I think it’s time for the Polar Bear Winter Festival to veer sharply from the wistful (“I miss Iceland and Svalbard and still can’t travel!”) to the everyday. I try to be outdoorsy and walking in winter is definitely a thing you can do. Enjoying the great outdoors is fine in summer. Everyone wants to … More Walking in winter
Ten years ago tomorrow, I went to Iceland for the very first time. Ten years ago on Thursday or Friday, I decided that I wanted to live here and because I’m the practical sort and I don’t rush in, I decided that I wanted to be living in Iceland within the next ten years. You … More Ten years of Iceland
I’ve been yearning just a little bit to go to Svalbard lately and I knew I wanted a post about the place in the Polar Bear Winter Festival, because what’s more wintery than a frozen archipelago in the High Arctic? But I wasn’t sure what to write about. So I had a look at what … More Svalbard: the polar bear story
Winchester Cathedral Christmas Market has become something of a habit in this household and we were all very sad not to be able to go last year, so the moment it was announced that it was (probably) definitely going ahead in 2021, it went in our calendars. It’s pretty consistently marked as one of the … More Come with me to Winchester Christmas Market
The third post of the Polar Bear Winter Festival is another winter-themed one – well, an ice-and-snow-themed one, anyway. It’s a Travel Library post and it’s all about A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter, the Austrian wife of a scientist of some kind turned fur trapper who spent a year living with … More Travel Library: A Woman in the Polar Night
Well, I didn’t foresee my second post in the Polar Bear Winter Festival being a TV review but I also didn’t realise that the first episode of the new series of Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby on BBC2 was going to be about the ION Adventure Hotel in Iceland. What’s more wintery than a … More Amazing Hotels: ION Adventure Hotel
Welcome to the Polar Bear Winter Festival! I’ve written two posts a week for years and now, to celebrate winter because I am, after all, a polar bear, I’m doing an extra post every week until Christmas on the joys of the cold, the snow, the ice, some freezing northerly places I’ve been – and yes, … More 20 things to do in Dorset this Christmas
“How to become a professional adventurer”, or how to make adventuring your job and career, is something that’s being discussed on my Twitter at the moment. Well, “at the moment” as of time of writing. Sometimes I’m still writing posts the day they’re published. Sometimes I’m doing them three four five nearly six months in advance. … More How to become a professional adventurer
Over the years, many people have bemoaned the lack of adult Brownie badges. One in four women in the UK have been involved in Girlguiding at some point in their lives and anyone who’s ever earned a badge as a Brownie or a Guide feels, however deep down in their soul it is, that it’s … More I did my Rebel Water Sports badge!
When I first wrote this, I started with “Well, is there a better time to talk about your anti-bucket list, the places you don’t want to go to, the things you don’t want to do, than during a plague when you can’t go anywhere anyway?” but I’ve pushed it back and back for so long … More My anti-bucket list
I Am A Polar Bear 