It's been a long old winter. One positive discovery has been finding that even when everything is shut, this is a city made for walking - albeit with some effort required, since the hills are almost San Francisco-esque in their proportions and frequency. For what else can you really do during a pretty hard lockdown, … Continue reading Lisboa is a flâneuse’s city
Humans should, as the philosopher maintains, be willing to burden themselves in order to be free. If you always choose the path of least resistance, the alternative that offers the fewest challenges will always take priority. Your choices will be predetermined and you will not only live un-freely, but also lead a dull life.Erling Kagge, … Continue reading Lisboa and lockdowns
Once upon a time in a Paris loft... It's finally time to publish it. I started keeping this list - of every book I have read cover to cover - in October 2018, as I was nearing the end of my transformational time at the Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris. Being there with the … Continue reading Every book I’ve read in the last two years
What do you think of when you think of Norway? A land of fjords slicing into its frayed coastline, one of the longest in the world; cosy fires, endless summers, and snow beneath the northern lights. Norway is a country of just five million people, but it is huge, and diverse in dialects and industries. … Continue reading Five great books about…Norway
In the middle of the North Sea, north of the German coast, is a small island (well, archipelago really). Inhabited by around 1,100 people, it sits in an area of sea called German Bight. Best of all, it has its own grey seal colony. This island is Helgoland in the German spelling, Heligoland in English. … Continue reading Heligoland: North Sea island with its own seal colony
As Storm Ciara raged across the UK and the Netherlands this weekend, I found myself battling across Amsterdam to get to the cinema as everyone else seemed to be hiding inside. For the first time since moving here, I had decided to shun my beloved bicycle for weather reasons when I realised I would struggle … Continue reading ‘Your Name’ is a cosmic masterpiece
Recently, I went on a field trip to a nuclear waste storage facility called COVRA in the south-west of the Netherlands. The area is called Zeeland, the least populous province of this densely populated country. This watery land is criss-crossed by a series of large barriers, dams, and dykes which were put in place after … Continue reading Nuclear storage and the future: “Welcome to the new age”
There is a surprisingly large number of people who go around dreaming about an island...Tove Jansson, 'The Island' (1961) Day 1 Sometimes the island was half in shadow; it appeared to her that the darkness was not entirely benign. It wasn't a mere absence of light, or a failure of sunshine to get through vegetation; … Continue reading The girl who loved islands
A couple of years ago, I was taken with a book called The Outrun by Amy Liptrot. The author, whose parents are English but who had grown up on the Orkney Islands, returned to her hometown after a tumultuous decade in London that had culminated in alcoholism. Her beautiful book charts her recovery, and her … Continue reading “Probably the worst weather we’ve had all year”: finding space under big skies in the Orkney Islands, Scotland
The other trainees and me going off to the crew parade at Scheveningen! Read part I of my tall ships story here I am back, and this time, the ship was docked in Rouen, Normandy, for the Liberty Tall Ships Festival. It normally takes place every four years, but due to riverbank restorations it’s actually … Continue reading Tall ship sailing: Liberty Regatta 2019, Rouen to Scheveningen via the English Channel
no cash on the highway 