Life Happens: my journey through translation and other stories

'Dear Mr Snozzi,Do you remember me?'So began the letter that was going to take my life in awhole new direction. One month later I arrived in France’sChampagne region with one suitcase, dreadful spokenFrench and nowhere to live.Fast forward three years and I’m heading for London withone suitcase, fluent French, somewhere to live and a caseor two of champagne.In 1990, I was on the move again. This time back toScotland with several suitcases and a husband. Oh, and inthe interim, I had become an in-house translator.After my heady, carefree 20s in the wine and spiritsbusiness, life was about to become much more serious witha mortgage, children, health issues, bereavement, the upsand downs of family life and – from 1997 – my ownfreelance translation business.Life Happens… and freelancers are all too familiar with thechallenge of running a business while it does. This is mystory of coping admirably, failing miserably and generallykeeping my head above water most of the time.