Welcome to my first Substack post

This is all new to me and to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure if I should be here. When I googled what is Substack , the answer was that it is an online platform that allows journalists, writers and other content creators to publish newsletters and establish a subscription- based audience. So the fact that I just want to write a regular post about the life of a sixty odd year old who wants to make the most of her newly retired life might not apply as I’m definitely not a journalist or content creator and as for writer, well I can put words down on paper, or screen, that form a sentence which as far as I know means that I’m writing and therefore must be a writer!

Anyway, there’s nothing to say that I can’t use the platform but I definitely won’t be going down the subscription route. I’ll leave that to all of those clever journalists etc who deserve an income from subscriptions. I’m just doing this because I like to pop a word or two down now and again and if anyone cares to read it then I appreciate the fact that they have.

I have been writing blog posts for about fourteen years. I started off with a blog called The Fifty Something Bride. The posts were written to document the preparations leading up my wedding to my Mr R, which is what I call him in my blog posts. He is actually called Graham. Maybe on here I will call him by his name. A decision still to be made. After the wedding, I started a new blog called A Fifty Something Me which was really a hodge podge of posts about anything and everything from my battle with my weight to reviews of cruises. During lockdown I posted instalments of the first draft of the book I was writing. It was a good way of keeping the momentum going knowing that I needed to post a new chapter each week. The book has since been edited about three times and I really should be getting on with seeing if it can be published. So if I have written a book I can say that I’m a writer, right? Just not a published one….yet!

Getting my blog posts published became difficult. I was using the free edition and it was becoming evermore restrictive with what I could actually do. It wasn’t allowing me to edit, post photos and so on. Posts that I had spent ages writing just disappeared just as I was about to press the ‘publish now’ button. Extremely frustrating when I had spent a good part of the day putting it together, not helped by the fact that I can only type with one finger. It was time to call it a day with my little blog that actually, I was very proud of. So what if hardly anyone read it, I was just chuffed that I could say that I was a blogger!

I chose the name of my Substack to be It’s Never To Late because I want to write about the fact that having reached the ripe old age of sixty four it’s not too late to up sticks and move home, have adventures, learn new skills, tick things off the old bucket list, get healthier, make new friends. Basically, enjoy life in my sixties. My dear, wonderful mum who is eighty seven and as sharp as a tack now calls me an OAP despite the fact that I can’t claim my pension for another year. She would have me dressed head to toe in beige crimplene and passes on information from Pure Cremations! I want to prove that age is just a number and it’s never too late to do anything you want to.

I was just going to finish there but then I thought that I ought to tell you a bit about me before signing off. I’m Brigitte. Spelt the French way because my dad had a thing about Brigitte Bardot when I was born. It’s not pronounced the French way, just the Bridget Jones way. You know how old I am, so don’t need to mention that again. I’m married to my Mr R (Graham). He is six foot six. I am five foot nothing. We could never take up ballroom dancing together. It just wouldn’t work. I have two boys from a previous marriage and a step son. I am also a nana to my two darling grandchildren. I have a toenail phobia and close my eyes when driving on slip roads. I no longer own a car. Just to clarify, I didn’t crash it. I can’t ride a bike but I can bake a cake, or bread, or a tart. I got to the third round of auditions for Bake Off but my savoury babka let me down!

Phew, first one done. Looking forward to writing number two. There will hopefully be photos. Bye for now!