[startree1]

Wishing everyone a great day. I’m new to Talk of The Villages (as of y/day) though not The Villages and just wanted to drop by and say hi.

I live in Summerhill part time (because I’m British) and have been here for 10 years. Wow! Doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself.

I heard about The Villages from a woman I played golf with in the North East of England where I live for the other part of the year. Ever heard of Coals to Newcastle. That’s where I’m from - Newcastle. It’s a hop skip and a jump from Alnwick Castle which featured as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter Films and it’s where The Animals (of House of the Rising Sun fame come from).

She described The Villages as "Heaven on Earth", so we had to visit to see if she was right. Guess what - she was. So we more or less bought on the spot.
Soon after buying, we played golf with a man who used to put together retirement packages for his company's employees. And to give people advice "from the horse's mouth", he travelled around the US sampling life in retirement communities. And when he quit work, guess where he bought. Yeah, you got it.....

We love it here and wish we could stay longer. Since retiring as a newspaper reporter, we do stay longer, so not complaining. My motto is You’re Never Too Old To Reach For The Stars and The Villages is a great place to make your dreams come true. Since retiring, I’m fulfilling a childhood dream of mine – by becoming an author.

I’ve written two children’s books so far – ANTics and WOOF. I didn’t plan to write for children – it just sort of happened. We were playing golf in Spain when I spotted a group of ants carrying a crisp (potato chip if you’re American) It was 20 times bigger than a single ant but that wasn’t a problem. They worked as a team to carry it and even lift it up a six-inch kerb. Some ants ran around directing operations and others pelted off and brought back reinforcements.

They were incredible to watch and certainly left an impression on me because that night, I dreamt about ants. Urghhh. Gives you the shivers, I know. But these guys were the equivalent of little kids and got up to a great adventure. The story was fresh in my head when I woke up, so I quickly wrote down a detailed outline and ANTics was born. I’ve had some great reviews and have written a sequel, which I am currently editing.

The Villages is a great place to relax and be creative, so I’m hoping my muse jumped in my suitcase and came on the plane from England with me. I hope to get MutANTs published before returning to the UK early 2014 if I can stay off the golf course (where I don’t hit like Tiger) long enough.