What does my mathematical life look like now? On a typical day, my first check on email might throw up a few jobs; for example, the maths competition I am running on the net with MEI has seen us publish a question that someone finds ambiguous, so it needs tweaking. There might be an email from one of the sub-editors for the textbook I’m working on; could I supply an answer for this question? Or clarify what I meant by this, or comb the latest proofs for errors. Or there might be a communication from my collaborator; my MSc thesis has proved interesting to someone apart from me (hurrah!), and we are writing up a joint paper as a result. Later that day I fire up Zoom for an online lesson with a tutee who lives 400 miles away. Meanwhile I’m putting together my latest ebook, on proof, due to be published by the ATM next year. As you have probably realised, I spend more hours each day than can possibly be healthy on the computer. In a bid to be at least remotely fit, I stand rather than sit when working on my machine, and I make sure I walk briskly around the park three times every afternoon. But it hasn’t always been this way; once upon a time I was a classroom teacher. The main part of my working life was spent at a college in Norfolk called Paston College. Talk to many teachers, and you encounter a certain world-weariness; ask them if they would have chosen teaching again given the chance; and many say they would have done something else instead. But not me. I loved teaching, with the constant interaction with people and young adults, the chance to communicate a subject that I loved and with the chance to think about what made for good learning experiences. Teaching provided a constant chance to grow as a person and to help others to grow too. Of course, the challenge for many teachers is just too great. The workload is ridiculous, the inspecting regime merciless, and the behaviour of the pupils is sometimes unbearable. My answers to these drawbacks was to go part-time, not worry too much about Ofsted, and teach in a sixth-from college where the students by and large wanted to get on. It’s vital to find the right place for you to teach. The first school I taught in, a comprehensive in the East End of London, turned into something of a disaster. After a year in half I woke up in hospital after suffering a dramatic breakdown. It took me 12 years to recover, and I didn’t get much sympathy from the majority of people. So mathematics has been good to me. I’ve had a teaching career I cherish, and now I’m creating resources that hopefully make mathematics classrooms more interesting places. I’ve written three successful websites that offer free resources to teachers at www.risps.co.uk, www.making-statistics-vital.co.uk, and at www.carom-maths.co.uk. Last year 250 teams from across the world took part in Ritangle, our maths competition, and this year it looks like being 700. And teaching? Who knows, I might go back one day; let’s hope so.