Faro port. I have been lucky enough to visit Faro in Portugal twice in the last year, (most people, including me, have only used Faro Airport to get to a beach destination on the Algarve). A relative moved there last year so it was a great excuse to visit him (he won’t be photographed!) and his family and a great excuse for me to have an amazing City Break in October and December with fabulous beaches thrown in! Let me take you for a wander and you’ll see that it’s worth a stopover, day visit, or a city break. A typical back street in Faro. You will walk for miles. There is a gorgeous street ..read more

I can’t believe I’m actually doing another recipe but you asked, on YouTube, so here it is for you! It’s often a boring tasteless vegetable, especially when it’s boiled to death, but it can be delicious and really is wonderfully nutritious. Especially when served with the gorgeous green tahini sauce that the wonderful chef at Field Food Farm made for us at a press lunch I attended in March. Cauliflower is high in vitamin C, and tahini, made from sesame seeds, is a healthy fat plus they contain lots of B vitamins. Sesame seeds are well known for helping with blood sugar control and maybe even l ..read more

I can’t take the praise for this one as it is my take on the Michael Mosley sauerkraut recipe featured in his Fast 800 program. More on him here. The great thing about this recipe is that it’s cheap, dead easy, and gives your gut an extra dose of prebiotics and probiotics every time you add a little to your meal. Mosley eats his with his scrambled egg breakfast which I’ve also tried and loved. Also, as I receive an unknown box of organic veg each week, it’s a great recipe for the red cabbage I often receive and don’t know what to do with! I now have a larder full of homemade sauerkraut! Christ ..read more

I hope you’re well and, despite the state of the world and our individual corner of it, are staying positive, optimistic, and looking forward to a brand new shiny New Year. I thought I’d finish my 2022 by a) writing a blog for the first time in months (!) and b) sharing where I’ve been in the last year to give you some ideas for staycations or where to visit if you’re coming to Europe. Because of finances, old doggie Jack and various other issues, it hasn’t been the year of exotic and long-haul travel that I used to enjoy pre-Covid but I still feel blessed, especially when I see photos like th ..read more

The latest research for optimum health and longevity is that we should be eating 30 different vegetables a week, and potatoes don’t count! I’ve been upping my fruit and veg for some time now and am glad to report that it’s easier than I thought…………. Immunologist and author Dr. Jenna Macciochi is the latest in a long line of experts who have convinced me to eat more veg. She specializes in understanding how nutrition & lifestyle interact with the immune system in health & disease. She has a list of Ten Commandments, plus many books, for better health & longevity, which are dead sim ..read more

#AD This is a sponsored post but all views are my own and, as you know, I only work with brands that I genuinely like, approve of ethically, that I would buy anyway and that work. (And I have actually bought this one myself!)  You also know that I don’t believe in diets or dieting and have practically banned the word from my vocabulary. Nor do I worry about what the scales say. It’s how my clothes fit and how big my middle-aged spread looks rather than the pounds I may have gained during our various lockdowns that matter to me. We all know that extra fat around the middle is a bit of a wa ..read more

Like most of us, I hate going to the dentist (so does Jack!) and dislike it even more during Covid…..can’t use the loo, can’t go inside to wait, can’t take your coat off in reception, etc., etc. and then…..your mask comes off and the torture begins! However, what I’ve known for a very long time is how important it is to keep my teeth in tip-top condition for the health of my arteries. (Twenty years ago I was told by a hygienist that bleeding gums can cause heart disease. I was so shocked that I put it in my last book and started to floss!) This year, my hygienist had even more bad news for me ..read more

I don’t know anyone at the moment who is sleeping well. Stupid, stupid Covid has got to us all and even if we manage to get through each day a step at a time, staying in the present as much as possible, our sleep at night just doesn’t seem as good as it once was, does it? Scientific papers have found that we are sleeping more and dreaming more, because of our change in routine, but they have also found that there’s an increase in Covidsomnia. We’re anxious and that’s affecting our REM sleep, the dreaming part which acts like therapy for our poor anxious brains. So, I’ve done loads of research ..read more

As I write this we are ending a month of Lockdown 2.0 in England and heading for a Christmas like no other! It’s a bit grim this year with most of us not being able to go out and meet a group of friends in restaurants, pubs, and cafes, but it has to be done and I know that the majority of you are probably as bored with all of this as I am - whilst reminding ourselves constantly that we are lucky to be safe, sheltered and healthy! I’ve tried to make the very best of a very odd year so I thought it would be nice to share with you my best days out and staycations in England. I forgot how truly be ..read more

Hello! So how’s lockdown been for you, wherever you are? Now that we are allowed to meet friends in restaurants, in the UK, I’ve found it very funny, and a little bit sad, that we have nothing to talk about other than COVID 19 and what we are watching on Netflix! But the other thing I’ve noticed is how much more time we’ve all had to appreciate nature and, thanks to my BBC Springwatch addiction, I’ve made some interesting changes to my garden this year. I feel really blessed to have more birds tweeting and bees buzzing in my garden than ever before and to see my new family of foxes coming to v ..read more