Warm Halloumi, Little Gem & Peach Salad

The current heatwave brings challenges other than simply trying to stay cool enough to sleep, work, live. There’s ‘What can I eat?’ too.  I’m not as hungry as usual, which is pretty normal in such heat, but I do need food! I always need food. I’m the kind of person who can’t go out early […]

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TV Review: Rick Stein’s Cornwall

I was delighted to see there was a new series of Rick Stein’s Cornwall on BBC2 last week: 15 half-hour episodes over three weeks. I really enjoyed the first series last year and it gave me some great information for my holiday in Cornwall last September, especially leading me to Jack Doherty’s pottery in Penzance […]

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Now We Are Ten!

The blog is ten years old today! I published the first post on 26 July 2011. It all started with … well, where does anything truly begin? Was my trip to Kardamyli in 2011 the seed of the blog or the germinating? Or was the seed meeting my friend Anna, who lives in the Peloponnese, […]

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A Visit to Buckingham Palace Garden

My daughter-in-law Rachael is a self-confessed Royal Family fan so when she saw that Buckingham Palace was opening its garden to the public for the first time this summer, she couldn’t resist buying tickets. Happily she included me, so with my daughter Nicola and their son Rufus (2¾) we set off to the palace on […]

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Travelling by Book

I’ve insatiably devoured books since I first went to school. I started school late due to a family house move; I was five and a half and should have begun school a year earlier. I skipped quickly up two years within a few months and certainly by the age of eight was a serious reader. […]

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2020: Oh, What a Year! … Happy Christmas!

‘Oh, what a night/Late December back in ’63/Was a very special time for me/As I remember what a night’. Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons may famously have been singing about a very good and special time back in 1975 but the words keep coming to me from the perspective of this year’s pandemic: ‘Oh, what […]

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Now We Are Nine!

It was as I was publishing my last post with the red mullet recipe that I noticed a message from WordPress congratulating me on my blog’s 9th anniversary. Yes, it the blog’s birthday!! I was too busy to cook the blog a birthday cake (and in truth, there’s no one around at the moment to […]

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Dreaming of Travelling

Like many people, I’m really missing making travel plans during this time of the Covid-19 pandemic. I’m fortunate that in normal times I get away four or five times a year. Usually for short breaks and rarely longer than a week. I like to always have something to look forward to in the fairly near […]

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A Family Outing to RHS Garden Wisley

Wisley gardens are one of my favourite places to go. Just a 20-minute drive from my home, they’re a regular destination. Normally – not in lockdown times – they have a terrific schedule of events and exhibitions and I’ve been there a lot with the family – to see an exhibition of life-sized safari animals […]

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Return to Kew Gardens

Everyone has missed something during Lockdown since late March, due to the Coronavirus pandemic. There have been many common experiences but each person has had their own unique experience too. There have been some really difficult things to negotiate a way through for many people but, though I long for a return to a greater […]

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