I don’t know what possessed us to tackle the strenuous hike from the centre of Honfleur up to Mont-Joli. It was a sweltering hot day during the heatwave of 2018. I was unsuitably dressed...
Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny in summer
It was a hot, cloudless day at the end of June. Dougie and I had already spent the morning kayaking 15km on the River Eure, a tributary of the Seine. We changed out of...
An afternoon at the Gardens of Versailles
The first stop on our U by Uniworld river cruise this summer was Conflans-Saint-Honorine. We had boarded our ship, The B, in Paris the previous day and the ship sailed overnight down the Seine...
A day in Rouen – photo tour
Rouen was one of the stops on our U by Uniworld river cruise, The Seine Experience (for 2019 the trip is now called Northern France at a Glance). Our ship was moored very close...
A Christmas shopping break in York
It was a spur of the moment decision to book a couple of nights away, mid-November, to start our Christmas shopping. I wanted somewhere that would put me in the festive mood, a city...
Mum’s Gone To: The Kelpies and The Falkirk Wheel
I seem to have a thing for sculptures at the moment. Recently I wrote about the artwork we found at Thorpe Meadows in Peterborough: 17 sculptures by the River Nene. Festival Boat might have looked a...
Discovering sculptures in Thorpe Meadows, Peterborough
Ever since we moved to South Lincolnshire in the late 1980s I’ve paid regular visits to Ferry Meadows in Peterborough. I used to meet a friend of mine there with our children; initially in...
Five Acre Barn packs a Suffolk punch
There’s nothing better than having your accommodation choice approved by national newspapers. So I’m feeling more than a little smug that the B&B we recently stayed in has just been placed in the Top...