Let me start by offering a piece of advice. If your child is in their final year at university, find out the graduation dates and book yourself a hotel room for the whole week....
Outdoor clothing shops – my guilty pleasure.
Breathability. Fill power. Active particle technology. Do these phrases excite you? Is your guilty pleasure a penchant for Gore-Tex? I never used to pay much attention to all the technological terms associated with outdoor...
Going for a walk in Bear Grylls’ trousers
After traipsing around Snowdonia last Spring in either jeans or shorts, my man decided he needed a proper pair of walking trousers for our late summer trip to Scotland. Something more practical and waterproof...
A Holbeach man, born and bred.
I always think of myself as a Geordie, hailing from Newcastle upon Tyne, even though I haven’t lived there since I was 18. Husband, Dougie, is an Edinburgh man, despite leaving home at the...
A taste of the estuary at Lympstone Manor
The end of an era is fast-approaching. Rory now has a degree in politics from Exeter University and our three years of visiting him will end next month with his graduation ceremony. I’m not...
Spending a day at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard
As we drove towards Portsmouth harbour I could see the distinctive shape of the Spinnaker Tower against the sharp blue of the sky. This puzzled me. “I thought that tower was in Plymouth,” I...
Unlocking the secrets of Bletchley Park
Dougie earned lots of brownie points for booking a superb hotel, the Aviator in Farnborough, Hampshire, for our last-minute Easter break. But this wasn’t the end of his brilliant ideas. In an effort to escape the traffic...
Chocks away! A perfect weekend at the Aviator Hotel, Farnborough
You know you’ve joined the jet-set when you spot a distinguished, uniformed chap at the reception desk who looks remarkably like Sully, the heroic pilot who saved his passengers by gliding his plane onto the Hudson...