favourite place

Everyone has a favourite place in the whole world. It might be your garden, somewhere you went on holiday, your bed (as in the case of Jay, who loves her bed more than anywhere else) or somewhere you grew up. In my case, this place is Oldbury Woods, nr Ightham in Kent. I grew up a few hundred metres from this place and spent…

castles (part3)

So, the last castle we actually went to visit properly was Hever Castle, only 30 mins drive from my mum and dads house. Hever Castle is another fairytale castle, complete with moat, drawbridge and portcullis, surrounded by sculpted parklands with a maze and a Tudor village too. Its a fabulously beautiful place. Similar to the others, it has its foundations in 13th Century, with…

castles (part2)

Leeds Castle was cool, a bit too cool actually, we ended up tired and cold and missed the driving rain by seconds as we got back to the car. The next day was completely different – sunny and warm with a gentle breeze, so we went about a mile down the road to Ightham Mote, a wonderful moated medieval manor house, dating from 1320,…

castles castles and more castles (part 1)

The thing about England (and the rest of the UK come to that) is that almost everybody lives in a castle. There are simply millions of the things scattered about the country that if you don’t live in one, you live next door to one or a pile of stones that used to be one. I’m not even kidding – where I grew up…

more tall tales..

so, how far did I get? I’ve been so busy and also sick (with special thanks to my children for their so far unblemished record in handing over the lurgey baton when I see them) that blogging was placed on the back burner. So, Easter Sunday was spent at my sisters: Ava is my youngest sister’s smallest child – she’s ever so sweet, very…

tall tales from the motherland

So, as my one regular reader will know, I’m back in England for 10 days to see my beautiful children. I’ve had a great week so far, starting with breakfast at Pat and Nicky’s straight out of Heathrow. They weren’t up when I got there, but Nicky and Anna (their cute very nearly 4 year old) soon answered the door and made me coffee…

girl on film

An homage to the missus. Taken with the Holga and (mostly awful) Diana Mini. looking good, wifey 🙂

Melbourne trip (part 1)

We’re in Melbourne for a long weekend city break for our honeymoon It’s not that far from Perth, just under 4 hours by plane, which still makes it an occasional visit, rather than a regular jaunt. We arrived Friday night and went for a wander. We’re staying in Chinatown right in the middle of Melbourne, which is pretty interesting, colourful and lively. We had…

Saturday, Saturday..

.. but no fighting whatsoever.. Had a lovely day yesterday – Jay and Anja went down to see a friend so Pipes and I went to the beach for a swim. It was a beautiful morning, very still and the sea was very clear and gorgeously warm. We splashed about for a while, avoiding the transparent teeny (but not stingy) jellyfish, then built some…

a day out

We went to Caversham Wildlife Park today.  I love it when I see place names from England here, especially places I know – its even funnier when 2 places are next to each other here when they’re not in England. Caversham is near Reading, south west of London and a place I know quite well.  Caversham here is semi rural place where vineyards flourish,…