Looking back–and forwards. Well, it is New Year.

What kind of year was 2013?

It was a year that started well, with a relaxing weekend in London, taking in Cirque du Soleil and the Twelfth Night celebrations on Bankside, before delivering a winter that was rather too long for my taste.

It was the year when I completed the final module of […]

Rebooting my language learning with Duolingo

What happened when I went on holiday to France for the first time in about 3 years? Obviously I had a very nice time visiting interesting places, enjoying the local cafes and generally relaxing – but I’ll tell you more about that over the next few days. I also discovered that I had forgotten a […]

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

We spent today in Maryport. The first time we visited here, we fell in love with the rugged beauty of this stretch of coastline. And, just like the people in films and holiday brochures, we had an entire beach to ourselves. Perfect..

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These boots weren’t made for walking

What’s that Billy Connolly quote? Something like “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothing.”

However, different people clearly have different ideas about what the right clothing might be. There are always plenty of people out walking who are wearing clothing – especially footwear – that would be on my personal list […]

Advice for my former self

I’m quite good at time travel. It’s easy, as long as you only want to go forwards 😉

Now that I’m working on the final module of my MEd, I found myself wondering what advice I would offer myself if I could travel back to the start.

1. Nothing is more important than sleep and […]

2012: That was the year that was…

It’s been an eventful year – but I’m sure that’s true for everyone. Despite the normal good intentions, I’ve barely posted, so here’s a quick catch up on the big events:

Mr TLC was declared recovered and discharged from the hospital back in March. We celebrated by buying Mr TLC a new bike. His return […]

Dancing with Death

Picture the scene: a real ale pub on the night that a convention/festival of morris dancers was in town. Those of us who thought we had the night off had received frantic phone calls and emergency taxis to get us to work. It was quite busy. Actually, it was insane, but in a cheerily joyous […]

Let them eat hedgehog

It’s not only the Queen who gets two birthdays, apparently very excited four year olds can do that too. Last weekend was the family do, with a kitten cake that turned out to be a mouse. This weekend a princess-themed children’s party had been planned. A princess theme? Blimey, I didn’t realise Granddaughter Mr […]

Please be upstanding

I woke up with a very sore knee today. Probable cause: too many hours sitting at my desk, something that was on the agenda again today. Hmm.

My solution was a spot of DIY. I pulled out the unused bookshelf that lurks under the bed, popped it on top of a couple of open drawers […]

Learning to dance in the rain

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”

Anonymous

It seems such a short lifetime ago that I blogged on my teachery site about how good it was to get back to normal. Remind me, what exactly is normal anyway?

We started the half […]