About Nicola
Nicola practised as a solicitor in Huddersfield, Dewsbury, and Wilmslow.
She now calls Derbyshire home, after upping sticks and leaving West Yorkshire to be with her long-term partner.
It may be fair to categorise her school-aged self as a goody-two-shoes; that annoying child who always stuck her hand up in class to show she had finished first. Her studious ways made her a natural fit for working in the law until that day when she decided she had had enough. Writing allows her more playful nature to exert itself.
When someone asked her partner to sum her up in one word, he thought about it for two seconds and agreed –annoying! She says that sounds like a great title for her next book.
For relaxation, she enjoys riding out on her Harley Sportster, practising yoga, or walking up hills. Relearning Spanish is essential, now she has a daughter living in Peru. The progeny of her two children closer to home need regular trips to the zoo and chocolate.
The journey to where she is now has shown her that people see what they want to see, good does not always prevail, and happiness lies in the simplest of things. The interesting and chaotic characters she has encountered along the way have given her plenty of fodder for her new writing career.
And her plan? Well, that’s the problem. She has never really had one. She has been in the habit of standing still and letting the cosmos spin around her. Peacock on the Moon is her way of metaphorically sticking a leg out to see who falls over. If anyone notices, she might stick the other leg out too.
About Nicola
Nicola practised as a solicitor in Huddersfield, Dewsbury, and Wilmslow.
She now calls Derbyshire home, after upping sticks and leaving West Yorkshire to be with her long-term partner.
It may be fair to categorise her school-aged self as a goody-two-shoes; that annoying child who always stuck her hand up in class to show she had finished first. Her studious ways made her a natural fit for working in the law until that day when she decided she had had enough. Writing allows her more playful nature to exert itself.
When someone asked her partner to sum her up in one word, he thought about it for two seconds and agreed –annoying! She says that sounds like a great title for her next book.
For relaxation, she enjoys riding out on her Harley Sportster, practising yoga, or walking up hills. Relearning Spanish is essential, now she has a daughter living in Peru. The progeny of her two children closer to home need regular trips to the zoo and chocolate.
The journey to where she is now has shown her that people see what they want to see, good does not always prevail, and happiness lies in the simplest of things. The interesting and chaotic characters she has encountered along the way have given her plenty of fodder for her new writing career.
And her plan? Well, that’s the problem. She has never really had one. She has been in the habit of standing still and letting the cosmos spin around her. Peacock on the Moon is her way of metaphorically sticking a leg out to see who falls over. If anyone notices, she might stick the other leg out too.
Bio
I arrived at Luton and Dunstable Hospital maternity ward in 1961. My father was working as a solicitor in London, but this was a temporary position, with my parents soon relocating to Huddersfield. An unremarkable time at primary school ended when, at age eleven, they sent me to a boarding school, as per family tradition.
I fell into the law through inadvertence. A degree from Manchester University led to the College of Law in Guildford, then a training contract in Manchester city centre. This path culminated in my first qualified position, working for my father at Owen & Briggs, solicitors, in town. In the eleven years I worked there, I had my daughter and son, got married and divorced, and moved house three times.
My next husband made it clear he wanted a stay-at-home mother to his only child, my second daughter. I gave up my career for a while until I divorced again. Life, already hectic, grew even busier as I became a single, self-supporting, working mother of three. My previous experience of residential and commercial conveyancing at Owen & Briggs helped me land my next job in Dewsbury, where I worked within three different firms in the town over the next sixteen years.
Being a high street solicitor is never dull. I enjoyed my interactions with clients. The stories from my little old grannies and grandpas, in their care homes, at the end of their days, resigned to their inability to create fresh memories, made me love living and want to get it all in before it is my turn.
When the last of my brood left home, I jumped across the Pennines to live with my long-term partner. I know the Woodhead Pass well, particularly the bridge at Millhouse Green, after I came face to face with its stonework on the occasion of my writing off my car, a big red bus, and a white van. I am lucky to be here. Shortly thereafter, I moved lock, stock, and barrel, and found alternative employment in Wilmslow.
Moving from job to job never gave me the opportunity to be anything other than an assistant solicitor, but not everyone aims to be the boss. There are those who say I never met my full potential, but being tied to a desk for the hours it requires, week and weekend, has never been something I wanted for myself. And when the burning urge to write a memoir took over, the chains to the office were not that tight.
My itinerary to where I am now has not been plain sailing. I could not have written what I now write, and will write, any sooner.
Bio
I arrived at Luton and Dunstable Hospital maternity ward in 1961. My father was working as a solicitor in London, but this was a temporary position, with my parents soon relocating to Huddersfield. An unremarkable time at primary school ended when, at age eleven, they sent me to a boarding school, as per family tradition.
I fell into the law through inadvertence. A degree from Manchester University led to the College of Law in Guildford, then a training contract in Manchester city centre. This path culminated in my first qualified position, working for my father at Owen & Briggs, solicitors, in town. In the eleven years I worked there, I had my daughter and son, got married and divorced, and moved house three times.
My next husband made it clear he wanted a stay-at-home mother to his only child, my second daughter. I gave up my career for a while until I divorced again. Life, already hectic, grew even busier as I became a single, self-supporting, working mother of three. My previous experience of residential and commercial conveyancing at Owen & Briggs helped me land my next job in Dewsbury, where I worked within three different firms in the town over the next sixteen years.
Being a high street solicitor is never dull. I enjoyed my interactions with clients. The stories from my little old grannies and grandpas, in their care homes, at the end of their days, resigned to their inability to create fresh memories, made me love living and want to get it all in before it is my turn.
When the last of my brood left home, I jumped across the Pennines to live with my long-term partner. I know the Woodhead Pass well, particularly the bridge at Millhouse Green, after I came face to face with its stonework on the occasion of my writing off my car, a big red bus, and a white van. I am lucky to be here. Shortly thereafter, I moved lock, stock, and barrel, and found alternative employment in Wilmslow.
Moving from job to job never gave me the opportunity to be anything other than an assistant solicitor, but not everyone aims to be the boss. There are those who say I never met my full potential, but being tied to a desk for the hours it requires, week and weekend, has never been something I wanted for myself. And when the burning urge to write a memoir took over, the chains to the office were not that tight.
My itinerary to where I am now has not been plain sailing. I could not have written what I now write, and will write, any sooner.