A Day on the South Bank & Bankside, London

It started with Ben (6) coming back from school a couple of weeks’ ago and wanting to tell me they’d been learning about Roy Lichtenstein and David Hockney in school that day. As he started a drawing, reproducing for me the Lichtenstein painting they’d be studying, he recognised ‘The Splash’ on the front of a […]

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Spain 2023: Exploring the Local Area

Linda and George’s lovely house – in the style of a Spanish finca – is tucked into a gorgeous valley in the mountainous north-eastern part of the Costa Blanca in southern Spain, with glorious views. It’s only about a 15-minute drive, though, to the coast and the town of Moraira or inland, there’s the town […]

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Spain 2023: A Day Trip to Valencia

I’ve made the day trip to Valencia from Linda & George’s home in Spain a number of times. It’s a beautiful city that I don’t think I could tire of visiting. The city is the capital of the province of Valencia and the third largest municipality in Spain. There has been a city there since […]

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Spain 2023: Return to Alicante

Remarkably, it’s been six years since I lasted visited my good friends Linda & George in Spain – a trip that was once an annual one. But covid and other things intervened, though happily I have seen them a number of times in London since then. So, it was with delight that I once again […]

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A Week in North Wales, 2023

I’ve just returned from a lovely week in North Wales with the family. I didn’t know Wales well at all and welcomed the chance to get to know it better, especially as I have a Welsh daughter-in-law and three half-Welsh grandsons. The cottage we rented was in the Snowdonia National Park and thus we were […]

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12 Years of Blogging and a Life in Food

It’s the blog’s 12th birthday today. I published my first post on 25 July 2011: The Single Gourmet Traveller & Greek Aubergine Salad. I’d recently returned from a lovely solo holiday to Greece and decided to write a blog about travelling and eating alone, with a particular emphasis at the start in finding places where […]

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48 Hours in Chichester, West Sussex

There’s been a plan in my head to go to Chichester since June last year. So the trip has been a year in the making, and I finally made it there this week for a two nights’ stay. It’s not so far away from me – merely an hour and half’s drive (if traffic is good) – […]

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An Early Morning Walk in Kew Gardens – May 2023

I’ve often written about the world famous Kew Gardens, which I’m lucky to live very close to. I even recorded a whole year back in 2015 (click here) when I visited the gardens each month and delighted in keeping a close watch on all the changes through the year and gaining a better understanding the […]

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Supper & Jazz at The Turk’s Head, Twickenham

My lovely friends Linda and George are visiting from Spain and arranged for us to go to The Turk’s Head pub in Twickenham last night for supper and jazz. Keen jazz fans, especially with George playing saxophone himself, we’ve often sought out an evening’s music entertainment both here and in Spain when I visit them […]

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Four Days in Norfolk

I’m just back from a lovely short break in Norfolk with the family. There were 9 of us: 5 adults and 4 children, all boys (2, 4, 5 and 8), plus 2 dogs, so we needed a large house to accommodate us all. Fortunately, I found the perfect place on Booking.com in Clippesby, about halfway […]

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