Sir Thomas More by Hals Holbein (Accessed via Wikipedia ) During lockdown, we had Time. Remember that? I was in my probationary year of teaching: almost certainly among the most exhausting years for any profession. All my time had been taken up with school work, and I regularly stayed at school until after 6pm, having arrived there at eight in the morning. Now, children, this is not sustainable and, very soon, I decided I didn’t like working where I was. Then I realised that I didn’t like teaching at all. But, in fact, neither was particularly true: I just needed to be true to myself and to say no, which would give me the ability to manage my work/life balance in a more appropriate way. What does this have to do with historical fiction, I hear you say? Well, during March 2020, we went into lockdown and suddenly I went from working ten-hour-days to ten-hour-weeks. I met up with my class on Google Meet, I put work up for them on a meticulously designed Google Classroom, but I just h...
Wow! What a week it has been! We're now settled back home in Caithness, but last week we were dashing from one school to the next to conduct workshops. Each of the schools had something amazing to offer and I loved every second of it. That is, once I'd plucked up the courage to actually get out of the car! The nerves didn't settle down until we were driving back north. Even then, niggling feelings of doubt were clawing at me. "What if they don't like my book?" "Oh no, I should have done this differently." Rather than nattering about the multitude of events, I have compiled a photo diary of our time on the Taking Wing Book Tour. Of course, there are very few pictures of the school events because, well, it's a school! One school shared their photos publicly some one of these is included... The trip started off well, leaving Mum with a copy of Taking Wing. Here's Mum - supportive as ever! Here we are - arrived at the Guest Hou...