A buzz phrases in teaching at the moment is to, ‘dissolve the screen’. With all lessons being delivered remotely, teachers are urged to forget the screen that divides us from our PJ’d students as they study at home. We are advised to engage warmly and imagine that the class is sitting there right in front…

We all want to know when there will be some easement of Lockdown. I like the word ‘easement’ for it denotes both the right to use someone else’s land for a specific purpose, and/or the state or feeling of comfort or peace; I think both definitions can be applied to our longing to know when…

One of my worst failings (as I am constantly telling myself) is my strong critical voice. In my defence, I am as critical of myself as I am of other people, so I know how rubbish it feels to be on the receiving end of relentless negative feedback. I speak from experience when I share…

I am not sure about you, but when I am in the process of buying presents for other people, I have an annoying tendency of self-gifting myself at the same time. There is absolutely no excuse for this because I love shopping, so it is not as if I need to reward myself for doing…

You will be much relieved to hear that the only commitment I have made at the start of this New Year is NOT to set any resolutions. Those of you who know me will know that this really does go against the grain, for I am the person who usually has notebooks full of goals,…

Dreamers like me who dare to think beyond THE vaccination have a new festive parlour game – entertainment we would readily engage in should we be allowed to meet in groups for some pre-Christmas party shenanigans. In the absence of such permission, we content ourselves with some social media frivolity, questioning which Covid-related behaviours will…

I am too old to be part of the snowflake generation – I do not like this reference to the fragility of young people anyway for the ‘youth’ that I work with are no bunch of ‘melts’ – despite this, I come to discover during this week that I am a total snowflake in the…

Another week gifts me with another neologism to play with. Thanks to Boris I now have the shiny word ‘chumocracy’ as an early Christmas present – the word sounds cuddly and warm to me, but when I look it up, I find it is not: ‘(noun) government characterised by the appointment of friends to public…

After a quiet start, this week became manic. I think that Boris may have known what he was talking about last Saturday – although I chose to hear his message as, ‘have a mini break you gorgeous lady, you deserve it’ (I ignored that deck of misleading and anabolic PowerPoint slides appearing by his side)….