Fun Monday - Work

Our Hostess this week is Irish Coffeehouse and this is our assignment:

THEN: As a child day dreaming of what your future would hold for you, what did you want to be when you grew up? Did you ever pursue or achieve it?

NOW: If you could be trained and placed in any career beginning tomorrow, what would it be?



Cows. Yes, an odd picture to illustrate my Fun Monday post perhaps but from a fairly early age, I knew I wanted to be a farmer. My uncle had a sheep farm where I used to spend my summer holidays so I guess it was in my blood. I knew I didn't want to work with sheep so which other aspect of farming did I want to work in. My father, a man of little imagination, thought I should work in a bank and, failing that, perhaps I should consider being a farm secretary instead. You know, woman's work. Then someone suggested dairy farming and that just sounded right. So at 16 I left home and went to live and work on a dairy farm for a year to learn how to milk and look after a herd of dairy cows. Then I went to agricultural college to get my qualifications and at 19, I was in full control of a herd of dairy cows. Dream achieved.

But now? I love the job I have now and really think I have found my niche but if I could start all over again, knowing what I know now? Forensic anthropology would be my choice.


What a fascinating career that must be: identifying skeletons, putting together the mystery of how they died, rebuilding their faces and giving the dead a voice. I'd never heard of such work until about 10 years ago and it really made me wish I had known about it 30 years ago.