12-15 minute read. Note: We are currently in southern France, house-sitting through April this year. // Welcome to 2019! The start of a new year always seems to be the best time to think back upon the last, a society-wide moment for self-reflection. The past year was a busy one. Busy physically, busy emotionally, busy professionally. Physically, we pulled up our nomadic socks and got a move on, visiting fifteen countries in the year, eight of which were new to us. We honed ou

[Gallery 9: Photographs from our time in Scotland, Wales and England] We returned home to the UK for the winter of 2016-2017 including a wonderful Christmas and New Year with family, before travelling to the US. Special thanks to all our friends for the dinners, Scottish birthday party (and gin distillery tour) and English Christmas dinner with morning-after outdoor winter barbecue, and many other occasions. We had a really fantastic time. :-) ---------------------------- On

In 2017, we visited the UK, the US, Denmark, Norway, Thailand, Japan, India and Hong Kong. Boy did we accomplish a lot. Such as... In 2017, we realised that our favourite restaurants in Tokyo were Chinese or Korean as shown to us by my sister and brother-in-law, and many of our favourite teas were oolongs (we also learned their correct name is wulong). For the sake of research, we taste-tested sakes at a tiny festival in northern Japan, including sparkling sake, and ate a sta

Although tea appears to be simple, it is not. One bush, Camelia sinensis, gets put in hot water and then we drink it. Not so! Which is why we are travelling with the side mission of all things tea. And the best place to start our tea-tasting travels? The United Kingdom. The colonialists. The people who smuggled a bush out of China and named it (in Latin) Camelia from China. The most famous tea drinkers in the world (not to be confused with growers, we should be clear). Let's

Every one of us is submerged in time. It pushes us downstream, washing over and around and through our lives, unstoppable and disinterested. To struggle or resist is silly, futile. Yet – yet. For me at least I can’t help but struggle against the current, fighting to find my footing. I do not want to wash away from each moment as soon as it happens, watching it recede into the past. The jokes with family members whom I rarely see, the tastes of favourite recipes that I can't r