I’m a Mum, overthinker, writer, and ex primary school teacher turned music therapist. I love writing, reading, music (from Beethoven to Taylor Swift to jazz and most things in between – that’s why music therapy was a perfect-fit career choice for me!), theatre (recent shows include In the Night Garden, Peppa Pig and Les Mis) and walks in nature.
Outnumbered by boys at home (2 small ones, a husband and a dog), my weekends usually consist of not much of the above but plenty of football, Lego building and Fifa on the Playstation.
After graduating from the University of Oxford with a degree in Music, I completed a PGCE in primary teaching and worked for 12 years both in the UK and in the Middle East as a class teacher and then Head of Primary Music in international schools. This allowed me to indulge in travelling to places such as the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Malaysia, Thailand and Nepal in the holidays.
Once I met my husband, having kids brought us back to the UK where I retrained on a masters course with Nordoff Robbins (the leading private provider of music therapy in the UK) at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. I then worked for them before setting up my own business first in Cheshire and then in Kent. This involved providing group and individual sessions for children with special needs such as autism, elderly residents in dementia care homes, private neurorehabilitation clients and mental health residential centre settings. A lot of people haven't heard about music therapy but once they delve deeper they're fascinated by it and realise they actually often use music in their everyday lives in a therapeutic way, whether that be listening to it for stress relief in the car on the way to work, in the shower to energise themselves, or helping themselves to wind down after a hard day.
Having worked with people of all ages from 5 year old Ukranian refugees to 40 year old adults in secure locked mental health psychiatric wards or 100 year old residents in care homes, I have countless stories of times where music has been transformative for people - helping them communicate when they can't speak, providing an outlet for self expression or acting as pain relief when on their death bed. It's even helped me in a number of ways such as alleviating anxiety and getting over my imposter syndrome.
When my husband got a new job abroad, I started my blog in the runup to our relocation to Singapore, hoping to document our travels as a family and maybe to help someone else along the way who might be having the same mad panic as me or may need some travel tips.
Now we're settling into Singapore life, I'm enjoying freelance writing, online English tutoring and volunteering with community music.