2013 – Work in Progress

2013 is already well underway, and January has certainly been a busy month for this agricultural historian. The main focus has of course been the doctorate. Research, ideas and concepts have been coming together over the last few months. Chapters on agriculture and agricultural workforces have been drafted and revised, and the next on industry in the countryside is being carefully planned and crafted. Integral to the writing process is formulating ideas and conveying the research to other audiences. The acceptance of my proposed paper on ‘Rural Networks – The Inter-relationships between Rural Places and Spaces in the mid nineteenth century’ for the Social History Conference in March 2013 is therefore a positive development. In addition to writing the paper, I am looking forward to sharing my research with a wider audience and attending the conference.

Alongside the research, there has been a wealth of preparation for forthcoming courses. In my capacity as a tutor for the WEA, I will be delivering courses on High Days and Holidays (an exploration of archival collections), Rural Rides (the history of rural England featuring my latest research), and the digability archaeology course. In addition, I have been forging links to expand the geographical remit of the archaeology course; been employed to develop a WEA tutor blog for the region; and am maintaining my connections with the Packhorse Gallery and S2R. I even undertook some private tuition to enhance an undergraduate’s study skills. At university I have just embarked upon teaching a new module, which my colleague and I developed and rewrote last summer.

2013 will continue to be a busy and an exciting year as these projects evolve. As always I will share my journey through my posts on this blog. I hope you will continue to follow me as the journey progresses, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who has visited my blog, read the posts, shared them, and/or commented on them over the last few months. Here’s to the year ahead!