The Shift with Sam Baker27 Apr 2021

Tamsin Calidas: the truth about the "escape to the country" dream

This week’s guest is a writer, photographer, sheep rearer (pretty sure that’s not the right word for it), crofter and expert at the dark art of being alone. Tamsin Calidas lived a relatively anonymous life on a small Scottish island, until she wrote her memoir, I am an island, about her experience of moving from London to the comparatively remote Hebrides. In doing so, she was living the dream of every midlife woman I know. Or was she? From her stone croft (no heating - and on the day we talk, bloody freezing!) Tamsin is disarmingly honest about infertility, becoming perimenopausal in her thirties and adapting to life as an older single woman in a community built on family. She also talks about living in nature, how wild swimming saved her and the benefits of choosing the harder path. She was speaking to me from the Hebrides, so apologies for the occasionally shonky sound. CONTENT WARNING: infertility. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and I Am An Island by Tamsin Calidas. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(315)

Jackie Kay on rediscovering yourself in your 50s - REPLAY

My guest today has blazed a trail through the British poetry scene ever since her work was first published in 1991. Born in Edinburgh, Jackie Kay MBE was brought up in Glasgow by her adoptive parents,...

6 Okt 1h 1min

Marina Benjamin on the unseen, unsung, undone work of women - REPLAY

I first encountered today’s guest, Marina Benjamin, when I was researching The Shift book and stumbled across her memoir, The Middlepause. An insightful look at what middle age means today, it was pro...

29 Sep 43min

Zandra Rhodes: how a 'boring little girl' made a big bold life - REPLAY

I can’t be cool about today’s guest, so I’m not even going to try. Ever since I started The Shift I have had a Wishlist and high up on it from day one was Dame Zandra Rhodes. Yes, that Zandra Rhodes....

22 Sep 51min

Louise O'Neill on her midlife dating odyssey - BONUS EPISODE

You can be swimming along nicely and then all of a sudden everything you thought you had is gone. That’s what happened to today’s guest, the best-selling Irish novelist, Louise O’Neill. She was 3...

19 Sep 1h 2min

Miranda July on the unexpected wildness of ageing - REPLAY

It's two and a half years since I first interviewed Miranda July for this podcast and wow, what a change! Her novel All Fours became a must-read, got shortlisted for the Women's Prize and has been opt...

15 Sep 49min

Rachel Eliza Griffiths shares two great loves and two great griefs

My guest today is the writer and award-winning poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths. Eliza is a woman who has been through A LOT in a short space of time. In September 2020, on the day she married her secon...

8 Sep 56min

Meera Syal: 'I am now a Triple Bad Bet – Old, Female and Brown!'

My guest this week is the actor, playwright, screenwriter, novelist and multi-award winner Dame Meera Syal. Most of us have those people we grow up alongside and it feels like Meera has always been...

1 Sep 1h

Tabitha Webb on being an older mum & the menopause-puberty collision

My guest today is the fashion designer and entrepreneur turned novelist Tabitha Webb. What can I tell you about Tabitha - other than her life makes mine look extremely dull? She ran away from u...

25 Aug 52min