The silence in the flat was deafening. Having lost almost everything in my divorce, it was now just me in a basement studio flat with black mould. I had no TV, no sofa and the wifi wasn’t set up. I sat at a cheap folding table and made a list. Since my life was no longer going to be the way I had planned – marriage, kids, a dog, a late-Victorian terrace in a country town – I was going to try something else. I was going to do all the things on my “try before you’re 30” bucket list.
It was early 2014 and, having recently turned 32, I had already missed the boat, but I was determined not to let that stop me. I’d spent the past four years living in suburbia and felt as though I was prematurely middle-aged, going to garden centres at weekends and spending most of my time watching TV, tired from a long commute to my job as a communications officer. I had become set in my ways. Now I was back in London – albeit extremely broke – I was ready to try new things.
