I've been thinking all week of what skills I have to teach, aside from actually being a 'teacher', which has been my career for the last twenty years. I couldn't think of anything worse than teaching English anymore - creative writing, maybe, but those days are well and truly done for me, the passion for it completely evaporated. So if I didn't teach you a subject I'm well versed in, what would I actually teach you?

Could I teach you how to forage and cook with wild foods? Sure, I could show you where to find saffron milk caps in the Autumn, on the edge of pine forests in the rain, We'd roast them with garlic, pickle them or saute them with butter. We'd pick nettles and make them into spanokopita, palak paneer or plain, comforting soup.

Could I teach you how to cook other things too, like a rich and meaty lentil ragu, enriched with porcini and miso? Or a hearty bean and tomato soup with roast fennel and homemade kale and garlic pesto? If simple food is your thing, I make the best pan fried toasted sandwiches in the world and a fantastic breakfast fry up, with or without bacon. If you can't cook at all we'd start with a sofrito and go from there.

Perhaps you'd like to know how to make your own herbal salves, balms or deodorants, bath bombs, herbal teas or even plant a beginner's herb garden. I could teach you that, too. I could give you a few tips about aquaponics, raising trout, making a smoker out of a beer keg and smoking fish, too. Growing mushrooms in buckets is simple too - I could teach you that if you're keen.

Maybe I could teach you a little about raising chickens, or keeping bees, or growing your own food. We'd start at the basics and go from there.

I could teach you to surf if you like, or just stand up paddle board - I could take you for a paddle up a river and you'll glide along with a big smile on your face and not even fall in.

I could teach you a thing or two about building your own camper in the back of a van so it's insulated and practical. We've done it so many times I've lost count, so we know a trick or two.

I could show you how to renovate or upcycle old furniture, turning old, unloved and ugly pieces of furniture into something unique, beautiful and even sellable, for little cost and a lot of wow. I could teach you how to make fermented hot sauces, pickled, sauerkraut, kimchi and jam, to make your own apple cider vinegar, preserve stewed apples, or prune a fruit tree.

I could teach you how to use a spreadsheet and insert your own formulas to keep track of spends, how to use any social media to work with algorithms, how to use any number of programs and apps.

But none of that is what I really would want to teach you. Sure, come over and I'll run you through the basics of any of those things, if you're interested.

However, the most importat thing I'd want to teach you is how to be a curious, confident and life long learner. You see, no one has taught me any of those things, apart from one course I did on growing oyster mushrooms last year. People say to me all the time 'how do you know these things?', especially younger people who would love to have these skills.

We aren't born with these skills. We learn them as we go. Unless we're willing to observe, learn and practice, we don't learn. We have to understand, for example, that Youtube, books and the internet can teach us anything we need to learn and that it is learnable.

Take the simple example of hot sauce as a symbol for starting with nothing and ending up with something amazing. I had no idea how to make hot sauce. I didn't even follow one single recipe. What I did was start with reading the ingredients on a srirarcha label, and then doing an awful lot of reading on the internet before devising a recipe that made sense to me. I asked questions. I dont like sugar - could you make one without it? I love fermented foods - could you make a fermented hot sauce? Before long I had the ingredients gathered and a hot sauce perfected. That goes for everything, from building a camper to planting lettuce.

Here's a quick side note - I was never confident I could do as much as I do. But somewhere along the line I've learnt that I can. I never let anyone tell me differently. Even my husband, who sometimes looks as me as if I'm mad and incapable, especially if it's anything to do with sanding or painting. But I usually tell him to sod off until I need him to lift something or to point me in the right direction of fixing my mistakes.

If I was to list how to be a good learner, here's the bullet points.

• Experimentation is everything.
• Be prepared to fail - and enjoy it. We learn from our mistakes.
• Don't listen to the voice that says you 'can't' - you can do anything you apply yourself to, and for everything else (like tig welding) you can outsource
• Add 'yet' to the sentence that says you can't: 'I don't know how to sew yet'
• Understand neural plasticity and growth mindset - the brain is remarkable
• Practice, practice, practice.
• Be curious and investigative. Research and watch others.
• Be a critical thinker and an flexible one - look at your problem from all angles. The answer will come if you allow it to.

I think one of the lamentations of us older folk (hey, I'm only 50, but it's all relative) is that kids aren't taught to be practical these days. Everything's on tap, consumerable, buyable, made to order. But there's a lot of satisfaction to be gained from doing things yourself, let alone the environmental and financial benefit. Younger people are realising this as they become disillusioned with the world they're living in. Thing is, it doesn't matter so much what they already know or what they haven't been taught at school - how to cook, change a tyre, grow a vegetable garden, use a chainsaw, build a house.

The most important thing to learn is that learning is life long, and up to you.

Don't say I need someone to teach me. Say 'I need to learn how to do this - where can I start'.

*This was written in response to the Ladies of Hive question of the week which you can find here. I may be a little late with it but wanted to join in anyway - sorry @saffisara - between all the other posts I wanted to get out this week I just didn't have room to fit it in! Did you know that their 100th question is coming up? Amazing. Kudos for the hard work these guys do to supply prompts for us to respond to and create content on this wonderful social media platform we love so much!

With Love,

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