The author retrained as a secondary school Teacher in her early forties after gaining a Master’s degree in Anthropology. While studying, she also worked to support people who live with disability a...voir plusThe author retrained as a secondary school Teacher in her early forties after gaining a Master’s degree in Anthropology. While studying, she also worked to support people who live with disability and mental health diagnoses. Teaching helped hone her writing skills, rekindling her love of poetry. Health issues, her partner John’s new job opportunity and a feeling of wanting to start again, saw the couple move from West Auckland to Kawerau, near John’s family area of Whakatane. She spent almost a year with Joe in 2016, recording notes and reading information Joe gave her. Suddenly in early 2017, Joe died and she was in despair. A gap followed as she collected herself after this promising collaboration and friendship suddenly ended. There were many frustrating rewrites but she had to find her own direction, without Joe. During this time, she started up a wholesale plant nursery at home. This became an all-consuming passion that rescued her and slowly allowed finishing the book to be a reachable goal. She is collating a series of children’s stories she has written, mainly about farm life, where some of the animals explain their points of view. She enjoys solving crossword puzzles and code crackers, as well as spending time in the garden with her cat.voir moins