Canada, eh? I could tell you I moved here for the raccoons and bears and the advocacy of lumberjack chic, but these are mere perks. (Although have not seen enough raccoons. Or any bears. And still trying to figure out where the lumberjacks hang out.) I moved here because I wanted – needed – greater proximity to the wild outdoors. Big Nature. To be totally honest […]
I Had A Sound Bath In The Desert As Recommended By Aliens
There are strange goings on in the desert. And hell, that’s what I like about them. But one of the strangest I’ve encountered was in Landers, a 20-mile drive north of Joshua Tree down very long, very straight, very dusty roads. I was, if all went to plan, going to a ‘sound bath’ on the site of a geo-magnetic vortex in the […]
Because A Spa On A Boat Can Be A Life Raft
Whisky is usually my friend. But cheap whisky and I are, I’ve now come to accept, not on the best of terms. At my AirBnB I was several drams of $8 Canadian Club down as I waited for the new friend I’d made in Montreal to let me know when he and his friends got to the bar they’d […]
I Can’t Feel My Fingers In Quebec City
It’s the middle of April in Quebec City, the sun is high and the sky is a cool, clear blue. Not that you’d know it was Spring. The city is frozen: framed in snow drifts, carpeted in ice. As I walked around in the early morning, I have to tred carefully, minding each step doesn’t land me on my […]
Feeling A Connection In Canadian Coffee Shops
In a New Zealand-inspired coffeeshop in central Toronto, the young, hip Canadian barista is making me a dirty chai – that’s a chai latte with an all-important shot of espresso: possibly the greatest crossover of all time – while we discuss The State of Things. “The world feels so crazy right now,” says the barista, with […]
Life’s too short not to drink Campari in the street in Paris on a Monday
I was probably feeling a little too pleased with myself. That must have been it. A Monday morning, up before the dawn, I had – swaddled in my faux fur coat, my comfy trainers on and coffee held jauntily aloft – sailed through all the usual scans and checks to take my seat on a Eurostar. It was a day trip to Paris; a […]
On The Edge: A Trip To The Seven Sisters Cliffs
“Today I will be happier than a seagull with a stolen chip.” So declared the sign in the pub, where seven of us filled up on fish-finger sandwiches and pints of ale ahead of a blustery walk across the Seven Sisters. I can’t believe I’d not been to Eastbourne before – especially as I actually grew up in another Eastbourne, in Wellington, New Zealand. […]
Solitude in the Scottish Borders
I couldn’t tell you exactly when I became an introvert, but somewhere between the constant craving for company in my early twenties and the sudden delight at cancelled plans in my early thirties, I turned into one. Time on my own is as necessary to my ability to function as physical exercise. Or coffee. And while introverts […]
A Narrowboat Escape
Messing about on boats is one of those innate New Zealand pastimes that come with the territory of a Kiwi upbringing. (Ironically, this upbringing included many a warning that one should never actually “mess about” on a boat. ‘Have fun in the water but do what you oughta’, right kids?) Growing up, my dad would take my brothers […]
In Search of the Sólheimasandur DC-3
The plane has been there since 1973. To look at the thing now – the torso of an aircraft, riddled with bullets, left to erode on a black beach in southern Iceland – you’d imagine something sinister happened. A tragic crash, a plane shot down in battle, a Bermuda-triangle-style missing airliner. The eeriness of this rusting wreck is its greatest allure. If you’d prefer to keep it […]