The story so far
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Siân Lacey Taylder’s in the throes of a mid-life crisis. Homeless, penniless and…
Well, I was about to say ‘without a care in the world’ but that would be a girt, humungous lie because the truth is that Siân Lacey Taylder’s torn between two worlds. Should she settle down within the comfortable, middle-class confines of Wells – which will, of course, soon have its very own branch of Waitrose – or should she continue roaming: footloose and fancy-free?
Should she continue to minster to the needs of the sons and daughters of the Somerset bourgeoisie or should she take the plunge and try to make it as a bona-fide writer? It’s not as though she hasn’t got form.
Trouble is, she can’t stop walking. Every other day she laces up her boots and hits the road; up on the Mendips, out on the Levels, across the green and pleasant hills of Dorsetshire – another twenty-five, thirty kilometres; there’s no stopping her. Small wonder she’s barely got two pennies to rub together.
I blame the Camino; the six-hundred mile trek across northern Spain she walked in the summer. That’s when the rot – if we can call it that – set in. She hadn’t even crossed the Pyrenees and she was planning another unnecessarily long-hike; she’d conceded to the lure of the post-modern pilgrim long before she set foot in Santiago de Compostela.
Here’s a word of advice to the young and uninitiated. Never let a woman with a history of reinventing herself – we might go so far as to call her a serial offender – let loose, alone, on the open road.
It’s a recipe for disaster.
The Deal
Good job I’m on hand to strike a compromise. ‘Give it a year’, I told her, over a large gin and tonic in one of Well’s more salubrious drinking holes. ‘Keep your tutoring clientele to the absolute minimum, downsize as low as you can – even if it means moving in with the crazy B-J family. Give yourself until the thirtieth of September 2013 to try and make a living from the writing. Then, if it doesn’t work out, you can turn nomad again; get back on the trail, replicate Patrick Leigh Fermor’s great trek across Europe. You know you’ve always wanted to, you could even write a book about it.
Famous last words.
Good job I’m on hand to keep her on the straight and narrow. I don’t know why she asked me to write the introduction, it’s not as if she’s ever been adverse to going on and on about herself, ad nauseum. Mind you, now I come to think about it, there are some episodes in her life she refuses to discuss; she leaves all that unpleasant, slightly-sordid stuff to me.
Whatever, I’ll make sure she keeps you posted.
María Inés de la Cruz
Well, I was about to say ‘without a care in the world’ but that would be a girt, humungous lie because the truth is that Siân Lacey Taylder’s torn between two worlds. Should she settle down within the comfortable, middle-class confines of Wells – which will, of course, soon have its very own branch of Waitrose – or should she continue roaming: footloose and fancy-free?
Should she continue to minster to the needs of the sons and daughters of the Somerset bourgeoisie or should she take the plunge and try to make it as a bona-fide writer? It’s not as though she hasn’t got form.
Trouble is, she can’t stop walking. Every other day she laces up her boots and hits the road; up on the Mendips, out on the Levels, across the green and pleasant hills of Dorsetshire – another twenty-five, thirty kilometres; there’s no stopping her. Small wonder she’s barely got two pennies to rub together.
I blame the Camino; the six-hundred mile trek across northern Spain she walked in the summer. That’s when the rot – if we can call it that – set in. She hadn’t even crossed the Pyrenees and she was planning another unnecessarily long-hike; she’d conceded to the lure of the post-modern pilgrim long before she set foot in Santiago de Compostela.
Here’s a word of advice to the young and uninitiated. Never let a woman with a history of reinventing herself – we might go so far as to call her a serial offender – let loose, alone, on the open road.
It’s a recipe for disaster.
The Deal
Good job I’m on hand to strike a compromise. ‘Give it a year’, I told her, over a large gin and tonic in one of Well’s more salubrious drinking holes. ‘Keep your tutoring clientele to the absolute minimum, downsize as low as you can – even if it means moving in with the crazy B-J family. Give yourself until the thirtieth of September 2013 to try and make a living from the writing. Then, if it doesn’t work out, you can turn nomad again; get back on the trail, replicate Patrick Leigh Fermor’s great trek across Europe. You know you’ve always wanted to, you could even write a book about it.
Famous last words.
Good job I’m on hand to keep her on the straight and narrow. I don’t know why she asked me to write the introduction, it’s not as if she’s ever been adverse to going on and on about herself, ad nauseum. Mind you, now I come to think about it, there are some episodes in her life she refuses to discuss; she leaves all that unpleasant, slightly-sordid stuff to me.
Whatever, I’ll make sure she keeps you posted.
María Inés de la Cruz