Over the Christmas break, I reorganised this blog a bit – added clickable maps to the travel stuff and made the adventures into a page rather than an endless warren of nested menus – and in the process, I discovered where I had blank spaces. Enough blank spaces to occupy a full quarter of the … More Switzerland 2014: A day in the Lauterbrunnen Valley
Let’s keep going with the winter and ice content! It’s a new year and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be much international travel in 2022 either but that’s no excuse for not writing about it. So today we’re having some really cold content: what to wear in Svalbard in winter – and literally … More What to wear in Svalbard in winter
Iceland has been on TV a lot lately. I don’t know if the TV has decided to show us all the places we can’t go or if a new volcano has just captured everyone’s imaginations again, like Eyjafjallajökull did ten years ago, but I had to create a separate Google Calendar just to make sure … More Iceland on TV over Christmas
Welcome to 2022! Traditionally, the first or second post of any year is my Christmas Adventure With Tom, depending on whether I have time to finish it in time for the first post of the New Year, and this year here it is up first – with some changes. Of course there are changes. We’re still … More Two Bears and a Barnacle
It’s December 9th and my mum is downstairs writing the end of year round robin email to one of my dad’s childhood friends – he’s excruciatingly bad at writing emails. Got to do the one to Auntie Thelma later – I’m not sure what relation she actually is; maybe my grandad’s cousin? Anyway, she’s in … More A round robin from a polar bear
Hi, welcome back to normal blogging! I hope you enjoyed the Polar Bear Winter Festival but now Christmas is over and we’re back to the regular non-winter-related twice-a-week posts. I don’t talk about TV much and when I do, it’s either about Iceland or somewhere suitably Nordic. But today I’m talking about Marvel’s Hawkeye miniseries. … More Archer reacts to Marvel’s Hawkeye
Merry Christmas! Happy Christmas! Happy Holidays! Season’s Greetings! And all other variations on that theme! Today is Christmas Day and I can’t quite believe I’ve got a blog post scheduled for it. I thought I’d finish this Polar Bear Winter Festival by showing you what Christmas is like at my house so you can imagine … More Christmas à la Frost!
While I was at my cottage last week, in a rural bit of Somerset, I wanted to go for a walk. I had my daily 2km to walk – yes, even when I’m on holiday – and I’d invested in the cutest map. I knew Ordnance Survey offer custom maps (see my Single Map series … More A custom map, a muddy field and an unexpected hillfort
In my last post, my cottage tour, you may have caught a glimpse of my oven. Yes, it’s an Aga. I live in the countryside. That is, I live in the worst combination of the countryside, in what the Bortle Scale (the measure of the night sky’s brightness) calls rural/suburban transition. So we don’t have … More Country girl battles with Aga
I’m staying in a cottage! An actual cottage in a quaint little English village! My parents planned to go to Austria but for… reasons… I decided not to go with them, and then they didn’t go anyway. But I did have vague ideas of having a “wellness break” in December and so this is it. … More Winter cottage tour
I Am A Polar Bear 