This is going to be a ‘hey I went on holiday’ sort of a post so sorry about that if you’ve had it up to here with it on Facebook and Instagram during the summer. We spent a week on Sao Miguel the largest of Portugal’s volcanic Azores islands, which are mid-way out into the Atlantic. It’s a beautiful, verdant, tropical place although also hard to put your finger on as it’s also completely different at every turn. At times it looks Alpine – both landscape wise and occasionally architecturally too – then the hundreds of blue hydrangeas dotted along the roads that snake through the island also bring a hint of British suburbia to proceedings. You can feel like you’re in a rainforest one minute, pottering through one of Lisbon’s streets the next and driving around it really reminded me of Mull.

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Uags bothy and the North Coast 500

A little late, here is a report on my recent trip up to the Highlands in search of that dream cottage of my childhood imaginings. And, yeah, good news is I found it. Uags bothy is only a 2 and a half mile walk from the nearest little village, but it took us 2 hours. […]

Lille Braderie 2017

Imagine, Bargain Hunters, a city filled with junk for sale, laid out on blankets and wallpapering tables on every boulevard, square and side street. Imagine this city appears just once a year, like a flea-market Brigadoon. This tat-hunter’s paradise is real, however, and it’s called la Braderie. It takes place on the first September weekend […]

My Kokeshi

A couple of months ago my wonderful sister-in-law came to visit, without brother, from Tokyo. We had a lovely chilly time here, and we also called on my friend at the other end of the terrace, where sister-in-law spotted her wooden doll, brought back many years ago from travels in Japan. Next time I saw […]

Interior decorating, 90s style

Remember a simpler time, when we regarded our houses as places to get away from everybody, rather than investment vehicles? When a chill-out zone was two bean bags and a plastic Buddha? When a man in an open-to-the-waist floral shirt could be a sex symbol to a nation? Remember, is what I’m getting at, Changing […]