As the summer holidays draw to a close, it is time to start thinking about a new season of work along side the school terms. For me, it is an exciting time! I start two new jobs (with Sublime Science and STEMKids)
and restart a season of Coding clubs at the library. As well as tutoring! And it is all to do with coding and science, and I get to share those exciting topics with children!
Particularly fun this week was dabbling with soldering for the first time! This is a programmable line following buggy by Kitronik, for the library coding club. Here is a time-lapse vid of my efforts so far!
My Tech History
Are you a techie? Interested in coding? Or engineering? I am! And it is my Dad’s fault <3
He has to answer for a lot of things to be honest!! As I was growing up, he was into computers (as well as woodwork, diy, crochet, sewing, reading… see what I mean?!) and he had several computers dotted around at home. Including one that he was building from scratch. The one I remember the best was a Dragon 32!! The monitor was big and very heavy and you would have to load up any games / programs via a cassette deck! The Pong game was one of the best! Did you play it?
I even managed to do some minor coding on it! Nothing fancy, I just changed the colour of the screen in a loop, but hey, I thought I was awesome!! It had an effect on me that small achievement. My dream became a wish to be the first female engineer from my high school. It took longer than I’d imagined. I failed my A Levels, and started a pre-degree course in Mechanical Engineering :0 
Boy! That was tough. I didn’t want to move away from my family or boyfriend at the time, so I was up at silly time o’clock to catch 2 or 3 buses and a train. And I was faced with a class in technical drawing that I was ill-prepared for (girls were not taught that subject at school in those days!). After a few months I gave in and took a different path. It took me another 5/6 years to come round to computing again.
That happened whilst working full time for GEC Marconi, I completed a Partnership Degree in Business and Computer Studies at the University of Portsmouth. 
In order to complete the degree, I had managed to secure a job in the IT Development Team and wrote up the coding projects completed at work to be marked by my tutor at the University. I loved it! It was challenging and fascinating, and I am so proud of myself! Achieving a 2:1 and getting a prize from the Partnership Team. All as an ‘older’ female student as well!
A few years as a Software Developer followed, until my husband and I decided it was time to start a family together. The twins changed my life in a very good way. It did not seem like an option to return to work full time, plus very difficult to find work around the children. They were soooo tiny… <3
Why am I telling you all this? My career story?! Well… I’m excited to get back to it, only in a better way altogether! It is my absolute pleasure to share this fascination with the next generation.
For those of you not into tech and would like to know a little about coding, please check out my guide ‘What is coding? and Why is it important?’, free when you subscribe to my blog. Fill out the following form to get it:
I look forward to sharing my club stories with you!
What are your plans for the coming months?
Family Time
The past week we have had some lovely family time, mostly lazy and chilled! Interspersed with tantrums and dramas!
We particularly enjoyed a trip to You & Meow the cat cafe in Bristol, despite a reluctance to leave the house?! The cats are so well cared for there, I wonder what they think about all these different people appearing and wanting to interact with them? As you can see from the photos, they were typical cats! Sleepy. And adorable. We loved it <3 I’ll take that as a #parentingwin 🙂
We also really enjoyed a family gathering (my hubby cooked again! Yay!) with a game of Unstable Unicorns. My son bought this card game while we were in Bristol. It caused a lot of ‘discussion’ about how to play, after that, though, we had a lot of fun with it! Too early to say if it will beat Exploding Kittens as our favourite game…
Somehow we managed a meal out with Nan! The cost? oh, only a few tears and a tantrum! #parentingfail
My hubby enjoyed clearing the garden a little for it to be dug up next week 😉 !! <3 him!
I had such big plans for the summer – including a trip to London to see the sights and my favourite neice! As always, harder to get the kids out than I’d imagined in my head!
How have you been managing the summer? Any parenting wins you’d like to celebrate?
Janx
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