Over the last couple of years I have been working on a
couple of ideas for novels and I thought I would share them with you. The first
of which has the working title, Granny
goes to Uni. It was partly inspired by my own experience of studying for a
degree as a very mature student (although I am not a Granny yet). It was also
inspired by a vision of the future for many older people whose pensions will
not provide the kind of lifestyle they envisaged for their retirement. The
Granny in the novel, recently retired Nina Smyth, lives alone in her three
bedroom apartment in Portobello, Edinburgh, and she faces a bleak future,
juggling bills with her savings draining away quickly on mundane things such as
replacing the central heating boiler, rather than on her dreams of seeing the
world.
She is inspired by an advert in an Estate Agent’s window to
rent her spare rooms to students and she takes in two young women who are
studying at Edinburgh University. Nicole and Abigail bring youthfulness and
energy back into Nina’s home and before long she is inspired to sign up to a
degree course in Scottish Cultural Studies. Her experience of academia is both
challenging and exciting and before long her social life has expanded.
As usual there will be some element of romance in the novel.
I haven’t quite decided whether it will be a lecturer, a museum curator, or
even her ex-husband. But when I get around to that part of the story it will be
interesting to tackle the idea of dating at such a mature age. In reality I don’t
expect it is much different – maybe less reliance on social networking as a
communication tool.
The other novel has a working title of Laughing with the Kookaburra and it is set mainly in Perth, Western
Australia. This is also inspired by real life in a funny kind of way. The protagonist
in this story is Zoe, a divorced woman who lives in Shetland whose daughter,
Ella, takes a year off after university to work in Australia. Towards the end
of this year Zoe travels to Perth to see her daughter and stays with her cousin
Janice who emigrated there many years ago.
To Zoe’s horror her daughter has met a very nice Australian
man, and has landed the job of her dreams in a young offender’s unit working
with teenage boys. Zoe faces the prospect of hardly ever seeing her only child
and she is distraught, but cannot share this with her daughter. Encouraged by
her cousin Janice to move to Australia too, Zoe discovers she is too old and
her only option would be to marry an Australian. So Janice sets about
introducing Zoe to the single men of her acquaintance in the crazy hope that
she might meet someone suitable.
It is indeed a crazy hope and Zoe has to suffer a serious of
disastrous dates before she gives this idea up and returns to the UK alone.
This was never going to be a serious novel and I was planning on concentrating
on the comedy. But, as fate would have it, between planning the novel and
getting it written, I now face the very real prospect of my eldest son settling
down in New Zealand. So it isn’t quite so funny now. However, I am hoping to
write a happy ending for Zoe involving a tall dark handsome Kiwi and if I can
somehow influence fate again in my own life, well so much the better. The title
was inspired by a visit to Perth Zoo with Franklin and Victoria when a
kookaburra burst into “laughter” when we walked past him.
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