Hereditary?!

I've just been chatting to my Granny on the phone. The baker, not the tea drinker. (Well, she does drink tea... but not THAT Granny...) Anyway, I haven't spoken to her for a while, so we were catching up on all sorts, including news of my Folksy store and this blog. She's a pretty keen writer is my Granny, having kept a journal pretty much all her life, and is also a published author (ooooh!), but doesn't really get the whole 'blogging' thing. To be honest tho, until very recently, neither did I, and she's 55 years older than me!

I tried my best to explain my personal reasons for starting this blog to her, and she became more intrigued about Folksy and my attempts at online knitted sales. My knitting is a relatively new pursuit really, music having been my main thing for quite a while, so Granny hasn't really seen much of what I've made. Apart from a pair of Eco Mittens I made her last Xmas (the Eco bit coming from the untreated wool I used... they don't really save the world or anything... as far as I know...) and a bunch of phone covers I did for other presents.

The best way I could describe what Folksy is to her, was "It's kind of like eBay... except everything is handmade and sold by the makers themselves... and you can chat to the other sellers through Facebook*. And everyone is really lovely and supportive... but it's all virtual and online, so you don't actually meet them. And hopefully, come winter, I'll sell loads of wonderful woolly things. So that when I go back to uni, to learn how to organise events properly so I can then run my own event management business, I'll have some extra beer money!!"

(*My Granny is actual really hi-tech for a Granny so already knows what Facebook is, therefore, I didn't need to explain this one. Not sure if we'll ever convince her to set up a FB page... but still. Pretty impressive, eh?!)

To this my Granny replied, "Phew, I wonder where you get all these entrepreneurial skills from? It's definitely not from either myself or your Grandad. And nor your Mum or Dad. How strange..."

This made me think. Ok, so my Grandad was a school teacher and headmaster. My Granny was a social worker. Mum and Dad are both vets. And on the other side of the family, there haven't really been any business ventures...

But hang on a minute! My mum and dad run their own veterinary practice. That's a business. They could have just worked for other vets and had a much easier life! And Grandad was a pretty awesome photographer who did weddings and stuff on the side... and his genes have been passed down the line to my brother, who is now building up his own wedding photography business. And Granny! Like I said earlier, she's always been scribbling away in her journals, writing bits and bobs about the family and her life. And she had one of her books published!

AND, as well as the photography and writing, my Grandparents also squeezed founding a charity, to support girls education in Malawi, into their lives. Sixteen-odd years on and it's still going strong.

My point here?! It's not that I've got magical entrepreneurial skills from some unknown source. (My Dad is definitely my Dad! There's no mistaking it... I look just like him.) And I'm pretty sure the definition of an entrepreneur is something about someone who takes risks in business and comes up with new initiatives. I hardly think teaching the flute and knitting mittens and stuff is a new idea... I think it's just more likely that I've got the 'must keep busy and do lots of different things to keep my mind and fingers active' gene, passed down from my Grandad, my Granny, my Dad and my Mum! I can't help it.

One thing I don't know though... where did my ability to knit come from?! None of the women in my family are owning up to that one... tis a mystery!