Fiona Gibson - The Mum Who Got Her Life Back

Published by AVON

A Division of HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperColl‌insPublishers 2019

Copyright © Fiona Gibson 2019

Cover design © Lisa Horton 2019

Cover [photograph/illustration] © Shutterstock

Fiona Gibson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008310967

Ebook Edition © [month] [year] ISBN: 9780008310974

Version: 2018-12-20

For my fabulous friend Miss Jackie Brown

Queen of Fife

With thanks …

To the amazing Jackie B, who manages a Mary’s Meals charity shop and let me spend a day nosing around, talking to volunteers and rummaging in the back room. I couldn’t have written this book without your help, Miss Brown! To Kath Brown and Miranda McMinn at Woman & Home magazine for getting me thinking about Happy Empty Nesters (HENs) and inadvertently inspiring this book. To Jen, Susan, Laura, Wendy and Lisa (Kath, you were missed!) for celebrating with me in Ibiza when this book was done. To Wendy (again) for a detailed description of a certain type of pokey facial, which I used almost verbatim. To my brilliant editor Rachel Faulkner-Willcocks, publicist Sabah Khan and the whole fantastic Avon team. To my super-agent Caroline Sheldon for being the best in the business. Finally, all my love to Jimmy, Sam, Dexter and Erin, my lovely family who put up with me working crazy hours and very often talking to myself.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page The Mum Who Got her Life Back FIONA GIBSON

Copyright Published by AVON A Division of HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperColl‌insPublishers 2019 Copyright © Fiona Gibson 2019 Cover design © Lisa Horton 2019 Cover [photograph/illustration] © Shutterstock Fiona Gibson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008310967 Ebook Edition © [month] [year] ISBN: 9780008310974 Version: 2018-12-20

Dedication For my fabulous friend Miss Jackie Brown Queen of Fife

Epigraph With thanks … To the amazing Jackie B, who manages a Mary’s Meals charity shop and let me spend a day nosing around, talking to volunteers and rummaging in the back room. I couldn’t have written this book without your help, Miss Brown! To Kath Brown and Miranda McMinn at Woman & Home magazine for getting me thinking about Happy Empty Nesters (HENs) and inadvertently inspiring this book. To Jen, Susan, Laura, Wendy and Lisa (Kath, you were missed!) for celebrating with me in Ibiza when this book was done. To Wendy (again) for a detailed description of a certain type of pokey facial, which I used almost verbatim. To my brilliant editor Rachel Faulkner-Willcocks, publicist Sabah Khan and the whole fantastic Avon team. To my super-agent Caroline Sheldon for being the best in the business. Finally, all my love to Jimmy, Sam, Dexter and Erin, my lovely family who put up with me working crazy hours and very often talking to myself.

Part One: Things that happen when your kids first leave home Part One Things that happen when your kids first leave home • You keep checking to see if they’ve texted to say they’re managing without you. They haven’t … because you’ve only just moved them into their student halls and are still sitting in your car, in the car park. • You realise it’s no longer necessary to buy those two-kilo bags of potatoes. They just go green and start sprouting. • You also stop buying The Big Milk and switch to the smallest carton. How tiny you are! you think, the first dozen times you spy it in the fridge. • Friends say things like, ‘You might miss them at first. But when they come home on visits they’ll trash the place, and you’ll be relieved when they go back to uni.’ How harsh , you think. I love my kids. I’ll never think of them in that way. • You realise you could now have sex in your own home without worrying about the kids overhearing. Or perhaps you’re thinking more along the lines of, Shall I redecorate to mark this new chapter? Perhaps your mindset is less ‘shag pad’, more ‘upgrading of cushions’. Either way, it’s pretty thrilling. • Towels remain on the towel rail and the loo roll sits, unmolested, on its holder. • The washing machine goes on about twice a week. You start to feel proud of your tiny carbon footprint. • No one criticises your home-cooked lasagne. You don’t even have to make lasagne, with all the chopping and stirring it entails. Dinner can be a pot of hummus and a boiled egg if you feel like it. • No one crashes in, switching on all the lights and frying things at 3.30 a.m. • After a while you stop thinking, My God, this is weird! Where is everyone? You’re not missing the days when it looked as if wildebeest had stampeded through the kitchen, whenever someone made toast. Gradually, you become used to them not being there, and – it almost seems criminal to admit this – you don’t completely hate it. This signifies that you have transitioned, relatively painlessly, into being a HEN: a Happy Empty Nester. Yes, you’re still a doting parent, but no longer in the day-to-day sense, which suggests that your new life has begun. So, what now ?

Chapter One: Nadia

Chapter Two

Chapter Three: Jack

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six: Nadia

Chapter Seven: Jack

Part Two: Sex and the Empty Nester: Things to Know

Chapter Eight: Nadia

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve: Jack

Chapter Thirteen: Nadia

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen: Jack