Thanks to the deletion of social media on my phone, the removal of notifications and a bit of insomnia thrown in, my mojo for writing, creativity and learning has come back! Yay! It’s been a MAD writing month with some creativity thrown in where I am now on a fictional travel adventure around France in […]
Stop 3: Do You Know the Way to Vézelay?
I left Guèdelon with a tinge of sadness as I enjoyed my week learning medieval construction techniques and in particular, how to make traditional ceramic roof tiles. Part of me was disappointed that I learned a skill I would never use again. After all, when will I ever have an opportunity to tile a steep […]
Day 2: Guèdelon Castle
I’m continuing my discovery of the Burgundy region in France, taking my time to explore the Top 50 places in France on a whim. (See more WHY I’m doing this and where I started the journey here at Virtual Tour of Les Hospices de Beaune) This morning, I checked out of the delightful accomodation and […]
Day 1: Virtual Tour of Les Hospices de Beaune
Last night my husband asks me, “how about a trip to Paris in November?” My reaction? I know that it’s highly unlikely we’ll be travelling anywhere internationally for the next two possibly up to five years, sadly. What he meant to ask me is that we buy a couple of tickets to go see the […]
Baking
One of the things I’ve been doing a lot more with my time is cooking and baking things that I’ve never done before in an effort to try something new. I find I get into a rut sometimes and revert to cooking and preparing dinner that is something tried and tested because it means it […]
What Did Ya Miss in December?
Here’s my December posts you may have missed out on Nostalgia (a blog post on thinking about the past) Spaced Repetition in Learning (on the importance of repetition in order to learn something new) What I Learned About Myself – and About Learning – While Learning French Reflections of 2020 (2020 was a year where […]
Do You Share Testimonials?
Recently I was told something that made me sit up and scratch my head. I was told that there was a risk to my personal reputation if I presented public classes and if participants to these classes, took some issue over how I presented them, that they could write negative reviews online which would then […]
How to Use RSS Feeds
When I told some people about how I want to reduce my social media use and instead return to using my blog, they asked, “how will we find your blog if you’re not always on social media?” Well, I hate to say it but if you’re relying on social networks for you to find different […]
I Am Not a Cat
Last year, I experimented with Snapchat Camera on Microsoft Teams and it was a lot of fun. My boss Paul Woods has downloaded it on his desktop camera and naturally, I wanted in. You download the app onto your desktop and then you can add a variety of Snapchat filters and lenses to your camera […]
Time Waster Twitter
I hate to say this but I feel that my use of Twitter has its days numbered. Back in the day before Twitter became a vitriolic, free for all, I espoused that it was a place to build a personal learning network, to show and share your work, build a reputation around your expertise, build […]
15 Years Married and Goulash
It’s hard to believe that on Thursday 4 February 2021, Andrew (@TigerTex1) celebrated our 15 year wedding anniversary. I’m incredibly thankful that I have found someone in my life who not only I love and adore but who is my best friend and confidante. We are very different to each other but we share same […]
Spaces for Listening
Yesterday I attended Spaces for Listening which was an hour-long facilitated session with Meredith Lewis (@DangerousMere) on Zoom. If you don’t follow Meredith on Twitter, then you should do yourself a favour and do so because she is not only creative and clever but she has a calmness about her that always gets you opening […]
Reinvigorating My Blog…and My Life
So one of the things I’ve been doing recently is doing a massive revamp of this website. You can’t see what I’ve done as it’s all ‘behind the scenes’ as I cleaned up a whole heap of plugins and also fixed up the database which was corrupted which created no end of problems for me […]
How Your Brain Works
Recently Megan Strant (@meganstrant) and I were walking the Elwood Canals (you can see what they’re like in the video below – thank you Megan for making me aware of this walk which I didn’t know about!). She mentioned to me about the importance of morning routines that help us set our day and give […]
Barefoot Bowls, Beers and Burgers and a Sense of Place
Last year during lockdown, we were unable to get out of a 5 kilometre radius from our home due to restrictions and curfews to prevent the spread of the virus. Having this restriction for some months made me realise a lot of things about the friendships and relationships I have with my local community, neighbours […]
Pétanque et Pastis
Last year I spent much of it in lockdown which meant hours spent at home to do a lot of thinking. I’m at a time in my life where I’m beginning to think about the next phase of my life. One focused less about work and career and instead, more about being there for my […]
Transformation
In this post I write about 2021 being the year of transformation.
Learning Out Loud Is Like a Photo Album
I have had my YouTube channel for some years now. I like to call it my “Learning Biography”. It started as a way to upload all my daily videos from Snapchat where I shared my experiments, thoughts, reflections of the things I was learning about and working on. A kind of video album as well […]
Reflections of 2020
It’s that time of the year again when I write down reflections of the year past and oh, what a year. First things first, there’s no reason trying to recall anything because I’ve either taken video footage of it in my YouTube vlog or written about it in my journal (private writing not shared). So […]
What I Learned About Myself – And About Learning – Learning French
Many of you know that I have been learning French this year. I have been devoting time, energy and attention to getting my language skill up to speed in the hope that I learn this language to the point of being able to speak it, read it and also understand it when it is spoken […]