they docked three-hundred odd pounds from my wages as I left. Cheers to you too! I’m glad to have leapt from the sinking ship, no matter how much I loved that job.

Anyway, on 31st March I started a new job with my own giant office and a great supportive boss. Of course the job is stressful, but having support in place seems to keep the hell to a minimum!

Life bobbed along as it always has until August when all hell seemed to break lose. August 2016 seemed as though it was the armageddon of my life. My marriage hit an irretrievable breakdown and I lost half a book with a co-author.

Those were the highs and lows from my personal life that made my life as an author suffer beyond what I honestly thought it would. I lost half a book and could have opted to turn it into a whole again, but honestly, right now, I never want to look at it again. I still have my printed, edited version, which I am keeping in order to burn on one fine day. I think that day will come when I have finally produced something in which I’m proud of that signifies that I didn’t need a co-author (Sssshhh! don’t tell anyone, but I knew I didn’t anyway