June – Environmental and Media studies, Summer in London

I was selected as one of 100 people representing Ireland in a pan-European forum on climate change, biodiversity and the environment. This was held online over two weeks, with video talk sessions and forum threads, content supplied by local political representatives, and comparisons with the comments and ideas from the other groups around Europe. This was hosted by the University of Turin. I met some highly interesting people, learned a great deal, contributed all I could, and enjoyed the whole session. After the end of the two weeks, I received a digital certificate of participation.

I attended and covered the Royal Dublin Society Farm, Forestry and Innovation Awards lunch. This went well and I sat with lovely, interesting people involved in environmental business, one tech firm, one grass roots. The lady next to me turned out to have attended my school – though years later - so we had a great chat. The President of the RDS introduced Pippa Hackett, a Minister for the Department of the Environment, who presented the awards. She is an organic farmer.

I placed an article on Medium about helping seniors to live independently. Unlike writers in America, I don’t earn anything from people reading my content on Medium.
Home Alone – Hidden hazards for seniors.
https://medium.com/@clareobeara/home-...-------------------------------------

June was Crime Fiction Month in the UK, so I attended a free Zoom talk featuring five UK crime writers.

Allan and I went to London for a few days. Partly to sightsee and partly to visit a friend for an afternoon at her home. We took a canal narrowboat trip one day, and on the last day visited the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum – my second time to see it and Allan’s first. This stone found in Egypt by Napoleon’s army was already ancient. It contains the same text in hieroglyphic, demotic Egyptian and Greek scripts and provided the key to deciphering the hieroglyphs. I recommend reading The Keys Of Egypt on the subject.

Weather was hot and sunny, but there are almost no drinking water fountains in London as everywhere wants to sell bottled water. Everything in London is expensive. I bought some books (of course). I visited many a bookshop, one at Camden Lock in converted stables where canal barge horses were kept above warehouses. A long ramp gave them access to the upper level. Statues in the vicinity were of Amy Winehouse, singer, and Lara Croft, Tomb Raider.

I started a diploma course with the Law Society of Ireland on Social Media and the Law. This runs during June and July and contains three exams and a great deal of interesting course content, including videos and a participatory forum.
As a journalist I studied media law, but new, updated Acts have come into force recently, and with the advances in AI as well, I decided I would benefit from continuous career development.



To celebrate summer in London, I’m making Dining Out With The Gas Giants free. Grab it July 20 – 23.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0150KLQIE
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0150KLQIE

If you don’t use the UK or US stores, and Amazon won’t give you the correct link – their procedure changed lately – you can either alter the link (put .ca instead of .com for instance) or drop a comment here and I’ll post the correct link for you.

You can follow me on Linked In to see some of my photography. Catch up with my news, events and Young Adult Page on my website. You can also sign up for my seasonal newsletter. I have a page devoted to helping writers publish independently.
www.clareobeara.ie