Category Archives: Uncategorized

Hi everyone I’m just gearing up for chemo round three, so I thought I’d update this blog before I go underground for a few days! I’m delighted to say that you continue to impress me with your challenges – including, recently, someone who made it up Helvellyn in the Lake District and someone who isContinue reading “Health update – and some linguistics!”

What’s really interesting (strange choice of word?) about the experiences I’m going through is what it does to your perceptions of the world. As my hair thins (not losing it completely so far), I feel a strong connection with the trees as their leaves turn gold and fall to the ground in what has soContinue reading “Good times”

Although I might be trying to avoid over used metaphors for cancer I could not resist this one! The second round of chemo was a marathon rather than a boxing match as I had a bad reaction to the meds and they had to spread them out over six hours rather than three so theContinue reading “Seconds out!”

It’s funny how your world contracts when you’re going through something like this. It’s only a few months since I was jumping off boats to swim with turtles in the Galapagos (already feeling there was something amiss) and now I’m incredibly excited to be getting on a train to London to see a couple ofContinue reading “Small pleasures”

Hi everyone. So, I won’t be adding to this in the first few days after each treatment, because I now know what my reactions to the drugs are like and it’s been a bit tough. But a week on, I can function again so I’ll try to tell you how the challenges are going. TheContinue reading “A week after 1st chemo”

Well the first day of chemo yesterday was long but relatively bearable, even with the cool cap that might just save some of my hair! I am so happy that so many of you have told me of your challenges – there are a lot of languages being learned (Russian, German, Armenian, Spanish for starters)Continue reading “Challenges – update”

Dear friends Some of you may not already know that I’ve been undergoing a series of tests and scans over the last couple of months. The upshot is that I have (peritoneal) cancer and will be going through some treatment in the weeks and months to come, hopefully with a reasonably good outcome after allContinue reading “Personal news”

I’m delighted that, after a few delays, Dan and I have finally seen the publication of the second edition of Stylistics (C.U.P. 2025). We are very pleased to have improved on the first edition in a number of ways, most notably in wider/deeper coverage of more recent developments in the field and in the additionContinue reading “New edition!”

I am delighted to announce that Lancaster University has appointed me as Honorary Professor in Linguistics and English Language! After the somewhat dismal end to a long career at another university, this feels good and I am looking forward to working on projects with colleagues at Lancaster. Watch this space.

I’m at that stage in life where my time is divided between work projects, retirement activities and grandparenting. The latter has taken up a lot of my time in the last few weeks, so this post is inevitably inspired by that preoccupation. Last week, the night before her third birthday, I was putting my granddaughterContinue reading “Life stages!”