One Woman’s View is now a book and officially on sale, you can order one on Facebook by sending me a message or it will be available on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and on Cassaro Crafts at https://cassaro-crafts.sumupstore.com from tomorrow.
My first novel The Gabellotto’s Daughter is available for preorder on most eboook platforms now. The paperback comes out on August 22nd
https://books2read.com/u/mqY6NO
I’ve just finished an incredible week at Boomi World London. The technology Boomi has launched over the past year is genuinely mind-blowing — and tonight, after the event wound down, I finally had time to let it all settle.
Something came up repeatedly throughout the week that I want to reflect on: fear.
People kept asking — colleagues, partners, customers — “How are we going to cope with all of this AI? Is it going to take our jobs? Change everything we know?” And honestly? Those feelings are valid. Change is unsettling.
But then I thought about my mum.
She’s 85. Last year she got one of those robot vacuum cleaners. A few months before that, she’d asked me: “How is AI really going to change my life at my age?” — a fair question.
Then I remembered the vacuum. I told her: “That little machine knows where to go. He knows when he’s finished his job and goes home to charge. He even knows to change settings when he moves from the carpet in the living room to the tiles in the kitchen.”
She lit up. “He’s really smart,” she said.
“He’s smart because of AI,” I told her.
Simple use case. But it landed — and I’ve used that story many times since.
Then tonight another thread connected. One of the terms that came up at Boomi World was tokenomics— how we’re going to think about and spend AI tokens as a kind of new currency.
And I thought: tokens. That’s not a new word.
When I was a kid, tokens were what you used at the seaside arcades. Then they came back in the video arcades of my teenage years. Then home gaming consoles arrived — and the arcades faded. Then DVDs threatened to kill the cinema. Before that, VHS tapes threatened television. Then Netflix replaced the video rental shop.
Every single time, people worried. Every single time, we adapted.
We assimilated these technologies into our lives, our communities, our routines — and they became normal. Not because we stopped being human, but because we are remarkably good at finding our way through change.
So to everyone feeling a little anxious about the pace of AI right now — I hear you. But I genuinely believe we’ll find our way with this too, just as we have with every technology shift before it.
We always do.
I know I left you hanging with my last post as you still don’t know how the rest of that leg of my journey went. Well, it did not get any better. As the time approached to start looking for my gate information I received an email from the airline that “due to operational constraints” my flight to Dallas would be delayed by 2 hours. The technologist in me was impressed because the email and text landed before the airport departures board was updated. Great job BA on your real time technology solution. However the traveler in me was thinking this already long day ahead of me just got longer.
Finally onboard and settled in the captain comes on over the PA system to explain to us in some detail why we had been delayed for nearly 3 hours. According to him the plane had arrived from South Africa earlier in the day and the staff were unable to open the waste system to empty it. Which lead to Engineers being called who guess what? You got it they couldn’t open it either. Which meant a part had to be requested and eventually fitted. We could not complain that we were not well informed, if not a bit nauseated.
Landed in Dallas, and did the mad dash to reclaim our luggage, go through Customs and re-check our luggage for the 45 minute flight to San Antonio. On the last segment of this trip and counting down the minutes to that shower that was in my very near future. Nope…
…a passenger decided that she was more important than anyone else on the plane. She attempted to “place her bag in the overhead locker”, that was already full so it only went in about 6 inches. She left the bag sticking out saying loudly “they will have to figure it out”. When the flight attendant started closing the lockers he gets to this one with an ugly pink suitcase sticking out. He asked “whose bag is this?” Several helpful passengers pointed the woman out. He then asked her to please come and get the bag so it could be checked. The poor man had no idea what chain of events he just kicked off .
The woman flatly and rudely responded that she would not be getting her bag down and no one was going to check it. The flight attendant walked over and calmly explained that she could not leave it there and that it must be checked. After calling him a “jerk” and a few other unpleasant things she asked to speak to the senior crew member. Then 15 minutes later it was the ground staff supervisor and finally 40 minutes later, when we should have been starting our descent into San Antonio, it was the pilot!
By this time everyone was asking for the airline to check the bag, and her suitcase!
I arrived at the airport on time, checked my bag and made my way to the lounge. I had to go to the service desk for something and there he was, a young’ish man with a clipboard. For those of too young to remember clipboards are in lieu of digital means of data entry. A clipboard requires one to hand write the data they are collecting. Names, flight numbers etc. This task was obviously difficult for the young man as he hovered 2 inches above the clipboard and painstakingly navigated the paper and wrote the information down by hand.
Ironically this reminded me of the look on students facing when first encountering a keyboard on a computer. They would look around at the many keys and were quickly overwhelmed. This reverse situation would have made me laugh but I had now been standing and waiting so long for him to complete his handwritten task that my left leg was going numb!
I can only hope that all computer systems are functioning normally for the remainder of the trip.
…my mother has always called me “gadget girl”, because I am constantly looking for the latest and greatest tech BUT sometimes it does let me down. I’m sure you have all experienced this numerous times and it makes you feel frustrated. When this happens to me I try to remember what it was like before mobile phones, tablets, and the Internet. This usually works however this time it did not.
I live in the UK but was born in the US and I do follow baseball when my team makes it to the postseason. I have every sports package on the planet because I love most sports. Yesterday was game one of the baseball World Series and the first pitch was scheduled for well after midnight. Gadget Girl made sure the recording was set up (checked twice) because I hate it if I record the non-HD channel by mistake. I went to bed safe in the knowledge that the game would be recorded and ready for me to watch in the morning.
I grew up a Yankees fan but after the move to Texas and the Rangers joining the league I slowly switched to the local team. This is the Ranger’s first trip to the World Series since 2011 so it is a big deal.
I woke up thing morning armed myself with a cup of coffee and settled in front of the telly. The game was back and forth after the Ranger’s early lead. The Diamond Backs rallied and took the lead. Late in the game the Ranger’s tied the score and forced the game into extra innings. It is now crunch time, bottom of the 10th inning with the score still tied. It breaks to the 4,000th commercial of the game and STOPS! I am sitting there with my mouth open, staring at the frozen telly. No, I could not think about what it was like before you could record games or what life was like before self driving vacuum cleaners!
I started this blog with the fact the I love technology BUT sometimes it can drive you absolutely nuts. We are in 2023, men have walked on the moon, there is an active space programme to take a crew to Mars, AI that is so good you don’t know it isn’t real. So why can’t TV providers figure out a way to put a buffer at the end of games!! I had to grab my iPad and look up the score, all the while not taking a single breath. Through squinted eyes I saw the final score and let out that breath. We won in the 11th inning. Which was great news but it would have been nice to see it.
Here is a recommendation to broadcasters, why don’t you put some of the pre-match build up time to post match summary to avoid this happening? I know that there will always be games that go to multiple inning or extra time but surely in this day and age we should be able to solve this problem!
A few years ago I thought that I had reached a point in my career where I should start to throttle back and stop looking and reaching for the next thing. Maybe it was time to put this endless drive , to do better and be better , into a lower gear. I tried and failed miserably, I had to accept I am someone who thrives on pressure.. I actually perform better in this kind of environment and I was not ready to stop pushing my own boundaries personally or professionally.
On the personal front I decided it was time to get a hobby and learn an artistic skill. I was entering my later 50’s when I made this decision. I chose to learn to throw pottery. I will tell you that I do not have a creative bone in my body but I have always admired potters. Pamela bought me a short taster course and I was hooked. I started taking more courses (one and two day chances to improve) I am still not not a good potter but that doesn’t matter to me because I love it. It is the first time in my life that it did not bother me that I wasn’t “good” at something I do it for the enjoyment. Wow!
What was next, job change, yes that was another boundary push because we were just coming out of COVID and the world was suddenly an uncertain place but for me no better time to take the next leap. I landed at an amazing company with a fantastic job.
One year in and loving my potting and my job I got a chance to fulfil a life-long ambition, to learn to speak Italian. My awesome employer provides a learning platform which has one to one instruction on everything from Pilates to business coaching to languages. I took this incredible opportunity and after six months of classes 2 times a week I finally I had a breakthrough.
My instructor, who has the patience of Job, would tell me to “think in Italian not English.” She might have well said go take a walk on the moon. I had no idea how to do this. She says “it will just happen if you keep trying. “ So, when I have meetings with my Italian colleagues I always try to use my Italian. When I get to visit Italy, I order my food, I don’t always get what I thought I ordered but that is an adventure too. I talk to the taxi drivers who don’t mind me trying my nascent skills out on them, but I still can’t “think in Italian”.
Well today that changed. While on a flight to Dallas I was listening to some short stories in Italian. (A friend who is learning French on the same platform told me that it doesn’t matter if you can’t really understand it, it will help your pronunciation and accent. ) It has been frustrating not to understand what is being said, catching only a few words and short phrases but today when I was listening I subconsciously stopped trying to understand and just let the words flow past me me. Suddenly, I realised I could understand the context of what was being said. How did that happen? Then I got it, I was thinking in Italian not in English! I still have a long way to go before I can get more words than I miss but I could understand!! What a feeling, it truly is hard to explain the joy and satisfaction I felt.
The moral of the story is in the title. Keep pushing, keep testing yourself. It is worth the effort.
The service that we take for granted far too often. I had an unfortunate health issue late last week and have been treated by the NHS since. I have seen most of the services that make up the NHS. From the Ambulance Service to the A&E team, to the nursing staff and two specialist teams. What can I say other than we are so fortunate to have this incredible organisation to look after us when we are unable to do it for ourselves. The ambulance crew were exceptional, the A&E team were top notch and my nurses on the floor work tirelessly to ensure everyone in their care is given excellent treatment.
I know it is easy to take this care for granted but when you see the little acts of kindness on top of the day to day heroics it is quite humbling. This morning the machine kicked into gear with the morning routine, meds were dispensed, clean towels were handed out to those who could dress themselves, coffee and tea orders taken (and prepared by the nursing staff so we did not have to wait for the breakfast crew to come around). Breakfast was delivered and the gentleman did not hear me ask for a sugar so one of the cleaning staff who was busy nearby darted after the breakfast man and came back with a packet of sugar and a smile. Not his job but he obviously didn’t care about that he did it because that is who he is.
The next time someone bad mouths the NHS remember these things. I know not everyone’s experience is the same but they have never let me down and I will always be grateful to these every day heroes.
I have always heard that as you get older time seems to speed up. I found this to be true but in other respects certain things feel like they have been part of your life forever even if it is truly only a few years. On December 17th, three years ago tomorrow, is when these anomalies in time really kicked in. It was on this day that my incredible partner joined me at the Registry Office in Oakham (a community in rural Rutland in the heart of England), to exchange vows that would bind us for the rest of our lives. At that very moment I went from being a single person with no children to a married person with 2 kids (I hate the “step” people use in these circumstances), with 2 daughter’s in-in-law and 2 grandchildren! How cool was that?
Since then we have welcomed 2 more grandchildren into this world. So in some ways, like when I think of that crisp December day it feels like yesterday, then when I look at everything that has happened since that day it feels like this has been my life forever. All I know for sure is that on that day my life changed into this awesome dream that I am now living. Thank you to Pamela for this wonderful gift and to the rest of our crazy Wilks side of the family for the love you share with me every day.
I grew up as the only girl between two boys, wonderful boys but boys. I often wondered what it would be like to have a sister. It was not the usual girly stuff I would think about, not the fixing each other’s hair or picking out shoes. I was a Tom boy through and through so my placement between two boys was perfect for me. Although sometimes I would think it would be nice to have a sister to share those precious secrets with or to have someone who knew me as well as I knew myself. I was lucky to have a few good friends but I knew it was not the same. One friend in particular through high school then as high school ended and real life began we took different paths and then were in different parts of the country and eventually we were an ocean apart. Over the intervening 20 years I tried to find my friend so many times with no success, then the technology that is FaceBook came along and we finally reconnected.
That was almost 5 years ago and I vowed we would never lose touch again. Durning those long years apart I realised that I did indeed have a sister, she is as special to me as any sister could be. Tonight I had the pleasure to be in her home, among her amazing friends and saw the girl I used to know as the incredible woman she has become. She is loved by these people and I know that she is in good hands when I am not here.
Angela, my friend my sister, I love you!
…will get an earful from me! There are difficult travel days then there are Hellish travel days. Today is firmly in the Hellish category? The day started at approximately 8:00 a.m. when my stepson brought the wonderful news that the M4 (main East/West motorway from Wales to London) was closed at the Swindon junction, which is the one we use, was closed owing to an earlier accident. So, change of plan, we were supposed to leave the house about 9:00 to be at the airport in plenty of time for my flight, we decided to leave immediately and find an alternate route. My plane was due to depart at 12:50 for Milan. We were listening to local radio for traffic updates. One would say the motorway would reopen shortly and then the next would say they really didn’t know how long it be. It is now 9:30 (1and 1/2 hours after leaving the house), we have finally made it to the junction for the motorway, normally a 15 minute drive! The local radio guy, whom by now I’m extremely sick of, says the traffic is flowing but it has to be diverted through the local services and then back on the road. From where we sat the closure was a short 15 miles up the motorway…another 90 minutes later and we are finally clear of the traffic. In the meantime Pam had to pull over to the shoulder so I could call my office to ask they get me on a later flight. Our 3 year old granddaughter is quietly sitting in her seat like an angel except for the occasional reminder to Nan to “put two hands on the wheel”
Rebooked and heading to Heathrow. I whiz through check in and into security. Out the other side I now face a 2 hour wait for the newly arranged flight to Milan. On the plane, down the taxi way and we stop and stay stopped for the next half hour. Finally the captain announces a vital piece of equipment has failed and attempts to reboot the system have also failed. 10 minutes goes by and he comes over the intercom again, his voice now equally annoying as the local radio guy. He explains that we have to return to the terminal and the engineers will meet us to fix the said computer. It is currently 4:45 GMT and we are waiting for a replacement computer because the engineers attempts to fix the computer has ended in misery and they have now called for brand new computer which they are currently installing. Most likely estimate for our departure is now approximately 5:45. Mr’s Dorst, Hauserman and Long I started having flashbacks to 10 hours on the DFW runway while trying to get to New Orleans!!
As bad as this day has been the poor newlywed couple in my row have just flown in from Mexico (where their flight was 3 hours late) and now they have to endure this. I am beginning to think these are signs from God and we are not meant to get to Milan today.