The Bucket List – Three things that I am yet to achieve

Our old backyard in London.

1) Get a home of our own. My husband – once one of the top ActionScript Flash developers in the UK – technically lost his job after Steve Jobs decided to stop supporting Flash on Apple products. The recession hit us hard. We had to sell our flat in London and now are renting from the family up in Lancashire. He’s retrained and is now an expert on modern development languages so he’s doing the best he can. We hope to someday get a place of our own again, hopefully closer to London. I dream about owning a house in Kent or Surrey, something old, maybe a 17th-century cottage with a thatched roof, an old hearth that we can have real fires in during the cold winter months, a place where I can sing and play the piano without having to worry that it will disturb the neighbours, and a garden full of roses and lavender at the front of the house, and a large vegetable garden in the backyard. A place that doesn’t suffer from damp that makes all your furniture and clothing smell (as where we live now!) And I would dearly, dearly love a large washer…and a dryer! Sometimes I dream about our home when I look at the beautiful photos on Pinterest!

2) Open an e-commerce site for The Seventeenth Century Lady. I’m working with Orland Media Ltd on ideas for an e-commerce site that will be devoted to all things 17th-century related. Books, music, household items, and more. I had my company logo created a month ago and I’m in the process of becoming a Sole Trader here in the UK. There is a huge amount involved in making this goal a reality, and I’ve been working on my books more so that this is now on the back burner.

3) Record an album. I have been singing since I was a little girl, and have had voice training and done choir work. I have always wanted to record an album of Baroque and Early Modern folk songs, and I hope I can do this in 2014. I already have a work in progress, called The Seventeenth Century Lady Sings, and I hope I can maybe enlist my sister-in-law, professional classical guitarist Hayley Savage to record with me. I play flute and I wish I knew a local harpsichordist who’d work with me on the album as well.