ad post I’ve spoken before about my first trip to Barcelona and how it didn’t start well. But despite a rocky beginning, we went on to have a brilliant weekend in the Catalan capital. I loved everything about this Spanish seaside city, but what I most remember is how this sparked my love of the incredible work of Antoni Gaudi. Gaudi was a local architect famed for his quirky Catalan Modernism style of design. His stunning buildings are dotted around the city, each one completely unique, yet unmistakably his. From undulating balconies and brightly coloured mosaic facades, to spindly spires an ..read more

ad post When I was younger I was stick-thin, despite a consistent junk-food diet of chips and Big Mac burgers. ‘Make the most of it now,’ an older relative warned me, ‘when you hit 30 the pounds start to pile on.’ Sure, I thought in my arrogant thinness, like THAT’S ever gonna happen. But she was right: almost overnight my metabolism slowed to a crawl and my fat-fuelled diet caught up with a vengeance. Teamed with that, I’d moved in with my now-husband and we were not exactly making healthy eating choices (we were doing that new-couple thing where we watched entire dvd boxsets while polishin ..read more

contains gifted items There are so many things in our (finally!) finished garden that bring me joy. There’s the terraced area where we light the fire pit and toast marshmallows, the outdoor kitchen where OH reigns supreme on our fancy new BBQ. The oven where we make the tastiest, cheesy-drippiest wood-fired pizzas, and the outdoor sofa where I love to stretch out and read a book. But there’s one thing I love more than ALL the others, a place that literally makes me sigh exhale with happiness; the hanging egg chair. This was a bit of an impulse purchase, as I hadn’t initially planned to buy o ..read more

ad post One of my most precious belongings is my Nana’s diamond engagement ring, given to me – the eldest granddaughter – after she passed away. My mother entrusted it to me just after I turned 18. I wasn’t the most practical young adult at the time, so I know she did so with a touch of reluctance – not so much because of the monetary value (although it was my first piece of ‘real’ jewellery), but because of the huge sentimental value attached. This wasn’t a ring bought fro a store, it was a one-of-a-kind piece designed by my granddad, specifically for my Nana. He’d called in a favour with a ..read more

ad post One of my most precious belongings is my Nana’s diamond engagement ring, given to me – the eldest granddaughter – after she passed away. My mother entrusted it to me just after I turned 18. I wasn’t the most practical young adult at the time, so I know she did so with a touch of reluctance – not so much because of the monetary value (although it was my first piece of ‘real’ jewellery), but because of the huge sentimental value attached. This wasn’t a ring bought fro a store, it was a one-of-a-kind piece designed by my granddad, specifically for my Nana. He’d called in a favour with a ..read more

ad post I’ve been to some incredible places around the world – I’ve scuba dived in Bermuda and jumped from a plane over Far North Queensland, ridden camels in the Dubai desert and explored the bone-lined catacombs of Paris, but Iceland holds an extra special place in my heart. This small Nordic country, a stepping stone between Norway and Greenland, was the last place I travelled before the world was plunged into lockdown, but what a swan song it was. From snow-dusted black sand beaches and majestic waterfalls to the dancing glow of the Northern Lights and the unfailingly cheerful Icelandic ..read more

featured post I might be a little bit late to the podcast party, but I’m making up for lost time now. I became obsessed with these audio recordings a few months ago; I was completely redecorating the 13-year-old’s bedroom and needed something to distract me from the monotony of painting. Usually I’d put something light and frothy on Netflix, but I found myself constantly stopping to watch what was happening on the screen. I realised I needed something to entertain me without taking my attention away from the job at hand. It dawned on my that a podcast was the perfect solution. More dynamic t ..read more

It was a strange choice for sightseeing, but here I was, at the entrance gate of Sachsenhausen concentration camp, just outside of Berlin, Germany. I’d always had a fascination with the history of World War II (while my friends were reading Sweet Valley High I was devouring the true-life memoirs of Holocaust survivors,) so when I booked a weekend trip to Berlin, then discovered Sachsenhausen was just a 45-minute train ride away, I knew I had to visit. This work camp was built in the suburb of Oranienburg in 1936, just after Heinrich Himmler became chief of the police. It was heralded as revol ..read more

ad feature Adulting. It’s not always fun. There are bills to pay and taxes to file and forms to fill out and appointments to keep. Then you have kids, and the workload quintuples… per child! I’ll be honest, I shove a lot of that kind of ‘stuff’ in cupboards and put off pesky emails to the last possible moment. But there are some important life admin tasks that shouldn’t be ignored – in fact, they could make your life quite a bit cheaper and easier. IMPORTANT LIFE ADMIN TASKS THAT WILL IMPROVE YOUR LIFE: • STREAMLINE YOUR BILLS It’s easy just to leave bills to roll over, but it only takes a f ..read more

ad feature I don’t regret many things, but not learning to play an instrument is one of the them. Sure, I flirted with the recorder for a short while, but it’s hardly the most melodic of music-makers (the squeaky memory of Three Blind Mice still sends shivers down my spine). I’d always quite fancied playing the piano – I’d been told I had a natural ear for music and part of me was sure I’d be a natural at tinkling the ivories. Sadly, I never had a chance to find out, as I never had piano lessons and my repertoire began and ended with Chopsticks. So when my youngest came to me a couple of yea ..read more