Julia 's Page     Our Pets     Local History     Music     Special Ed     Safe Emailing     Home    Contact
 

 Julia's Page

Welcome to my page!  If you landed here by chance, I'm Julia from England, UK, proud mum of three grown children, teacher of English language and basic literacy (see here) and slave to three naughty cats. 

I'm giving my interests a mention, not that I think anyone's particularly interested, but because this is my page and I guess I need to say something. Besides enjoying reading (naturally), I love listening to music (here) and  singing along to it (I use the term 'singing' loosely ), playing violin ... badly ,  cycling, antiques and antique restoration, dabbling in genealogy and local history (see here),  repairing/manipulating photos (see here) and creating/managing the occasional website, including this  one - very basic as it was my first when I learned web design in 2004. I do realise that there's far less call for personal websites in this age of online social networking,  but I like to hang on to mine to give my various projects a safe and professional web presence and to continue experimenting with web design.

Having explored Facebook and that ilk (from the perspective of web designer, mother and teacher) when they first started (in the days they were unheard of by most people and a lot safer), I decided to make a point on principle of having nothing more to do with them. Regardless of the fact that I found them inane and boring are the worrying concerns regarding the longstanding public abuse that goes on there, such as  this, this, this, this, this,  this and this – all too familiar examples of  serious dangers to children and vulnerable adults, blatant bullying and taunts, defamation of character, laundering other people's dirty linen publicly, breaches of confidentiality,  carryings-on flaunted to intentionally cause jealousy ...   For anyone who cares,  you will find plenty more serious (fatal) cases from a quick google search.  I should stress that I’m not referring to professional network sites, such as LinkedIn, and heavily moderated discussion forums,  which are absolutely fine generally (I love a good online debate myself and owned such a forum myself for five years, which I always ensured was heavily moderated);  I’m talking about unmoderated so-called ‘social’ network sites that are constantly shoved in our faces, those we are told we should "follow" every Tom, Dick and Harry to ... to be our 'friends'.  Sorry, but count me out.  

Anyway, I hope this humble little domain is of interest to family and friends.   Below are some family photos, which I hope won't bore you.  Feel free to use these   if they do.  At least I haven't posted all our holiday snaps ... yet.

Worse, here's my 'singing'! If you have any sense you’ll be sure to listen to the recordings with your speakers turned off!   

Animal Crackers http://www.singsnap.com/snap/watchandlisten/play/bf10f3fc5

 Always Look on the Bright Side  http://www.singsnap.com/snap/watchandlisten/play/b5ce1649

These came about from the persuasions of some members of my former discussion forum to join them with a song on  www.singsnap.com .  Actually, it was such fun that I got a bit carried away and did two more ...  and no, you're not hearing the third one as it's seriously bad.   For anyone who'd like to have a go, just for fun of course, it's totally free and enables you to even embed your recording, as shown below.  Songs like this always lift my spirits, and I used to sing this is one in particular  to my children.

Click photos to enlarge

  

 
1) My daughter off to a line dancing fancy dress party, 2010
2) A day at Oulton Park circuit with my youngest son and daughter,  2007
3) My eldest son, 2009
4) Me 2009 - Oops, my necklace is crooked!     Shame considering how lovely and special
 it is as it was made for me by my clever next-door neighbour/friend, Lys. xx
5) My kitties pretending to be good.  

My beloved children when young.

                       

Mini Maestros

                         
My  daughter (2010)  playing with Special Virtuosi at the Royal Northern College of Music.
My youngest son (aged 11-12) in his school orchestra.
My sons (aged 12 & 9) performing at a charity fundraising musical evening that we (along with two other families) organised.

My dearly departed mother  with me.

Back further still,  a before and after photo I repaired of my paternal great grand-parents.

  
See  this page for my photo restoration work.  

View & Sign Guest Book

    Julia 's Page     Our Pets     Local History     Music     Special Ed      Safe Emailing     Home     Contact