Nature’s autumn gown in Provence
As we drove through the countryside yesterday surrounded by the beauty of the season and the drama of the landscape, I pondered how colour defines the time of year.
Oppède-le-Vieux
Oppède-le-Vieux, its narrow, broken, cobbled streets leading up to its 12th century, ruined ramparts. High on a rocky precipice over looking the lush Luberon valley far below, abundant with vineyards, olive groves and fruit orchards. This is a striking and …
Late autumnal twilight in Lourmarin
What is it about the clocks changing that seem to totally change the atmosphere around twilight? Almost as if a touch of Christmas magic and anticipation has been sprinkled like fairy dust. Strolling around Lourmarin last night at dusk, the …
The Lourmarin Marché
When you have been to one market you have been to them all. Well in one sense that is true. They all sell similar things in an outside setting, scattered round a town square or along a few streets. Maybe …
Lourmarin, my special place to live
When do you know that you are somewhere special? What is it that evokes such feelings? Maybe an exotic location, maybe when you are doing something totally exhilarating like meeting the challenge of a death defying ski slope, one you …
Blenheim Palace
Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, this beautiful site was bestowed to John Churchill, by a grateful Queen Anne and thankful nation following the victory at the Battle of Blenheim, in 1704, against the French and Bavarians. How fitting therefore, that this …
Bletchley Park, England
Bletchley Park, 50 miles north-west of London, predictably, proved a fascinating place. Called ‘Station X’, by the British government, it was where during World War II the British cracked the German Enigma Code, the backbone of the German military and intelligence communications. …
Santa Barbara – Europe in California
“We decided not to go to Europe this year but come to Santa Barbara instead” Oucch! Just the type of comment that the cynical Brit loves to ‘munch on’ when grumbling about their sheltered maybe somewhat less travelled American cousins……………. But having …
Agua Caliente – Palm Springs/Palm Desert, a place to escape?!
This tiny house in Belmont Shore is where our life in California began nearly 30 years ago! When we arrived in Los Angeles in July 1985 it was my first visit to North America, my husband had seen a great deal …
The 405 San Diego Freeway – where our Californian love affair began
Why would anyone be reduced to tears in the hazy, virtually standstill, 6 lanes of gas guzzling 405, San Diego Freeway? A Los Angeles freeway that I always think of as ‘mine’. A road full of so many memories and …