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This week I have finally got back to a bit of work on the book project. I’m actually quite excited because as I write this, tomorrow I’m going to be singing at Whalley Abbey, but more on that another week! I’ve done some reading, on the history of the north south divide, and on working…

For the second year, I’ve signed up for the Diabetes UK Million Step Challenge. Until October, I need to do almost 11,000 steps a day, and as I write this on day 16, I’ve already done more than 200,000, which is a really good start. Last year I was only a couple of days away…

It’s been such a busy few weeks that I haven’t had much time to myself, let alone much time to write anything for the blog. The week before last, we held the Social History Society Conference in Lancaster. As administrator, I didn’t make it to any of the papers (I was too busy running around…

This week has mainly been taken up with preparing for the Social History Society Conference (largely sending emails and trying to chase things that haven’t been finalised yet) and catching up on many of the papers I missed at the Soundscapes in the Early Modern World Conference last summer! Because I was running the SHS…

I can’t actually remember the last time I went to two concerts in three days, nor can I remember the last time I was still up at 2am… but this week I have done just that. I went with family to see Johnny McEvoy in Stockport on Thursday and then in Leeds last night. It…

And I’m not yet back in the habit of writing a blog post on a Friday afternoon. But yesterday I’d have been a bit busy – I was marking essays for the PGCert course I’ve been teaching and then in the evening I was singing in a concert with The Valley Singers in Hurst Green.…

It’s been a long week. The early bird rate for the Social History Society Conference closes this evening, so I’ve spent a lot of time answering emails and recording bookings – much more than normal. On top of that, I’ve had to teach an extra three-hour session for my Special Subject, because it had to…

I knew I hadn’t posted much lately, but I didn’t realise that there had been quite so little for so long… I’ve got lots to catch up on, then. So this post will be a brief rundown of what I’ve been up to, and there will, I hope, be more on many of these points…

In early December I took my third-year special subject students on a field trip to the John Rylands Library in Manchester. At least that was the plan. In the event, I took part remotely while the students visited in person, but even so, it was really interesting to get out of the university and to…