Category: Uncategorized
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2015 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,000 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 17 trips to carry that many people. Click here to see the…
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Great History Quiz
Over the summer I was very pleased to be contacted by a researcher from the BBC who asked if I could suggest some ballads to use in The Great History Quiz: the Tudors. I was happy to help out by suggesting lyrics and period tunes. It will be interesting to see how it’s turned…
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Chris Henstock’s new blog.
In a quick post this afternoon, I just wanted to draw your attention to a new blog by my friend Christopher Henstock: Early Modern Spanish Texts in Context. Chris and I met at Manchester University, and we share an interest in the woman that one of my friends referred to as ‘that mad Spanish nun’,…
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Halloween
We don’t go much on Halloween in our house, but I thought I’d share with you a few photos of Longridge over this Halloween weekend. There has been an outbreak of knitted pumpkins and woolly cobwebs on the high street. This is just one of the reasons I love living here. This evening I’m off…
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Crazy Days
Sometimes, life gets a bit bonkers. This week is my children’s half term. This time last year we were in Scotland having a few days away. No such luck this year. I’ve got too many things to do, and it’s not so much ‘not enough time to do them’ as trouble prioritising. I have a…
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Lancaster, Maps and Charles I
At the beginning of October I took up a position as Honorary Researcher in History at Lancaster University. It’s great, because it means I’ve got an institutional affiliation again, and with it access to databases and a library. It’s also nice to feel part of an academic community again. The only down side is that…
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Bolton School 500/100
‘An extraordinary item of business’. So the Manchester Courier and Lancashire Advertiser described the decision to amalgamate Bolton Grammar School and the High School for Boys in December 1897. It went on to comment that ‘much will be said before it becomes – if ever – an accomplished fact’. Eighteen months later the first issue…
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Graduation
Last week I spent a glorious morning in Manchester with my husband, children and parents attending my graduation. It was a lovely ceremony to share with my family, so I thought I’d share a photo of me in my silly hat (cue a few games of frisbee) and posh robes (“Mummy, you look like Hermione…
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Thoughts on ‘Transitioning out of academia’
Today has been an unusual day: I went to help out the PTFA of my children’s primary school with the refreshments for the Key Stage 1 sports day. (Bear with me – I promise this post really is work-related). It proved to be an interesting social experience, because although these were people I meet regularly…
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