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For those of you who have already learned English with us, you might have remembered my interest (and obsession) with Philip Larkin. If you remember, then it’s likely that we studied his poem ‘The Trees’. With each coming spring the poem is on my mind.

Weather in Cornwall is not as unpredictable as you’d think: we get all the weather, but seldom snow. This week, however, on the last day of November, snow returned. For us it was a complete surprise. Imagine the entire Cornish population staring at up at the clouds in awe, and you’ll get a little closer to our collective amazement. 

The first of many daffodils in St Agnes makes its appearance in late January. It is the first colour after the subdued winter, when hedgerows are green and brown, but for the occasional Red Campion that peeks out from the murk.

In a world of giant corporations and the pervasive influence of technology on our lives, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to escape the gravity of mainstream macro culture. According to the zeitgeist of 21st century capitalism, progress is synonymous with expansion; always more, always bigger.

The pandemic has revealed so much about our behaviour, and has brought sharply brought into focus our metal wellbeing, and how we do business. In 2019 more than £4.2 billion was spent in the UK on language learning alone – we’re an industry that carries with it a great weight of responsibility, not to mention carbon.

At Skool, as providers of language courses and cultural experiences, we are fortunate enough to benefit from the mutually enriching exchange of ideas and experiences across cultures. This is why we exist as a business, and because learning is never a one-sided process, we gain just as much from the relationships we make in the act of teaching as the language skills our tutees develop with us.

May is here already and spring has truly sprung. Northern European winters are long and dark, and even though the climate is milder here in Cornwall than the rest of The UK, we’re happy that the Earth has spun around the sun and our students are returning along with the warm days and long evenings.

I’m tied to my phone again. To the email app more specifically, and the alerts, and the calendar. Sometimes it feels like I live my life through this thing. I make schedules out of the day, and attempt, as we all do, to keep appointments – to get things done.

This morning I went running. It was my usual route, through the village, and then out towards the Beacon. The road (if you’ve been here you’ll know) circumvents the hill itself, and as you climb there is an extremely lovely view south – you can see the north coast coves in a row: Chapel Porth, Porthtowan, Portreath, and Godrevey, and in December the mad sea is crashing and tumbling.