Over the last year or two, I’ve become a bit of a convert to solid haircare bars. Unless I’m taking my tent to Iceland, I usually go hand luggage only, which means I’m limited to 100ml bottles of liquid shampoo and conditioner and frankly, 100ml of conditioner barely touches my hair. On the other hand, … More What is the best solid conditioner bar?

Has anyone ever pitched Greece and Finland against each other? Well, I’m about to! Are there any two countries in the same continent so very opposed? Finland is cold and the people are so very sisukas and reserved and Greece is hot and the people – so I’ve heard because I’ve never been there – are quite … More Chocolate Wars: Greek vs Finnish chocolate

Keeping up the theme of the last few (and next few) weeks, this month’s chocolate contest is between Germany and Poland (yes, I’m renaming it for this month). Actually, I did really badly at buying chocolate while I was away. I mostly lived off Milka. The German Ritter for this post came from Lidl and … More Chocolate Contests: German vs Polish chocolate

Today’s edition of Chocolate Wars should have been a no-brainer. Britain has an international reputation for not being terribly good at food and Switzerland is known for its chocolate. But on the other hand, we’re talking about Dairy Milk here and I think that’s a valiant contender. Next time I’m in Switzerland I’m going to … More Chocolate Wars: British vs Swiss chocolate

We’re back for another chocolate battle and this time it’s between Greek Lacta and Norwegian Freia. Back in April, we had Lacta vs Lindt and – not to be biased before we even start – but Lacta got absolutely annihilated. Meanwhile, Freia hasn’t been seen for more than eight years, when it went up against … More Chocolate Wars: Greek chocolate vs Norwegian chocolate

Apparently I’ve never dragged my native chocolate into this arena but it’s time at last for Cadbury’s to take on its various rivals! And the first one up is Finland. We’ve had Karl Fazer here before, along time ago. It was my very first chocolate war back in late 2014, when I put it up … More Chocolate Wars: British vs Finnish chocolate

A couple of weeks ago, my mum happened to spot a “peg loom weaving workshop” on Facebook, mentioned to me that it sounded like the sort of thing I might be interested in and I booked onto it, with very little idea of what I’d actually booked, only that it would be educational and interesting … More Weaving a fleece mat on a peg loom

I was very excited about my tour of the RNLI College but three days later I went back for the boatbuilding tour of the All-weather Lifeboat Centre and that was even more exciting. The College is also home to the factory where the RNLI builds its new fleet of Shannon-class all-weather lifeboats and services, repairs … More RNLI 200: how the RNLI build a lifeboat

This year, the RNLI is celebrating its 200th birthday and one of the things they’re doing to mark the occasion is to hold a Lifeboat Festival in Poole, the RNLI’s headquarters. There’s a lot of fun stuff going on this coming weekend but you can actually do quite a lot of it in your own … More RNLI 200: Take a Discovery Tour of the RNLI College in Poole

It’s been ages since I last did a Chocolate Wars! I wanted to do Cypriot chocolate vs Georgian chocolate but it turns out neither have a particularly noticeable national brand. I got some Greek Lacta in Larnaca but my options in Tbilisi were Milka or Russian Alpen and so today, obviously, I’m going Swiss. Yes, … More Chocolate Wars: Greek vs Swiss chocolate