In the arrivals hall of Lisbon airport we hunted for our names in a sea of A4 laminated cards. We were expecting Miguel to pick us up but the smiling face of Sebastian greeted...
Agatha Christie, Notre Dame and Eurovision
Here’s a selection of the latest ‘Trish Takes Five’ weekly columns I write for the Lincolnshire Free Press. Lots of random topics as usual. It’s great to have the freedom to write on any...
Duke House, a beautiful bolthole in the centre of Cambridge
I remember my first overnight stay in Cambridge in 1981. I was lying in a small single bed in a hotel room near the river Cam, staring at the ceiling, listening to my mum...
St Martins Lane: a luxury boutique hotel in Covent Garden
What’s the first thing you do when you enter your hotel room? Bounce on the edge of the bed? Check out the mini-bar? Eat the complimentary biscuits? If you’re a blogger or you’re into...
Once is not enough: a second visit to Hotel Ylläshumina in Lapland.
Do you go back to the same place on holiday? There are so many destinations I’d still love to visit that I don’t often go back. I made an exception for Lapland and, in...
Happy Anniversary Trish Takes Five
Five years ago I started writing my regular weekly column, Trish Takes Five, in the Lincolnshire Free Press. I suppose I should get myself a gift for my 5th anniversary. If it was a...
How to spend a few hours in Honfleur
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...