Lining up to be judged!
If you were expecting photos of Heidis in dirndls you will be disappointed. In our village of Champery, today marks the 75th anniversary of the annual parade of the most prized local beauties – the cows that frolic in the high Alp all summer. This event takes place just before the lovelies are put out to grass. Continue reading
Man Friday
After a week on the boat we treat ourselves to a few days of pampering at Soneva Fushi. This is a ‘barefoot luxury’ island, with secluded villas adorning its outer edges like a string of pearls, encompassing verdant rainforest, populated by fruit bats, bunnies, a few chickens and white-breasted waterhens which cluck around followed by fluffy tweeting chicks, and poo liberally on the verandahs. This is our third visit; the last time we came was within a few weeks of Louise’s death so it has bittersweet connotations. But we do remember it being a place of beauty and tranquillity. Continue reading
We are missing our diving now we are based back in Europe. So I booked a sneaky two-week holiday in the Maldives, the first week on a live-aboard, and the second in Soneva Fushi, a ‘barefoot luxury’ resort we repair to when our souls and bodies need replenishing. Continue reading
Baselworld! I should have known something was up when my flight was packed and I was as ever squeezed in the back row by BA. I simply refuse to pay extra to book seats and the punishment is banishment to the last row of the plane. Continue reading
Ross took this fine photo of the Brandenburg Gate using HDR
A romantic weekend break in Berlin. Sounds wonderful, but it gets off to a bad start. Ross and I are all set to arrive simultaneously from London and Basel and meet just in time for pre-dinner drinks in our boutique hotel, i31, in the Mitte area. Continue reading
Chocolate-box-pretty Colmar
Now in Basel for the weekend, long-arranged as Ross was in the US last week. I thought it would be fun to join him here, as our mountain apartment is being lent out. In fact the weather is lovely and we spend most of Saturday looking at new cars, difficult in German, as understanding the complicated specs of vehicles these days is challenging in any language, let alone a foreign one!
The view from our apartment of those fabulous Dents du Midi
I received a text this morning from a friend enquiring if I was still alive. ‘How are you and where are you? No blogging’. So I realised I had been remiss. I think it must have been dry January rendering me speechless! Thank God that’s over… Continue reading
Reposting this from my Healthy Living with Cancer blog….all part of the journey
This is always a difficult time of year for me. Firstly, 7 December is our daughter Louise’s birthday. She would have been 27 last week, but instead she is forever a glorious 21 – young and beautiful. We celebrated her life with some close friends at the Bench last week and later in the Steele’s where we held her wake.
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The Dome of the Rock from the Mount of Olives
The three days in Tel Aviv fly and I have to move on to Jerusalem. I choose the train, cheap and scenic. Like all Unwins I am horribly early and mooch around waiting. When it comes to board, I am not surprised that no one lifts a finger to help me, despite my limp and large unwieldy case, stuffed with Christmas cake, shortbread and gifts for cousin Helen. The scenery on the trip is pretty, in an arid sort of way, fertile fields, recently tilled, orange groves and vineyards bordered by magenta bougainvillea, giving way to a steep ascent thorugh rugged hills, larches and conifers before levelling out on the Jerusalem plateau. I have arrived! Continue reading
I feel ambivalent about coming to Israel: I would never had considered coming here had I not learned about my Jewish ancestry. As a girl I was an avid boycotter of Jaffa oranges and supporter of Palestinian rights, and closed my mind to it – no doubt out of ignorance as much as anything else. But the discovery of two elderly cousins living in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem respectively has forced the U-turn in order to research my book, and also to reappraise my opinions with an open mind. I am told Israel is not as one might imagine. So let’s see! Continue reading
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