BEFORE hitting 50 next year, former SNJ news editor Sandra Ashenford has compiled a bucket list of 50 goals to achieve before her birthday.

The aim is to do one every week.

 

List item No. 14 – set up my own small business.

It’s funny how things turn out. Perhaps the only real piece of wisdom I could pass on to anybody after my 49 years is this – anything can happen.

Here we all are, getting on with the daily business of life, making solid plans for the future, or at least entertaining a vague idea about where we are heading, when suddenly something occurs out of the blue that changes everything.

Maybe you fall in love. Or maybe a loved one falls ill. Perhaps you might win a fortune on the lottery. Or perhaps you might lose your job.

When I compiled my list back in the spring, I had the idea of running a little business online, making and selling some quirky little thing that would become the new must-have. It would be just for fun, and probably quite short-lived.

But not long after the list was sealed, my team at the museum where I work was restructured, job roles were changed and I faced the prospect of applying for a new position on a lower salary or being made redundant.

I made the decision to leave. The weeks since then have been quite surreal, as I’ve tried to tie up loose ends before I go.

Several of my colleagues have already left, and the whole process has been rather like dismantling one jigsaw puzzle, where I fitted neatly into the picture, while another is being created that has nothing to do with me.

Even the word “redundant” is depressing. Still, I’m also old enough to know that challenging times are opportunities in disguise.

So, the small business that I’m launching next week, while different from the one I envisaged, will be the start of a new chapter.

I will be using the skills I’ve developed over the past few years to offer a range of living history workshops to schools and historic object handling sessions to older people, under the banner of my new business Over the Bridge Creative Learning.

And I’m finally going to finish the novel that’s been planned out and part-written for at least a decade. I’ve sorted my files and packed the contents of my desk into a small cardboard box and I’m good to go.

Exactly where I’ll end up is anybody’s guess.