The weather kept me indoors for much of the past month, including St. Patrick’s Day, but we did get some sun. I attended a talk in Trinity College about a Welsh painter who lived in Rome and Naples for part of his life, with his household accounts and memoirs. Thomas Jones 1743 – 1803.

The one day I wanted to get groceries, I found the van had a flat tyre. Normally I can handle this myself, but this was my new van so I called the AA. The nice mechanic came and I watched and chatted while he removed and replaced. Due to St. Patrick’s Day, I had to wait to get the flat tyre mended. Both mechanics had some trouble getting the spare tyre out from under the van / back fitted underneath it, despite having trolley jacks and long levers on the wheelbraces, so I think I’ll be calling the AA in future. When in doubt, call an expert.

I attended an online talk about AI by publicist and educator Ellen Gunning. This was highly interesting, as the field is moving so swiftly, and the focus was on fakes, incorrect news or answers, and augmentation of other tools.

Separately, I and my husband have kept up our IT training classes with seniors for Age Action. Some students have too many phone apps, most of which they don’t want, and this deters them from finding the useful ones and learning how to use them. We show them how to delete random arrivals, and put the basic ones like the alarm and calendar, and grocery store voucher ones, to good use. Other students have a laptop but no experience with word processing, and come out knowing how to write a letter or create a poster for a raffle.

Otherwise, I have been reading plenty. Mainly I tried to clear books that were a couple of years on my to-read list, from when I was at college and couldn’t read other material. Several of those were overdue reviews, which I have posted or sent to Fresh Fiction, which then posted them.

I covered the RDS Finding Common Ground Festival, which was held over two days during April, and I’ll report on that next month.

This month I am making an Irish racing romance story free. Download Silks And Sins 25 – 29 April. This book for adults is also available in paperback.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00EGXYKR6

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EGXYKR6

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www.clareobeara.ie