Birmingham. I grew up near Birmingham, it is a beautiful city! I know, it doesn’t have the glamorous reputation of some other British cities but it filled my heart in my teens. When I return, as I often do – my brother still lives in...
Shetland is an archipelago to the very north of Scotland, a group of islands with the Atlantic ocean to one side and the North Sea to the other, this is as north as the British Isles get. Here are the ways Shetland will surprise and...
24 Hours in Dublin. A full day exploring Dublin ended in a busy bar on a summer Saturday drinking yet another glass of Guinness, the final location on the thoroughly entertaining Dublin Literary Pub Crawl. It was the gloriously Art Deco, Davy Byrnes bar, a regular haunt...
A Mini Adventure in Northern Ireland: The Giant’s Causeway and Dark hedges. We are, generally speaking, out-of-season travellers, in the school summer holidays we are usually booked up house sitting meaning we miss the mass of tourists flooding the popular destinations. However…work (for Chris) has brought...
Homes with Wheels: my life in camper vans. It’s been six months now that we have been living in our truck camper. Our adventure in Shetland last month set me thinking about my previous campers: how those different vehicles have shaped my travels and my...
Midsummer in Shetland, diary for week four (part 2). For our final few days in Shetland we had headed up to Northmavine where we spent a wonderful evening with Ewen and Kit in their gorgeously Scandinavian-style home along with some of their friends. I’d taken...
Shetland in Midsummer, diary for week four (part one) (I’m splitting this final diary week into two parts rather than trying to pack it all into one post!) From out of the creel Ewen pulled out a magnificent lobster, vividly blue and glistening with sea water which...
Cranberry Bannocks The sourness of the jewel-like cranberries works so well with the buttermilk dough of traditional Scottish bannocks, I just can’t stop eating them! Bannocks are essentially girdle scones, a type of soda bread cooked on the stove top. They are most commonly served...
Midsummer in Shetland, diary for week three. Suddenly we found ourselves back on the Shetland Mainland this week. On our last evening on Fetlar our fridge flickered to alert us that our gas has run out, the gas that heated our water, cooked our food...
Cranachan This dessert is about as Scottish you can get, it is very easy to prepare and perfect for summer. Juicy raspberries are folded into heavenly whipped cream heady with whiskey while toasted oats give the dessert texture. I wanted to make a deliciously summer...
Midsummer in Shetland, diary for week two. We were walking under a lead grey sky on a board walk snaking through boggy peat moorland towards the sea cliffs of Hermaness. Bonxies swooped and chased each other over the heather, one stood ominously next to the...
Savoury Cheese Pan Scones No need for an oven for these scones, they can be made in a frying pan or on a flat griddle! They are deliciously, moreishly, savoury with a hint of cayenne pepper: a cheesy snack that is perfect simply served with...
Midsummer in Shetland: Diary for week one. I’ve now been in Shetland for a week, and already I’ve been – as previously mentioned – chased from a field by bonxie birds, ran the gauntlet walking through the world’s third largest colony of them six days...
Banana Scotch Pancakes. These banana scotch pancakes are fun to make and are ideal for a delicious, nourishing camping/campervanning breakfast. I make this recipe a lot, I’m rather obsessed with pancake breakfasts and I’ve gone from having them once a week to a few times...
Postcards from Southern Shetland, We rolled off the overnight ferry from Aberdeen to be greeted by an overcast morning in Lerwick. From the deck of the ship I’d stood for a moment, shivering, taking in the view as the ferry slowly made its way up...
Rhubarb Rock Cakes These rhubarb rock cakes are super simple to make yet they are rustically pretty with peeping pink and a scatter of glitter. I raided the veg patch at our house sit and found some new pink stalks of rhubarb that had grown...
