MissElaineous

GOLD STARS

GOLD STARS
I’ve found myself thinking of gold stars lately. This is partly due to a dear friend and co-worker going on to a better place: she’ll be moving to the seaside. While I am incredibly happy for her, she’ll be greatly missed around the office. She was known to give out gold stars to colleagues for a job well done, and it was amazing to see… View Post

OF LONGLEAT, LONDON, AND LIGHT

OF LONGLEAT, LONDON, AND LIGHT
If Christmas did not exist, I think modern Britons would have invented their own winter holiday. After all, the ancients had their own festivals to ensure the rebirth of the sun, and as the weather turns colder and days shorter, there needs to be something to look forward to and add a splash of warmth into the very heart of the dark… View Post

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TIME + TRAVEL

TIME + TRAVEL
I can’t remember what initially piqued my interest in Chester. It may have been word of mouth, or perhaps seeing it on Michael Portillo’s Great British Railway Journeys, but it sounded absolutely perfect for me as a recovering archaeologist. Its origins are Roman, it has a well-preserved medieval wall, and many of the buildings date from the 17th-19th centuries (or at least look like they do,… View Post

BIRTHDAVERSARY

BIRTHDAVERSARY
Forty years ago, my mother made the decision to get married on her birthday. Four years later, I decided that it would be a good date to make my own appearance into the world. When it came time for my fiancé and I to pick a day for our wedding, there was only one obvious choice. It means the chances of either of us… View Post

RIGHT ON TRACK (PART 1)

RIGHT ON TRACK (PART 1)
With Christmas on its way and the spectre of New Year’s resolutions beginning to take shape, I thought it time to publish a blog post I’ve been writing off and on since September: my foray into the world of fitness trackers. There were a few reasons for jumping on the bandwagon. First, after spending the past several years being the dictionary definition of couch potato… View Post

ENVIRONMENTAL GIFT GUIDE: MORE THOUGHT, LESS WASTE

ENVIRONMENTAL GIFT GUIDE: MORE THOUGHT, LESS WASTE
Halloween and Bonfire Night have come and gone. The nights are longer and temperatures colder. Shops have turned themselves over to gift wrap and bath sets, coloured lights and chocolate boxes, tinsel and trendy toys. Christmas is definitely on its way. If you’re concerned about reducing waste, how do you avoid adding to the tsunami of brightly coloured paper, plastic, and other bits and bobs… View Post

5 REASONS TO WRITE AN ENVIRONMENTAL BLOG

5 REASONS TO WRITE AN ENVIRONMENTAL BLOG
[This is a crossover with the Off the Ground blog, but with my recent Blogging Basics course I thought it was a good opportunity to share the message more widely.] If you’re reading this, I think I can safely wager that you care about the environment. Maybe your chief concern is climate change. Or deforestation. Or plastic pollution. Or perhaps, like me,… View Post

5 HABITS TO REDUCE YOUR WASTELINE

5 HABITS TO REDUCE YOUR WASTELINE
[This is a crossover from my Off the Ground blog, but I thought it was an important topic to cover on both sites.] Every weekday morning I catch the 6:58am train from Chippenham to Swindon. And every morning I see people clutching their red-and-white disposable coffee cups from Steamers. At five cups a week, subtracting four weeks for holidays, that’s 240 coffee cups per… View Post

BEYOND MURPHY

BEYOND MURPHY
You may be familiar with Murphy’s Law (anything that can go wrong will go wrong) or the statistical Pareto Principle (for many events, approximately 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes). To this I’d like to add Elaine’s Corollary: The more there is to write about, the less time there is to actually write it. That’s the… View Post

BLOGGING BASICS: WRITING YOUR WAY

BLOGGING BASICS: WRITING YOUR WAY
I first met Susan Lovelace on Orientation Day of my junior year of high school. This was a chance for students to pick up their schedule for the semester, see where their classrooms were, catch up with former teachers, and meet new ones. I popped into her classroom for a quick hello; she was new to SRHS that year and… View Post

THINKING OF YOU WEEK 2017

THINKING OF YOU WEEK 2017
“Have you written a thank you card yet?” This was a familiar refrain of my childhood following every Christmas and birthday. At the time, I always grumbled. I mean, I had thanked my aunt/uncle/grandparent on the phone already. Writing something out took time. I had to think of what to say. Who could be bothered? And of course, that’s the entire point… View Post

THE WONDERS OF SWINDON

THE WONDERS OF SWINDON
I was first introduced to the wonders of Swindon many years ago through Jasper Fforde’s delightful Thursday Next series. There were airships, migrations of mammoths, and kickass literary adventures to be had in this enchanted town off the M4. Having worked in Swindon for over two years, I can say with a great deal of confidence that Mr. Fforde was exercising not only his imagination… View Post

EQUALITY BEGINS AT HOME

EQUALITY BEGINS AT HOME
I don’t often write about current events. After all, I’m an archaeologist by training and it’s typically ancient history that makes me sit up and pay attention. But catching up on the recent two-part series “No More Boys and Girls: Can Our Kids Go Gender Free?” touched a nerve. As someone who worked for an organization that speaks about the importance of getting women to follow… View Post

NOW AND NEXT

NOW AND NEXT
If you want to enjoy a virtual tour of Ireland, check in with my Instagram or Facebook channels. I need a bit more than a 140 characters to describe them, so Twitter is out for now. Despite planning to slow down on the blogging, I ended up writing a rather massive response to the recent documentary “No More Boys and Girls:… View Post

THERE AND BACK AGAIN

THERE AND BACK AGAIN
There is something about being away on holiday that makes everything seem so simple. Maybe it’s the break with routine and habit: by getting out of my day-to-day rut, it offers fresh perspectives and new insights. Or perhaps it’s the chance to actually think things through without constant interruptions or attempting to tackle a never-ending to-do list. Or maybe it’s being in a new environment… View Post

LOOKING BACK, LOOKING AHEAD

LOOKING BACK, LOOKING AHEAD
I found myself thinking of these quotes during the recent Crafts and Cream Teas event hosted at the home of Paul and Renate O’Donnell of  Wood’n’Things. Meeting them several years ago as we were about to move house was a complete accident, brought about by me falling in love with one of Paul’s lovely mirrors. Little did I know when we collected the mirror… View Post

A PERFECT 10?

A PERFECT 10?
In between our walk in Bradford on Avon and the following Sunday, I may have gotten a little overambitious. I thought it was time we looked beyond our charity shop guide to other walks in Wiltshire, and between Amazon and Waterstones I managed to put together a small collection of books with local walks. I even found one specifically for Chippenham, and that’s the one… View Post

WATCHING BIRDS

WATCHING BIRDS
I have to admit I still don’t like to use the term “birdwatcher” to describe myself.  I think it’s because of the connotations I’ve associated with it over the years. In my mind, birdwatchers are people who specifically go somewhere away to see birds. They have binoculars. They can get a bit obsessed with seeing the rare and unusual. They keep lists of what they… View Post
MissElaineous Travel Blog: Escape, Explore, Discover, Enjoy