About some things, I am a perfectionist. So that when I put out a transcript – it is correct (99.9% of the time!) And when I do a grammar podcast, I also go to great lengths to ensure that it’s correct.

Although I don’t get as much time at this as I would like, I am a language learner too! I have family in France, so have incentive to continue improving my French, then I can join in at family occasions!

My Latin language background gives me a good grounding in grammar, which is really useful for generating Adept English content.

My psychotherapy training and ‘day job’ also mean that I’m good at understanding the psychology of language learning. Helpful both in generating useful learning material for the website, but also in having empathy with language learners’ difficulties – and how to solve them!

I’ve got diverse interests and unending curiosity – about the world in general, politics, health, psychology, neuroscience, art, education, scientific discoveries, social phenomena, nature, ecology, new ‘breakthrough’ thinking. So I love going online and researching new topics, many of which I get to share with my Adept English audience – which is fantastic!

My first degree was in Latin – and although this was very enjoyable, it meant emerging into the job market without a clue what to do! Amo Amas Amat, Amamus, Amatis, Amant! It took a long time to arrive in the right career, so I have a varied work history. However, I do often know the meanings of Latin plant names – very useful!

I may be the founder, author, content writer and the face of Adept Engish, but although very dependent upon technology, I am not the brains behind the technical wizardry which enables the website and online presence (that’s Andrew!). Sometimes I am not sure how to work the 4 remote controllers for the TV! And there are many technology tasks which would be a challenge! ‘I’m a avid technology user these days, but not any kind of expert’.

Before training to be a psychotherapist, I had a interest in Handwriting Analysis, as a means of understanding people’s personalities. Although ‘Graphoanalysis’ was interesting, psychotherapy did shed more light on ‘what makes people tick’.

I am from Bolton in the North West of the UK, but has lived in the south since 1991, so I'm part northerner and part southerner. (‘Northerner by birth and allegiance for sure, and ‘honorary’ southerner in many respects!’).

Despite point 2 above, I did work for 20 years in the IT industry, programming on IBM Mainframe (‘That dates me!’). ‘It wasn’t the technology, it was the superbly diverse range of people I met, which made it fun. Some of them are still good friends!’