I’ve recently finished reading Viv Groskop’s book Au Revoir Tristess: Lessons in Happiness from French Literature and loved it. It’s got me back into my reading mojo! Here’s my review of it and below it are direct quotes from the book that made an impact on me. Marcel Proust There is something very wise, almost […]
Friday Friday
I had a lovely day today despite the weather being grey and miserable. I headed down to Station Pier to spend the day with a friend walking and catching up with news. Despite my photos below looking nice and sunny, the water and skies all blended into one sludge of grey. There was no wind […]
Stroopwafels On My Doorstep
It could be a song couldn’t it? 🤣 Tonight, I went out for a bit and when I came back, I saw a small parcel at the door. I open it up and there were Stroopwafels! They are my favourite Dutch treat. Thank you Lior for sending this lovely gift. I love it! I’m going […]
What I Should Have Done By Age 53
This morning I was reading my Feedly feeds and checking out the news headlines and saw a post Ignore Those Posts of What You Should Have Done By Age 30 and they referred to this gem of a tweet which melted the tweet sphere. As you know I’m not on Twitter now, so that’s about […]
Fiction Writing
One of the things I’ve been doing in my spare time is writing fiction for the local council My Brother Jack awards. As an annual award to encourage writers in the local community, this competition has been running for many years and it’s always been at the back of my mind to submit an entry […]
Angry
There are days where I’m filled with rage. Today was one of them. Of course, I know the reason is that it’s all hormonal at this time of my life. Another part of me is so bloody tired having to justify everything all the time. I can’t take the bullshit anymore. I mentioned to a […]
First Carbon, Now Silicon
I majored in Organic Chemistry (with Honours) and I’ve only just realised that the element just below Carbon is Silicon….and that’s how the world is going. One shift down in the Periodic Table of Elements, yet one big massive move for mankind. I stumbled upon this mesmerising video today inspired by Yuval Noah Harari. What […]
Flaubert: Quotes for Today’s World
I’m reading this book by Viv Groskop called Au Revoir Tristesse and it amuses me. The author, a Francophile who has spent years learning the language, living in France and reading their classics in French (an inspiring goal for me if I ever get to that point), summarises the lessons learned that each of these […]
Enjoying Puzzles
Recently when I was at the supermarket doing the shopping with my husband (a rare occurrence as I hate supermarkets and it’s the only time we get angry with each other because he’s anal about how food is stacked correctly in the trolley), I decided to buy a new puzzle book. Now we have heaps […]
Going Out on a Limb
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that in my 25+ years of working, I’ve finally reached the conclusion that building a learning culture in organisations where there’s a free flow of knowledge, experiences and opportunities for relationship building and co-creation is impossible. Organisational systems, traditional thinking and most of all, egos […]
We Live In Hope
Yes please. Please Facebook, please be like TikTok. This great post by Cal Newport, link above hopefully spells out the demise of Facebook where TikTok becomes the poison pill that “cripples” Facebook. We live in hope. “This all points to a possible future in which social-media giants like Facebook may soon be past their long […]
Writing in the Dark
What do you do when you have an idea and it comes to you in the middle of the night? Too easy. Switch on the light and write it down on a piece of paper on your bed stand or tap it out onto your phone. Well back in Lewis Carroll’s time, you can imagine […]
Back Yard, Be Gone!
Some time ago I wrote about a back yard project that we would like to do. It’s been ages in the making due to COVID and lockdowns but after a whole year of waiting, our land doing of our back garden has begun! If you want to read the story, check it out below 👇 […]
Digital Art That Goes On & On
This is a fascinating video that had me mesmerised. Andrew showed it to me on his phone as I think it came up on his Facebook feed. So I searched for the clip to delightedly find that it has a French narration. C’est mignon et magnifique en même temps. J’espère que vous l’apprécierez.
Writing My CV
One of the things I’ve slowly been doing is updating my resume (or CV) as I hadn’t touched it since 2016. Really, there’s no rhyme or reason for it as I am thinking of my future at the moment and considering when would be the best time to ‘retire’. Part of me thinks I have […]
Yammer & Viva Engage: Same? Same?
Yes. Okay you can stop reading now. Seriously, it didn’t take long for the new announcement by Microsoft for people to start pinging me at work and on the phone (thankfully, I’m off social media or else my notifications would have been out of control). “Helen, you’re a Yammer fan, what do you make of […]
Knitting Glenan
I love some of the websites of knitting designers. One in particular, is Kate Davies Designs based in Scotland. I’ve written about this pattern, Glenan in another post here in my blog but thought I’d share my progress to date. As you can see it’s ticking along. This is my second project (I’m also knitting […]
Idealist, Be Gone!
If there was a spray I could douse myself in, it would be “Idealist, Be Gone!” I’m at an age where I’m doing a lot of soul searching and made the conclusion that my idealism has failed me. You can’t get to this age and escape it unfortunately as you deal with big problems in […]
It’s So Cold Here!
My Brother Jack Awards 2022
The MBJ award is a literary prize that our local Council awards to locals of all age groups who live or work in the area. Every year, they award prizes for short story and poetry categories and every year, I make some excuse not to submit an entry. This morning, over a cup of coffee […]