With this new biography I am writing of Jane, a very troubled soul who lives in our village, it is the first time I’ve ever had to take notes. Usually I write whatever comes into my head on the day, but now I’ve got to be disciplined and ask pertinent questions to make Jane’s story flow from childhood to adulthood in some sort of order. However, I had not bargained for Jane’s loquaciousness in wanting to tell all as any event from any age pops into her head.

To me it’s easy; you think back to your earliest memory and all the events surrounding it, and tell me all about it in a succinct way so that I can take bullet points. Apparently though, this seems about as far from Jane’s way of working as night is from day. I’m having to jump back and forth in time against my better judgement, but all the while try to bring her back to the time period in question.

She’s a lovely lady, but medications have made her brain work in a different way, and I realise I have got to go along with the flow. I’m a very organised person and usually my day is structured if there are no other appointments; from 07:45 – 08:30 I take a long walk, from 09:00 – 10:00 Jane comes to my house to work on the biography, from 10 – 13:30 I work for the NHS, from 13:30 – 14:00 I take another walk, and from 14:00 I work on my blogs and social media sites until 17:00 when I usually switch the computer off to prepare dinner and talk to Sam when he finishes work. Jane would carry on talking until 5pm if I let her, but I have to give myself time to make sense of my notes and type them up each day and also to have the evenings free for a late walk, to watch TV if there’s anything interesting on, or just to read or sit in the garden and do nothing on these warm summer evenings.

I haven’t written a biography before, and I have to get the facts right. I show Jane my typed notes the next day for her to verify the facts, but hey, bless her, she’s off on another tangent. This biography thing isn’t going to be as easy as I first thought, lol. But I’m nothing if not persistent; I’ll work it all out one way or another…