What happens when an urban girl swaps her kitten heels in the city for karma in the country?Lucy Edge has recently seen the release of her second book 'The Handbag and Wellies Yoga Club' - "a funny and heart-warming true story about one woman’s search for love and friendship" and it's already receiving rave reviews.
The follow up to debut novel, 'Yoga School Dropout', the novel went on sale from August 6 and sees Lucy trade the city rat race for a Norfolk farmhouse, get married, and try for a baby.
Here, Lucy tells all about her life on a yoga pilgrimage in India, her fertility struggles and meeting the love of her life.
Lauren: So what spurred you on to leave your job in advertising and pursue a career in writing?
Lucy: By the time I set off for India in my late thirties, I was pretty much burnt out, having been working eighty hour weeks in advertising for many years.
I had no time to go out and play, only time to stay in and recover before the next ludicrous deadline flew across my desk like a cruise missile.
Lucy: By the time I set off for India in my late thirties, I was pretty much burnt out, having been working eighty hour weeks in advertising for many years.
I had no time to go out and play, only time to stay in and recover before the next ludicrous deadline flew across my desk like a cruise missile.
Guaranteed to seek, find and destroy all chance of finding a man before I hit the retirement home.
I decided to go on a yoga school pilgrimage and spent the next six months traveling around India – north, south, east and west.
I decided to go on a yoga school pilgrimage and spent the next six months traveling around India – north, south, east and west.
Despite my best efforts – six months of hugging Happiness Trees and overheated Hugging Mothers, chasing down ‘Supramental Consciousness’ and waiting for Hidden Saints who chose to remain hidden, I had to admit defeat.
I came home and ‘down shifted’ – not to a log cabin in Cornwall, but back to my true spiritual homeland, North West London.
I’d kept a diary in India and it struck me that there was a book in my experiences. I had a lot of doubts about my ability to write a whole book but I’d always enjoyed writing – winning Jimmy Osmond sew on patches for the poems that I sent in to my favourite comics - Debbie and Mandy – when I was eight.
I decided that there was only one way to find out – I got a part time job in research and started working on Yoga School Dropout.
Lauren: Would you say you are happier now?
Lucy: These days I earn a third of what I made in advertising and am happier than I’ve ever been. I have the time to walk and talk, to look and cook. I smile at strangers. Whatever I do my life is no longer about satisfying me – it’s not about what I have and what I can get. My life is about trying to be the best person I can be for everybody I meet along the way. Perhaps one day I will earn the honorary title ‘ordinary’ Indian - one with an enduring attachment to Pinot Grigio.
Lauren: You talk very frankly about your own life and your fertility struggles in your new book. Did this level of honesty come naturally?
Lauren: You talk very frankly about your own life and your fertility struggles in your new book. Did this level of honesty come naturally?
Lucy: Writing the book was a cathartic experience for me – I felt driven to write it because I wanted to let younger women know the facts about getting pregnant in later life.
I met my husband late - at 41 - and we started trying for a baby the following year.
I met my husband late - at 41 - and we started trying for a baby the following year.
I really thought that it would be fine - after all I did alot of yoga, I ate healthy food, and I read article after article in which forty something celebs announced their 'baby joy'.
Two years later, with an FSH that warned of an approaching menopause I was told that no fertility clinic would take me on with my own eggs, and that BTW, many of these 'baby joy' forty something celebrities had used egg donation and were not admitting it.
Lauren: Would you say there's too much pressure (generally - not necessarily biologically) for women to have kids by a certain age?
Lucy: I think there isn’t enough understanding of the consequences of leaving pregnancy until our late thirties and early forties.
Lucy: I think there isn’t enough understanding of the consequences of leaving pregnancy until our late thirties and early forties.
I think that everyone that can and wants to should put having a family first and careers, bigger and better houses and traveling second – unless they want to gamble with the fertility lottery.
The difficulty is what to do when a woman is single – answer… try to find someone quickly, consider single parenting, or maybe freeze eggs – but not at 40 plus!
The difficulty is what to do when a woman is single – answer… try to find someone quickly, consider single parenting, or maybe freeze eggs – but not at 40 plus!
I would recommend that women get proactive in creating the life they want:
Do a four quadrant collage – family, friends, work & love – cut pictures out of magazines, visualise the life you want when you are forty. Do you have kids? A successful career? Where do you live? The clearer you are the more likely to will be to create the life you want.
Give urgent priority to finding a partner
Have your first child pre 35 – once you have had one it's easier to have a second. It’s as if the body remembers what to do.
Do a four quadrant collage – family, friends, work & love – cut pictures out of magazines, visualise the life you want when you are forty. Do you have kids? A successful career? Where do you live? The clearer you are the more likely to will be to create the life you want.
Give urgent priority to finding a partner
Have your first child pre 35 – once you have had one it's easier to have a second. It’s as if the body remembers what to do.
Lauren: What's your advice to single people who're still looking for 'The One'?
Lucy: Don’t lose heart. I am living proof that there can be happy endings over forty!
I spent most of my thirties single – I desperately wanted to settle down, but I consistently chose the ‘wrong trousers’ - workaholics, tortured poets, and in one case, a gay man - who were emotionally unavailable and always broke my heart.
Looking back on it I can see that choosing these men was a mirror of my own state of mind - I was myself unavailable - a result of spending too long doing a high stress job in which I had to close down emotionally to survive.
I spent most of my thirties single – I desperately wanted to settle down, but I consistently chose the ‘wrong trousers’ - workaholics, tortured poets, and in one case, a gay man - who were emotionally unavailable and always broke my heart.
Looking back on it I can see that choosing these men was a mirror of my own state of mind - I was myself unavailable - a result of spending too long doing a high stress job in which I had to close down emotionally to survive.
Lauren: You're currently working on your third book. How's that going? And can you let us in on anything?
Lucy: After pouring out my heart in my second book I am keen to write something light.
Lucy: After pouring out my heart in my second book I am keen to write something light.
I have a plot for a novel on my computer and it’s a romantic comedy – a cross between The Devil Wears Prada and You’ve Got Mail!
I am also developing ideas for three non fiction books which tackle – in no particular order - ageing, faith and happiness!
I am also developing ideas for three non fiction books which tackle – in no particular order - ageing, faith and happiness!
Lauren: What's the best advice you could offer to an aspiring author?
Lucy: Go on an Arvon Foundation course! They are brilliant at getting you started.
I went on a Travel Writing week when I was thinking about how to write Yoga School Dropout and the tutors gave excellent comments on my work, which helped me to get an agent and then a publisher. Plus you meet lots of other aspiring writers and that gives you a feeling of camaraderie – important when you face the tyranny of the blank screen.
I would also recommend two brilliant books: Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer.
And The Writers Journey by Christopher Vogler.
I would also recommend two brilliant books: Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer.
And The Writers Journey by Christopher Vogler.
Lauren: Finally, how has 'The Handbag and Wellies Yoga Club' been received so far?
Lucy: I have had some very enthusiastic reviews but the book has only been out two weeks so it’s a bit early to gauge the wider reaction.
What I can say is that it’s been fantastic to meet people at various events we have been holding. Having spent the best part of a year writing a book it’s great to meet the people who are interested in reading it, and to hear their initial thoughts about some of the issues raised in the book.
For more about Lucy, go to www.yogaschooldropout.com
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