Just because I like the title 🙂
- Even though I’ve bought a flat in Bydgoszcz, one day I aim to live in Brno again.
- I can bake bread relatively quickly and it tastes good.
- Slow cookers are amazing, and you can make delicious soup in them.
- My Polish is now good enough to teach a group of beginners.
- It’s a magical thing when you suddenly start being able to speak another language without having to think about every word you say.
- After a year of 10 minutes of Mandarin a day, it’s kind of possible to hear tones.
- My favourite words in Mandarin are currently ‘taxi’ (出租车) because of the three 1st tones, ‘train’ (火车) because it’s a ‘fire goer’, and ‘chocolate’ (巧克力) because of the way it sounds.
- Television is a very important part of a British Christmas (I knew it was in our family, but had no idea how much of a cultural thing it was!)
- Our flamenco group is now starting to learn how to dance with fans.
- More things about Excel than anybody ever needs to know.
- The cross on the Maltese flag is The George Cross, not a Maltese cross.
- Malta has an incredibly rich history, including prehistoric monuments that are older than Stonehenge.
- Loads and loads of films and TV programmes have been recorded in Malta, including the Jerusalem scenes in the Ken Branagh film of Murder on the Orient Express.
- I have a lot more books inside me (one of which is hopefully coming soon…)
- Weekends are really important for me, and it’s something I need to keep reminding myself of.
- IATEFL can change lives.
- It’s quite hard to come up with 17 things for a listicle.

What have you learnt this year?
No 16 and 10 👍🏻👌🏻
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Being a big Game of Thrones, visiting Malta in October was a great pleasure. Funny thing is that I had forgotten that a lot of the first season had been filmed there when I flew out for the 6th ELT Malta Conference. On the Sunday after the conference I went off on a boat with Sarah Mercer to the island of Gozo. What I learned that day, from a tour guide called Elvis, who had all the intonation of a bingo caller, was that the Azure Window, used as a backdrop to the wedding scene in the very first episode, had actually fallen into the sea off Gozo.
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I’ve learned that I have no desire to do any more academic work, ever, after finally finishing my Iris Murdoch research!
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Love all of these! But just curious, do you use a breadmaker to bake breads? I have one 😉
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No, just using a recipe from when I was a kid and the oven. Might be something I get at some point in the future…
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If you come to live in Brno, we could see each other regularly at conferences! :-))
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