Back Again

Welcome to my new blog! I felt I had to do something productive, as it's now been eight weeks since I threw in my job at Aljazeera English in Qatar and flew home.

Let's just say that again, because I still can't quite believe it - I quit my tax-free salary in the sun as an international news anchor, and came home to the wet, cold UK as an unemployed hack.

That look you're giving me right there is how my husband greeted the news. Thankfully Simon is pretty stoic. He's a program editor and runs his own drone footage company called Aeroproductions, which is helping keep us afloat. Or aloft, ha ha.

I had a lot of fun living in the Middle East. I had a fabulous circle of friends which included ex-BBC presenter Darren Jordon, and ex-CNN presenter Adrian Finighan. I was ex-ITV News. We were like the who's who of presenters who've disappeared off domestic TV screens in the past 10 years. If you ever wonder where that familiar face has gone, he/she is probably in Qatar, lured by the pull of the big bucks at Aljazeera. And don't criticise, because it's a great place to work. The international news coverage is second to none, everyone can afford live-in nannies, and crime is virtually non-existent.

Yes, I am aware of the disparities with the other expats, the ones referred to as 'migrant workers' (as if, somehow, we weren't). But I will come onto that another time. I just want to impress on you how grand life is for western expats living in the Gulf.

So why did I give it all up?

The simplest reason of all. I wanted to do something else.

For the longest time I have wanted to write books, and finally, finally, I have a full manuscript and, that Holy Grail all aspiring writers search for, a literary agent. My novel is a supernatural story for older kids, or YA as my agent calls it. That's Young Adult, which apparently starts at 13. I have my doubts - my daughter is 12, and she's nowhere near mature enough to be on the edge of Young Adulthood. But who am I to argue?

I know things may get tough and I will have to start freelancing in some capacity or we could all starve to death in leafy Buckinghamshire. That would be awkward. What on earth would the neighbours say?!

But right now I'm concentrating on the book. The next step is the hardest. I have a fabulous agent, but now I need a publisher who can see the promise in my work, and the books yet to come.

I am, for the moment, OK. More than OK. I'm happy to be doing something I want to do.

As Oscar Wilde once said, "To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." So I've taken the plunge, and I'll keep you posted.