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We often refer to situations or reactions as clichéd, often without any experience of that particular place, but until we get to a point where that experience, emotion or situation is directly relevant to us, they're just words with little understanding.

It was back to work for me last week after 3 weeks of holidays. On one of the days the girls had a sleepover with nan and pa and Geoff and I took the bus in to the city together. As we sat at the lights there was a young mother with two young children in a pram waiting for the lights to change. I hadn’t realized I was staring until Geoff startled me. I had been looking at her, realising her situation, the point at life she's at and realized that I am now approaching being a cliché.

The day before I’d returned to work on a promise of a new role, changed duties, an improved situation. The first email that greeted me was a dept wide communication advising that the role intended for me had been filled full time (rather than part time). Despite having had more than one conversation with my manager there was no, I'm sorry, no further explanation, nothing. I was disappointed, but not surprised, it’s become a bit of thing in my current role, hollow promises. So I had this running through my mind whilst looking at this young mother.

The flow on from that was thinking forward to how life changes once your children become more independent. I have mentioned before that at almost 41 a 3rd child isn't on the cards for me, so that phase of mother babies and young children is moving ever further away from me. I thought of how you need to begin redefining your life, your place sooner than I'd imagined. In turn I raced forward to realising how important it is to do something you're enthusiastic about, workwise, something that you can draw energy from.

Perhaps I didn't think enough about it when I was younger, I didn't realise the options, wasn't taught to expect as much as people are today. As you get older and you move on through the stages I feel it even more important to do something that fulfills you, because everything else keeps on moving on.

I tend to burble I know but trust me, this thought process raced through my head in a matter of minutes, much less time than it's taken to relate it here. It made me realise that until I make my real dream come true, I want to do something that makes me feel better about things, so I started to make a list. I started writing down a list of companies that I like or am interested in, places I could imagine being involved with.

• Simon Johnson, food purveyors
• Cafe Vue at Heide
• Red Shed at Gruyere
• Aesop
• The Big Group
• Elk Accessories
• Montsalvaat

The last one on the list, Montsalvaat. I hadn't been there since I was about 12, but have thought about it often. We went yesterday and after this one snapshot, the camera ran out of battery charge, so frustrating.

It was just as gorgeous as I remember, more so in fact. The girls adored it and even Geoff, who'd never been before, was talking about how wonderful it was in bed last night. It recharged me, it inspired me, the little places that people find and make for themselves in this world is admirable. I'm going to start carving out more of a space for myself, more Victoria space, so that as life moves ever forward, as there is less and less need for mother space in the same way, I'll have a lot of "me" ready to fill up those gaps.