Lamp Is On: 101 Reflections for the Life You Didn't Plan

For women looking for a book where they'll find comfort, freedom, humour, companionship, understanding,
independence and permission.

For every woman living alone after fifty, however she arrived there.

Perhaps a marriage ended. Perhaps she lost someone. Perhaps she's the one driving to the nursing home most days and coming home each evening to a quiet house. Perhaps retirement changed the rhythm of everything. Or perhaps she's always lived alone, and somehow this stage of life feels different from the ones that came before.

The Lamp Is On is a collection of 101 funny, honest and sharply observed pieces about the small pleasures and unexpected freedoms that often go unnoticed - the impractical lamp, the thermostat that nobody else gets a vote on, the friend who arrives with soup and no fuss, the bed that is entirely your own, and Sundays that belong to nobody but you.

This isn't a book about reinventing yourself. There is no twelve-step programme, no dramatic fresh start, and absolutely no suggestion that you should sell everything and move to Bali.

Instead, these pages celebrate the life that's already in front of you, with all its ordinary comforts, quiet routines, unexpected joys and the occasional discovery that perhaps some things have turned out better than expected.

Written with warmth, humour and a complete absence of forced positivity, The Lamp Is On is for women who don't need to be told that everything happens for a reason. They simply want the company of someone who understands, and who knows that guests shouldn't be the first people to enjoy the good sheets.