We’re going a long way back today. This is from my year abroad, when I was studying French at the University of Neuchâtel. I spent every free minute exploring Switzerland and our day in Zermatt was one of my favourite adventures. It was the depths of winter. In fact, it was November 26th 2005. In … More Stay At Home Storytelling: a cold day in Zermatt
I considered going to the Altitude Festival this year – for obvious reasons, it’s a good thing I never quite made up my mind to do it. There’s nothing seasonal about this but since we can’t travel at the moment, let’s relive old travel stories. This is Altitude 2010, my first ever visit to the … More My first snowsports holiday
Last June, on my way to my camping weekend in north Devon, I bought an inflatable kayak from the the magical middle aisle at Lidl. I didn’t try it out in Devon; I have enough sense to recognise that water wild and fierce enough for surfing isn’t going to be good for inflatable kayaking and … More Stay At Home Storytelling: how to set out to sea in an inflatable kayak
A very rare topical blog today! Did you see the goings-on at Durdle Door over the weekend? If you didn’t, allow me to summarise. Durdle Door is a natural rock formation with an arch cut out of it by water action. It’s most beloved of GCSE geography textbooks. You either park at the caravan park … More What’s it like to live near a tourist hotspot?
I thought at the beginning of the year that I’d bring back Travel Library and now the world is at it is, I’m actually posting this one that I wrote in January. And yes, obviously when bringing a series back in 2020, I’m going to start with a children’s book from 1886! Susan Coolidge’s What … More Travel Library: What Katy Did Next
One of the parts of connecting with cultures that we the Anglophones tend not to engage with so much is the language. As a person with a language background, that’s something I like to talk about from time to time. And as I look around my office even as I type this sentence, I can … More Stay At Home Storytelling: How to learn languages
Good morning! Today I’m finally in the mood to tell you about my trip to Oxford in March. It was before social distancing and lockdown and isolation and whatnot but after the virus got loose in the UK. To frame it precisely, I was supposed to be going to a gig and I really didn’t … More Stay At Home Storytelling: Christ Church, Oxford
While I was writing about my camp at home over Easter, I wrote in a bit more detail about all my cooking and eating stuff – enough that I realised it should go in its own post. This is that post. This is my stove. It’s a really small basic screw-on gas stove with little … More Stay At Home Storytelling: My camp kitchen
“What, on your own?” is a phrase I heard, uttered in horrified tones, throughout my early twenties. My adventures to the likes of Helsinki, Bucharest, Vilnius and Trondheim were tame by the standards of internet travellers but by the standards of the people I encounter in day-to-day life, I might as well be venturing to … More “What, on your own?”
Every year I swear that this will be the year I do something adventurous and new at least once a month. Well, that’s not happening this year. It’s April 27th when this post is published but it’s March 29th when I’m writing it. Are we still in lockdown? Probably. However, last year I did make … More Stay At Home Storytelling: A Segway forest adventure
I Am A Polar Bear 