Messing about with a Boat…

… Or How to Cope with Anxiety on Holiday Drifting along a canal in a barge seems like a perfect COVID holiday: we’ll get out of the city, won’t be interacting with too many strangers, and will have a chance to do something we’ve wanted to do since we first walked along the canal. We…

Making Memories

One June night in the 1990s on one of my trips across the Atlantic, I had a layover in Iceland. About two in the morning, the airport was silent. I stood and gazed out the huge windows onto the red and glinting roofs of Reykjavik, the landscape’s harshness softened by the long slow gaze of…

Canada 150: 15 random thoughts on camping

This post is based on BC provincial campgrounds. Apologies to all the other provinces and territories – we’ll get to you later. Why camping? We are doing for recreation what people did to survive barely a century ago: hauling our own water, working by lantern light at night, cooking over a simple stove or fire. It…

Canada 150: 15 Great Canadian Destinations

  Second largest nation by land area, Canada ranked just 17th for annual number of international tourists (2014), before Macao and after Poland. Not known for sun holidays (though the summers can be amazing) or for huge casinos and massive cities, there is a vast amount to see in Canada – with the emphasis on vast. I…

150 things, the start

It’s all about 150 in Canada this year as we mark the anniversary of confederation in 1867, so I thought I’d try to compile my own list of 150 things about this country I still call home. It’s a bit much to ask people to read a 150-item long list, so I’m breaking it down…

Carlow, Short and Sweet

Much as I love Dublin and city life (and I do! I’ve written about our lovely community here and here), I am always so happy to get away into the country. Carlow, to be honest, is not the first county I think of visiting whenever I want to get out of Dublin, yet there is…