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 […]
travel
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
The Money Makers of Paris
How often do you think about money? Currency, I mean. Those coins in your pocket. What’s their story? The first time I went to Europe, the Euro had been in place about a year. On my debut visit to Paris, half of the menus were still in francs, yet francs themselves were proving increasingly harder to come by. At the time I feigned relief […]
Tents, Tea & Sea: Surfing in Devon
I’m not sure where my love for camping first came from. Mine was not a camping family, so it was only in adulthood that I discovered great bliss in huddling under canvas, everything you need stuffed into a rucksack and the sense of satisfaction of, well, building your own house for the night. Sure, the […]
Joshua Tree National Park
I have this thing for deserts. Something to do with the emptiness of them – my life feels so cluttered most of the time, and in the desert I relish the space and clarity. Here, we’re reminded that in the big scheme of things we are a mere speck. You’d think there’s little life in […]
Ten Years a Londoner
On 29 April 2005, when I was 22, I landed in London. Fresh off the boat from New Zealand I had little more than a secondhand backpack, a new A-Z and a couple of hundred quid in the bank. Not even enough for a deposit on a room (I think a part of me was driven by […]
24 Hour Paris Cake Tour
Paris is always a good idea. So is cake. The first time my cake-fancying father went to Paris was in 2011 – his debut to Europe, in fact. That was a cold, bleak December, when the city was stripped bare of any colour. The Christmas markets sparkled and we spent almost all our money in […]