Life in the slow lane…
The State of Winter Gardening
A month ago the kitchen garden was dishevelled and in serious need of a sprucing up. Although the warm and wet weather was a nutritious boost to the winter vegetables it was the weeds and wayward seedlings that were growing like crazy. The paths looked almost as...
Awake Again & Raring To Go
Killing time at Heathrow airport last week I was tempted to treat myself to a Fitbit, the latest gizmo to help you track your lifestyle. I dread to think it may have said about me this week as I repeatedly hit the wall of jet lag with a mighty thud. Seems I don't...
Kitchen Reader: A Moveable Feast
A return trip from New Zealand to the UK means you are cocooned in dimly lit aircraft cabins for over 40 hours. After eating and sleeping time you are still left with what can seem like interminable hours to fill. The secret to enjoying rather than enduring long haul...
Travelling Foodie
In the 8 years I have lived away from the UK there has been a revolution in the foodscape of the UK. Knowing that I love good food, friends and family have indulged my gastronomic interest giving me many highlights on this trip. The supermarkets, high streets and...
Culture Vultures
Although technology is certainly a marvellous thing, you’ve got to hand it to the cultural philanthropists of the 19th century who established galleries and museums so the wider public could gain access to antiquities, artworks and knowledge only before available to...
Staying In Touch
It's a marvel of ingenuity and engineering that I was able to send a short video home to @m_treanor of what I was seeing from the train window within seconds just using my iPhone. He then messaged back immediately with his response. It wasn’t anything remarkable...
The Costs of Retail Therapy
New Zealand retailers and I have a love hate relationship. Mostly, I just love to hate them. Even though logically I know that living in one of the most remote places in the developed world with only 4 million consumers makes it impossible to sustain markets like they...
Friends You Can Count On
Surrounded by evidence of my pilgrimage to replenish my underwear supplies, it didn’t seem an overly strange question to be asked “How was Marks and Spencer?â€. "Umm, busy" was my slightly bemused reply. It was only the insight of another friend in this...
London’s Green
I may be a Londoner by birth but since I was very small it has never been my home. Instead I've roamed settling for a few years here and there, although London has been a constant feature in my life through family who live here or the 7 years I commuted in from Surrey...
Thinking Space
Recharging my batteries over the last week has been a marvellous boost. It’s not until you slow down that you realise how unthinking life has become. In this dash about and have it all world we live in finding time to sit back, relax and think seems incredibly hard...
The Gallop
At first my trip seemed like small speck on the horizon, then I arrived in the UK and it felt like I was standing on a hilltop looking out to a big view with limitless time to explore. Alas time is running out all of a sudden. London is calling again and I can faintly...
Garden Dreams
Visiting gardens in the English National Garden Scheme is enough to bring on an attack of horticultural obsequiousness. As much as I can admire the gardens of others it's hard not to feel completely idiotic in the company of learned hardy planters. Luckily I could...