I am married and mum to 3 teenagers and we live in the beautiful sunny South of France.
I am/was a paediatric nurse, school nurse, health visitor, mum and wife and generally 'The Family Boss', or so I'm told!
So what made me create this website on Learning French?
At the age of 20 I left home and headed for the bright city lights of London and to train to be a nurse. It was a childhood dream
come true. All those bright city lights and nurse-doctor parties were just heaven to an innocent convent girl.
As the years progressed I moved from ward to ward and from one nursing department to another and did various courses and certificates
and continued to revel in it all.
Then an event happened that set me on a completely different path...
It was in the late 1980's and there was the appalling famine in Ethiopia. A good nursing friend of mine had just come back from Sudan after
working in a refugee camp and her stories and experiences just compelled me to follow.
So after bombarding Save the Children Fund (UK) with my CV and lots of phone calls I finally got a work placement in early 1987 in an
Ethiopian refugee camp in Sudan.
What a shock to the system.
I thought I was well prepared but working in the children's hospital and feeding centers and seeing a child starving day in and day out was
something that affects you forever.
It was a huge privilege to have had that experience and an honour to work with people who were so
dedicated.
Added to that I met my husband Bill. He was the refugee camp administrator and was this vision of a tall,
handsome bearded man whom I thought looked like Jesus. Funny as I don't go for beards anymore. Yes he has shaved it off!
After 6 months
in the camp, we both returned to England. I went into school nursing in London and then community health visiting and Bill went back into the
Save the Children Headquarters.
However we both knew though that we would go overseas again and that day came pretty quickly.
A Family Is Born
By 1992 Bill and I were married and along with our first child Sam who was only 6 weeks old, we headed off to Togo in West Africa. Again
working for Save The Children.
After just a year, political unrest sent us to Ghana for 4 years and later we went on to Mali for another 4 years.
In Ghana we had 2 more children (Ellie and Douglas) and all the time I stayed at home to look after them.
Much as it was a privilege to have the opportunity to stay at home with the children, there were times when I hankered after something
that would work my brain cells a bit more.
To counteract that, I did some distance learning courses in French, interior design and setting up a home based business.
Little did I know that the latter would be a starting point in an eventual
new career.
From Africa To Asia
By 2000 we were ready for a change of continent and we didn't want to head back to Europe so Asia it was.
We arrived in Vietnam and thought we had arrived in paradise after the dry dusty deserts of Mali.
Sam was now 8 and so beginning to appreciate the ability to do other things than just be at home with mum.
His social life took on a whole new meaning and he relished being in 'big' school, going to kids parties and sports clubs - things that
we were sort of deprived of in Mali.
I continued to think about going back to nursing but having been out of it for so long it would have meant a long refresher course
back in the UK.
So instead I did some voluntary work and relief work in kindergartens but I still hankered after something else.
My first 'business venture' was exporting lacquer crafts back to England but that was harder than I thought and took up lots of time
for very little money. It was fun and interesting but I lacked enough contacts (and experience) back in England to make it work properly.
My sister ended up buying a lot of the lacquer crafts with the idea that she would sell them at these fancy craft markets in her village.
I don't think she ever did and it all still sits merrily in her garage ready to be dished out as yet another wedding present.
So I kept myself busy with other things including learning Vietnamese, improving my French (which was necessary with our kids in the
French school system) and organizing kid get togethers, parties and learning to ride a motorbike which was the 'only' way to get around in
Vietnam.
Mind you I never mastered the motorbike and ended up selling it - what a relief when I could just get back on my trusty but rusty old
bicycle.
It was here in Hanoi that my new career was also born!
In Search of Something Else
It was 2003 that I also discovered the joys of the Internet.
We only had dial up but it meant I could send emails and be in contact quickly with the outside world.
I thus decided that I wanted to do an online study course in perhaps psychology or writing children's books.
However as things in life often take a detour, I ended up looking at websites about building websites.
This got my interest as I would be learning something new, working from home and creating a an income for myself. The 3 things that I
really wanted to achieve.
So after stacks more research and to-ing and fro-ing and asking questions from those who had done it before, I decided to give it a go
and thankfully it all worked out brilliantly. I can now share my interests and passions through my website.
My name is Nicole and I am the owner and creator of 
After just a year, political unrest sent us to Ghana for 4 years and later we went on to Mali for another 4 years.
We arrived in Vietnam and thought we had arrived in paradise after the dry dusty deserts of Mali.
