About This Book

My name is Geraldine Bown. I am born British and became an Irish citizen in 2018. I have been living in Connemara Ireland for the last 19 years. The pictures on this page are of the view I look at every day from my computer – same scene at different times. This view inspired me when I was writing and continues to inspire me every day.

Lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 gave me lots of time to reflect on my life – what had shaped me, what are the experiences that have stood out for me and what sense can I make of it all now at 73 years of age. These memoirs are the result of my reflections.

It was interesting to me to see what the things were that I most remembered, what meaning I gave to them then, and how all my experiences have contributed to the person I am now. I have covered most of the aspects of my life – there are just one or two areas I have kept private.

Unless people have specifically given permission to use their names I have used pseudonyms.

I have not written every chapter in chronological order. Some chapters are time specific e.g. Being a Student; Being a Teacher. Others span many years e.g. Being Confident; Being a Catholic. Each chapter is in a different blog post.

Feel free to read any chapter which interests you or read the whole thing. I have included a PDF of the whole book plus an audio recording of each chapter in case you prefer to listen rather than read.

At the end of each chapter there are some questions in case my reflections prompt you to think about that particular stage of your own life. There’s also a blessing while you reflect. The Questions and the Blessing are only on the blog online – not on the audio or the PDF. The blessings are taken mainly from the book Benedictus by John O’Donohue. If I couldn’t find an appropriate one I wrote one myself.

I have set up a private FaceBook group for anyone who wants to share their own reflections and memories. If you would like to be a part of this group just go to the Contact page and enter your name and email address and I will happily add you to the group. You need to be on FB yourself to join the group.

I have indicated the relevance of the picture selected for each chapter at the end of the chapter. It wasn’t easy to find photos of me as I am usually the one taking the pictures! Also I didn’t want to show anyone in photos who might not be happy to be identified.

Many thanks to Jo Parfitt at www.joparfitt.com for her help with making this fit to be read! Her course on How To Write Life Stories With SPICE was inspirational and instrumental in helping me to shape my ideas. Thanks also to Joshua Parfitt who created this website for me –  https://joshuajames.xyz.

And special thanks to my writing group partners Mary Farmer and Jeremy Solomons who reviewed every chapter as I wrote them and gave very valuable feedback.

If you are interested to find out more about my work as a Management Consultant you can see that at www.dominoperspectives.co.uk. My work as an Interfaith Minister can be found at www.revgeraldine.com.

Enjoy the book!