Starting over at 47, with a sewing machine and a small workshop.

I am Karen. Until last year I was Mrs Whitcombe, married twenty-one years, three children mostly grown, living in a four-bedroom house in Combe Down that we sold in March. Divorce was not what I planned for my fifth decade. But here I am, in a rented workshop in Larkhall, with my sewing machine, sixteen rolls of fabric, and a small website my daughter built me.

I am writing this because I have been told - by my daughter, by the kind woman at the business support centre, by everyone really - that I need to "build my online presence." I do not know what that means yet. I am going to find out by doing it. If you are reading this, hello. The plan is to write here every day and see what happens.