A Little Bit About Me!

A little bit about me.....

Hi - my name is Nicole and I am the owner and creator of Kids Party Cabin

I am also married and mum to 3 kids and a mischievous dog.

I trained as a pediatric nurse, school nurse and health visitor but a few years ago I started on a new journey. My journey started here.....

A Childhood Dream

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 a lot of fun!.

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 sent me down a new track...

It was in the late 1980's when 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 honor 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.

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.

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 was still ready for a new challenge.

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.

In Search of Something Else

It was 2003 that I also discovered the joys of the Internet.

We only had 'dial up' internet access but it was all pretty exciting to me. As my interest with the internet grew, I decided that I wanted to do an online study course in psychology or writing children's books. However as things in life often take a detour, I ended up looking at websites about building website.

So after lots of research and to-ing and fro-ing, I decided to give building a web site business a go using a company called Site Build It

Fast forward a few years and I now have 2 websites:
www.kids-partycabin.com
www.learn-french-today.com

From Stay At Home Mum to Work At Home Mum

I am happy to say that as of today I have been a work at home mum (WAHM) for the past 7 years and I couldn't be happier.

My new career has worked brilliantly in that I can be at home when I need to be, I can work from anywhere in the world, at any time of day or night and best of all I am doing something that I really enjoy.

Below is a video of me at work....

I too like to know who has visited my website and where you have come from so do say 'Hi'.

All the best and thanks for reading.

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