If you've lost a loved one, you may be taking part in a tradition that dates back to the Georgian era, and probably even earlier, without realising it. Mourning jewellery is worn to honour or remember a deceased loved one. So if, like me, you have a necklace that contains a loved one's ashes, or you carry their photo in a locket, you are wearing mourning jewellery. I had the idea to write this post on the bus this morning. Today would have been my mum's 65th birthday, so I ha

A lot of it doesn't stand out; days seemed to bleed into one another and the passage of time felt so weird. I'm writing this in 2026, too, so my memory is unreliable when it comes to details.

I first learned about Noor Inayat Khan at a talk last year, and it is my honour to share her story with you today and to introduce you to one of the many brave women who assisted the Allies in WW II. Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan, also called Nora, was born on January 1st, 1914, in Moscow; she was the eldest of four children. Her father, Hazrat Inayat Khan, was an Indian musician and Sufi teacher, and her mother, Ameena Begum (born Ora Ray Baker), was an American poet and writer.

Book Four: Come Dine With Me (The Odyssey, Book by Book)

Good evening, Nooklings. It's -checks calendar- 40 days until I start studying again. Where did the summer go? It feels like it was only a month ago I was crying in my Latin exam (yes, I really did cry during my Latin exam). This year I'll be studying module A350 Greek and Roman myth: stories and histories. I've decided to go part-time this year, so it'll only be the one module. With how much burnout I had to deal with last year, switching to part-time was an easy decision, e

Good afternoon, Nooklings. With all the attention on the Odyssey recently and a renewed public interest in Classics, I thought I'd share with you some of my favourite books. These include Roman and Greek poetry, and some Greek drama. Some of these are definitely not family-friendly. Anne Carson, If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho ISBN: 978-1-84408-081-6 Sappho was a Greek poet; she wrote about love and family. Sadly, most of Sappho's poetry only survives in fragments, someti

You may find it hard to believe that there have only been 6 Anglo-Saxon helmets discovered in the UK, and 5 of those were in England. The most famous of these is undoubtedly the Sutton Hoo Helmet, which is currently housed in the British Museum. It's easy to see why it is the most famous; it's very imposing and incredibly detailed, but I'd like to introduce you to one of its contemporaries, which is often overlooked. The Coppergate helmet may be the best-preserved, and the Su

Vikings first aired in 2013, but I didn't watch the first series until 2014. I had just started volunteering at a Viking museum, and I kept being asked if I had seen the show. So, I watched it. Actually, that's not quite accurate. I devoured it. Then I introduced my mum to it, and she was just as obsessed with it as I was. Now that the series has ended, and there are 89 episodes, this review will look at the series as a whole rather than picking at the details. Maybe I could

You've probably heard of Braille, the tactile writing system that was designed for blind and visually impaired people. But, unless you are visually impaired yourself or work with visually impaired people, there is a high chance you've not heard of Moon. I couldn't find a way to replicate the alphabet myself, so here is an example from deafblind.com (linked below) Moon is an embossed writing sy# in 1845 by Dr William Moon. It's based on the standard Latin alphabet, but aims to

If you are an English speaker, you already know some Latin; let me show you! This time we are going to take a look at words that have their roots in Latin verbs! As with the nouns and adjectives, some English words come from different forms on the following verbs, but to make my life easier and to make the list more manageable for you, I have only included the present active form. English Latin Accident accidens - a chance occurrence Ambulance ambulo - to walk Audio audio -