Tell me about you and your family/where you live?

In the past decade, my husband’s job has taken my family to Houston, Cairo, Singapore, Bombay, Dubai and now London. Living overseas is not for the faint- hearted… you must have a sense of adventure, be tough but flexible and love making new friends every couple of years. We have lived in incredible places and have travelled to every continent except Antarctica. However, having to move to another country with two small kids in a few weeks is very daunting!

   My husband started his current job in Chiswick in 2015, so we were looking
for a place to live along the M4 where he could drive to work. We now live in
one of the new Shanly houses in Hatch Place in Cookham.

 

What's so good about the local area? Where are your favourite places to go?

We moved from Dubai so we didn't know the Greater London area at all. A friend lived in Kinghorn Park just off Switchback Road in Maidenhead, so when we visited them, we looked at some new houses around the area and Hatch Place was one
of them. There was a four-bedroom house available and in our price range. I had actually looked online and found your website, MumsAboutCookham.com and loved your articles. I thought if a mum made such an effort to write about where she lived, it must be a great place to live and raise children. We loved Cookham when we first laid eyes on the village in June 2015! 

 

Tell me about your Temple Spa business....

I’ve been using Temple Spa as my go-to skincare brand for the last two years
after being introduced to the brand by Michelle, a friend in Scotland. This brand
is massive up north, but now coming down south, so when Michelle suggested that I become a consultant when we met up in Aberdeen in the summer of 2017,
I thought: 'Why not?' I also blog about the products at https://templespablog.wordpress.com 

 

Have you always been interested in doing this? What do you like about
it the most?

For Temple Spa, I have always looked for the best skincare products as I don't
use a lot of make-up. Temple Spa's motto 'Your body is a living temple. Honour
it, enjoy your life and live it to the full' resonates with me as I have always tried
my best at whatever I do, being an engineer, an expat, a mum or now a
Temple Spa consultant.

 

What prompted you to decide to take it that bit further and start your
own business – was it when you had your first/second child?

I wanted to decide my own hours, when and where I worked, so going back
to work full time didn’t fit into my reality. Temple Spa is a class/social retailing experience. Temple Spa consultants like myself bring the spa experience into
your home – the fragrances, the textures, the music. Add in six of your friends
so that together you'll discover just what your skin loves and needs. We will
guide, advise, and help you discover how to care for your face. So get your
friends together for a great night in and have a spa evening…

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What's your fave product?

My favourite Temple Spa product is the Skin Truffle. It is the most famous Temple Spa product, sold in Harrods, and has the WOW factor as contains diamond (bling bling!). Skin Truffle has won the coveted BEAUTY BIBLE Anti-Ageing Award and scored the highest ever score in the history of the award (9.31/10)!

 

What did you do before you had children?

I was a Business Development manager at an oil and gas project management consultancy.

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Tell me about your Coding Club…

I used to be a software engineer, so when Cookham Rise Primary School asked
for volunteers to start up Code Club, I signed up. Code Club is a great initiative run by volunteers nationally. All learning materials are online so it’s a great activity for kids to try – even at home. We teach primary 5 and 6 kids to code in Scratch, HTML and Python. Again, I blog about all the technology projects I do with my kids at https://moonmonkeycom.wordpress.com

   I enjoy Code Club as kids have amazing curiosity and ability to learn. The students have astounded me with their ability to understanding basic computer coding, and interactive online projects have revealed that they want to learn with a computer! Teachers/volunteers like myself can help these students understand the transformational power of coding because it’s how you can make computers or microcomputers do what you want them to do. Microcomputers are in everything from toys to mobile phones to rockets! 

   I studied software engineering at university so I have been involved in building websites from the early years of coding webpages on a Notepad before the onset of content management tools such as Wordpress, and Squarespace. I also worked as a Webmaster for Cable & Wireless and Lycos in the late 90s to early 2000s.

   Code Club has inspired me to be a trainer. I'm now starting up digital skills
and Wordpress classes in the Maidenhead area for adults, young people or kids wanting to learn about coding (HTML, CSS, Python, microbits), how to create and maintain websites (Wordpress) and the latest technology (virtual reality, 3D printing etc). You’ll learn how to create a professional website for yourself or
small business. We’ll look at domains, hosting server, how to install WordPress content management software, customise your pages and create content.  

Weekly classes will start on Thursday 1 March.
£15 per class or £65 for all five classes.

http://moonmonkey.tech/digital-skills-class/