Katharine of Aragon talk by Alison Weir

There were 25 of us who went to the talk about Katharine of Aragon given by Alison Weir.tumba ca

I was not sure what  to expect as Katharine has always seen the cause of religious separation from the Catholic world in England. Having heard a lot about Alison Weir but having never read her books, nor followed her on the media, I knew only that she was a well-known English historian.

What a talk!

Alison’s narration and story-telling techniques, as well as her deep knowledge about the early Tudor times transported us to the times of Kathari ne of Aragon. We learnt how tough this Spanish lady was and how ruthless Henry VIII was to her. She did not manage to meet her only living child, Mary, for the last years of her life.

Alison WeirKatharine knew her role in life, and in her last letter to her husband, written on her death-bed, she wrote, Dear husband, and signed it, the Queen of England. http://englishhistory.net/tudor/letter5.html

Alison is very erudite on the subject of Henry VIII and her way of presenting the topic made me realise how much more I would like to learn about Katharine of Aragon. We are thinking of organising a tour where Alison can tell us more. Thank you to everyone who came on the trip and shared this experience with us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Multilingual carols workshop

Singing is a great way to learn a language and to meet others.


Working with María Fernandez Toro was such a joy and enrichment for everyone. Maria did a fantastic job with 28 of us and we sung in French, Italian, German, Spanish and English. Some of us were monolingual and very amateur singers, but we all were willing to try new things and the group worked very well.

Maria explained the meaning of the words and gave us directions about how to make sounds in different languages. So by the end of the two days workshop we felt far more confortable about singing in a different language. Please find few of our multilingual songs at our you tube channel.

Welcome to the Bedford Language Centre blog

 

Welcome to the Bedford Language Centre blog.
With a scrunching sound of wrapping paper and clinking of glasses as background noise it is time to start blogging, it is time to welcome you to this blog and it is time to look at what we have done in our first few steps of this new venture.
It was only September the Bedford Language Centre was created as an international culture and language hub in Bedford.
We had a launch party in a Mediterranean style, with tapas and wine! As we do not understand the learning of a language without the explosion to the culture this is how we started.
We were lucky as one of our press release was produced in Bedfordshire on Sunday. Thanks for that!

We would like to fulfil the lack of provision of languages in Bedfordshire area and we would like to inform you about what is on in our region regarding culture, arts, promotions, not only in English but in other languages to celebrate the richness of our area. This is the reason we set up a Meetup account, and so far we have nearly a 100 followers! Some of the events are organised by our people, other ones, we just promote them.
In all this time we have managed to achieve quite a lot. But… what is new for the New Year?
Our New Year resolution list is a never ending one and it is because our creative group has great ideas, even when some of them will take a while to materialise. Thank you team for all your continuous support!! If, out there, there is someone who would like to join us, please contact us. We are a bunch who would love to give the people of Bedford area another choice of entertainment, learning and leisure! Thank you.
Please, find a list of workshops we ran from September to December.