Author: jl.boreham

I’m back. And when I’ve had chance to sort all my photographs from a lovely summer I will share some of my favourite places.

I also have a new happy place in Yorkshire which I discovered last weekend while having a lovely day of calm and relaxation. I’ll tell you about it soon because it really is special.

But today just a quick update …………………………… something I’ve been meaning to do for a while to keep me out of mischief…………so I’ve done it and I’m excited and determined!

I’ve had a lovely day trip to the vibrant city of Manchester to sit a level test at Instituto Cervantes and enrol on my Spanish course. It’s about time I did this properly and became a whizz!

I sat an online test last week but knew the outcome was incorrect. It graded me higher than I know I actually am and there is nothing worse than being in a class which is too hard for you. It was an online multiple choice test and being fluent in another latin based language I was able to deduce the answers without being that great at Spanish so I was reluctant to enrol at the level it gave me.

I contacted Instituto Cervantes in Manchester who said they were having an open day today with free level tests so I decided to go along as this was a written and spoken level test, not reading and multiple choice. It also gave me the opportunity to have a day in Manchester which is such a lovely city where old meets new and everything is so colorful.

The building itself is lovely, an old Victorian conversion and it has a lovely Spanish library and all sorts of resources so I can see me visiting often. They not only offer language classes but dance, film clubs, reading clubs, special event evenings on food and culture etc.

Surprisingly I am not in A1.1 but in A1.2 ……………. which means I am very much a beginner but not 100% useless when it come to Spanish……………..just 99% useless……………………..which I already knew! 😆

This is more where I thought I was and I’m happy to start there as I’d rather solidify what I know already before moving onto A2.

So an early get up and I arrived at Instituto Cervantes. Everyone was so lovely and I sat my test. It was quite hard for me but I was able to write a full side of A4, all in present tense admittedly, but most of it correctly, respond to the questions I was asked about my job, my family, my town, where I had visited and then ask the examiner a number of questions about themselves.

So I have my text book and I’m excited to start and be a really good student! I’m looking forward to putting it into practice on my visits and am going to celebrate when my Spanish is so good I get answered back in Spanish instead of English! 😂

Manchester was its usual colourful self even though it was pouring with rain later in the day.

I got to visit Duke Street Coffee which has the most gorgeous coffee……….I recommend it if ever in Manchester. I always pay it a visit, and I needed it after my Spanish test. It’s tucked away in the Castlefield area and roasts its own coffee which is superb tasting.

And being such a rainy day followed by sunshine I was treated the the most gorgeous double rainbow on my arrival back home into the village.

So all in all a productive little day for Instituto Cervantes’ newest recruit!

What is it they say……………………………”When life gives you lemons………………..make lemonade!”

So that’s what I’ve been doing…………….not making lemonade 🤣…………………but making the best of challenging times. Because what a rollercoaster these last few weeks have been in so many ways…………………………….just wake me up when summer is here in a few days!

And as per usual I’ve been trying to keep all the plates spinning…………………… and I’ve not quite made it to the finish line! I’ve got myself so run down I picked something up a week or two ago and I’ve been on antibiotics. I’m fine now……….recovered, but my tablets have left me feeling a bit rubbish, like antibiotics sometimes do. But that is quite possibly because I decided, in very hot weather, that I would still go on the 11 mile, off-road, running club social run ………………… because I hadn’t got a broken leg, therefore I could still do it! So it’s a little bit my own fault I feel tired!

Now there is a theory from my boys at home, and others, that their mother attends these club runs not for the run, but for the social, chattering, beer and burger. I can’t possibly think where they get that idea from.😆

Yes, I might be 54, and clinging onto the back of the group like a piece of elastic………………….but there’s probably not a distance, speed or terrain I would not attempt to run in order to get my hands on a ‘smashed patty’ beef burger and pint of Coopers ale. 🤣

Because the problem with me is I am so full of wisdom, advice, love and loyalty for my friends but I don’t then listen to my own advice or body! So for the next few days I am going to listen to myself, my body, my own words of wisdom so that I’m in tip top shape for summer. I’m going to try and rest, but it’s quite hard…….because not all girls are made of sugar, spice and everything nice……………..some are made of adventure, cake, hugs, love, courage, intelligence and chocolate. 🤣

So this afternoon I’m just going for a little stroll in the fields around home, making a cherry and almond cake (and eating it 😂), and reading my book. Normally when I’m under the weather I disappear to a mountain, but I’m too tired even for that. But I did have a lovely disappear to a mountain a few weeks ago to escape it all and had lots of time to think, so I thought I’d share my thoughts on mountains with you today, what they’ve taught me, my favourite mountains etc. etc.

It’s where I’d be today if I had the energy……………….because for me mountains are like medicine. They are also like humans in a way……………. but without all the crap, attitude and complexities that come with human relationships. Animals come a close second to mountains……………with an animal you get out what you put in and more. In my rank of my likes and dislikes I think mountains would be number one. Also in the top 10 would be birds, flowers, water, books, hugs, animals, cake (perhaps this would claim second spot above animals?), chocolate………………………………..and way down towards the bottom of the list would be humans (with a few exceptions😁)!

So what is it about mountains that attracts me, and what can we learn from them? Mountains are so much more than their height or altitude. Each one has a unique personality, a unique character, unique challenges and a unique beauty. So in that way they are almost human, as we all have the same unique characteristics.

And the biggest is not always the best! What do I mean by that? Well, if you ask anyone who is in love with mountains to name their favourite mountain I can guarantee you that they will be able to………………….and I would put my money on the fact that in 9 out of 10 cases it will not be the biggest. It will be the one with the personality, character, beauty and challenges that resonates with their own being and their soul.

I thought I’d test this little theory out with my eldest. With the adventurous spirit that he’s inherited he’s climbed some big mountains. His highest have been Chachani near Arequipa in Peru, at 6,075 metres high, and Illimani in the Bolivian Andes, at 6,438 metres. However, even though he has a little tattoo of the outline of each on the back of his calf, because they are the highest he’s climbed, they are not his favourite. Apparently the technicality of getting up there and the appearance of the mountain are his determining factors for the title of ‘favourite mountain’.

Take myself for instance. ‘Snowden’ ……….highest in Wales, third highest in the British Isles, and the one I bust a gut to run up and get my medal a few months ago. Is it my favourite?…………………….Absolutely not! Is it beautiful?…………………..Yes, outstandingly. It is also exceedingly busy………………..you’ll not have a lot of solitude because it’s a favourite with the Tik Tokers for the sunrises and sunsets. There’s a reasonably straightforward route to the top so it’s accessible (too accessible), and there’s even a little train to the top and a café on the summit……………….which in my eyes means it’s not a ‘proper’ mountain…………………..even though it is a challenge to run up!🥵

Then there is ‘Scafell Pike’, the highest in England and second highest in the British Isles. That one I went up only a few weeks ago, for the first time in my life, but it’s still not my favourite. I liked it because up there I found that much needed solitude. If you take the long way up (which most people don’t, but I did) you have miles of solitude. But some people don’t like solitude……………….they are positively scared of it. Because with solitude, comes lots of time to think…………….and with lots of time to think comes self-discovery…………………..and then comes the truth and the answers. But sometimes the truth and the real answers are scary to people, they are not what they want to hear because they would rather bury their head in the sand than take a dive into the unknown, and that’s just fine if that’s what they want.

Einstein said of solitude “I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity”. I’ll second that……………I hated being alone, the only child, when I was younger…………….but now in my years of maturity I see it as a gift.

So, back to Scafell Pike……………………………it gets a tick for solitude. It also gets a tick for adventure and challenge, depending which way you go up it’s a hard ascent, probably the reason you don’t see many other people on this route up. And to cross from Scafell Pike to Scafell there is the infamous ‘Lords Rake’ and adjoining ‘West Wall Traverse’. This is a dangerous ascent as it is a gully of loose rock and it is very steep. Whilst not too difficult you need a really good head for heights. You also have to ensure the ‘rake’ is clear above. Whilst you climb it, rocks fall down the rake behind you, so you really need to move quickly and do it one person at a time as the last thing you want is an avalanche of rock coming down on you from the person in front, you would potentially be in lots of trouble if this happened.

I don’t have a good head for heights, but in the words of Edmund Hillary (first climber confirmed to have reached the summit of Everest), “Its not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” And on my ascent of ‘Lords Rake’ this was certainly true. The battle was with myself and my fear which I managed to overcome.

So life is just like a mountain in this way too. Life will be full of mountains, obstacles and personal challenges and the real battle will never be the mountain or the obstacle, it will lie within ourselves and our ability to self overcome our fears and take a calculated risk. And that risk assessment has to be a dynamic risk assessment, risks continually reviewed, and responses amended. Because just as important as it is to take the risk, it’s also acceptable stop, and it’s good to remember that too. Because in the words of Ed Viesturs, probably one of the greatest mountaineers of my time, “Getting to the top is optional, getting down is mandatory”. And that’s an important lesson to learn too.

And just like in life, there will be many paths to the top……………………..do you take the easy route or do you take the road less travelled which will contain the potential for self-discovery, adventure and growth, albeit a little more risky and difficult………………..the choice is yours. But my point is that there are so many similarities between mountains and life. Therefore there are many lessons learnt on the mountains which can be applied to everyday life.

But it is important to take the risk in life when feasible, before fear makes you settle, because fear is the barrier to true happiness and progress. But fear is good, provided you have courage too. Fear can keep us safe, highlight the risks. I’m not saying I don’t have fear. I’m full of fear. Most people will tell you I am very aware of the risks and risk averse……………………………..but I also have lots of courage. The courage to challenge those fears and overcome them when it’s safe to do so. The balance between fear and courage is a good one to get right. I’m still working on it, I still think I could do with a bit more courage and a little less fear.

But was Scafell Pike my favourite? ………………….. NO! It has challenge, it has solitude…………………..but it’s just not that pretty and the views aren’t that great from the top. It’s just a bit bland. And the summit is so crowded with everyone up there who have taken the easy way up. It’s another mountain popular with the Tik Tok crowd.

I’ve not been up the highest in the British Isles yet, Ben Nevis in Scotland (it’s on my list), so which mountains are my favourite and why!?

Well, my absolute favourite I can’t include, because at 597 metres high, it’s 3 metres short of being an official UK mountain…………………….and that is Haystacks in the Lake District. Just simply because of the solitude, views and gorgeousness of it. It was the favourite fell of Alfred Wainwright, famous British fell walker, guidebook writer and illustrator of the Lakeland mountains and fells. He described Haystacks as “supreme for beauty, variety, and interesting detail”. He liked it so much it is his final resting place, his ashes being scattered at Innominate Tarn on Haystacks. I’d agree with him………………..it’s definitely my favourite Lake District fell, even though it’s not officially a ‘mountain’.

In England, it has to be Helvellyn in the Lake District which is my favourite official mountain. At 950m it’s not that much smaller than Scafell Pike at 978m. But for me this one has everything. It has swimming spots and pretty tarns on the way up. It has a multitude of different ways up but all of them are quite tough, and if you want adventure there is the exhilaration of the ‘Striding Edge’ way up to the top. It’s quieter than the others so you will get solitude if that’s what you are after. And last but not least, there are amazing views both from the top and all the way up. It basically ticks all my boxes!

But I’m not done with mountains yet, I still have a lot more walking to do hopefully, and a list of mountains I’d like to wander up, because with every mountain usually comes a new life lesson, a bit more resilience, another part of the jigsaw of life solved…………….there’s a lot more to learn out there from mountains! There is still time yet for something to top Helvellyn as my favourite.

In other news……………it’s been a busy few weeks on the allotment garden front too. Today I have some little sweet yellow courgettes, artichokes and potatoes to rustle up into something.

But the bumper crop of the past few weeks have been juicy berries. Raspberries, blackcurrants, white currants, redcurrants and strawberries.

So I’ve spent a couple of hours this morning jam making!! I have 9 jars in total so far, 3 raspberry and 6 blackcurrant.

There is nothing finer than some homemade blackcurrant jam on freshly baked and buttered toast! 😍

Anyway…………………I’m back now from my afternoon wander from home………………..as I write these little posts in more than one sitting.

The view from Beacon Hill in the village was lovely today.

As were the corn fields and the sky and the clouds.

But it was very hot and sweaty today so I was easily distracted less than a mile from home when I passed the equestrian centre and saw ‘The Stables’ café was open! Nice little flat white, piece of almond Bakewell and a bottle of water to take on my peaceful afternoon stroll in peace and quiet. I did ask my 22 year old mini-me if he wanted to come with me but apparently he was ‘busy’………………………………doing what looked to be nothing! 😂

The only dilemma now is I’ve baked my cherry and almond cake and I feel like I can’t have any until tomorrow as I’ve already had almond Bakewell! Or can I?😆

So that’s all for today……………….my lessons learnt and thought’s about mountains, they really are amazing things. Which one is your favourite and why?

Tonight I have a lovely little night planned. The local village are raising money for the flower festival and are holding a summer concert this evening. I’ve been drafted in to sing……….I didn’t have to think twice about saying ‘Yes’! I love a good sing and it’s a lovely set list, all about the beauty of the earth and nature, with a few fun pieces, like a four part arrangement of the ‘Teddy Bears Picnic’ for the little ones. 😍

There have also been small developments on the olive front. I’ve been looking after them so well and look what’s happened! 😁 There might be olive oil after all!😂

That really is all I have time for now until September. I simply cannot wait for my escape…………..solitude…………….3 days until I step on that plane, wave goodbye to everyone for over a month and collect my little hire car at the airport for my summer adventure and reset. And yes, there might be a few mountains on the agenda! In fact, I have one planned for next weekend in Basque country as I explore myths and legends……………. if the weather is not too cloudy. It looks like it has all the attributes to make it into my Top 10…………I’ll be climbing it solo though so I just have to have the nerve to finish off the last section which looks a little bit like I might not like it……………….but let’s see. I’m sure it will be a nice day out anyway. So that’s the last update until September………………..happy Summer everyone!

Oh Skiathos………………….you were just perfect!

There is not a thing about this holiday that I did not absolutely love, and I do hope I can come back soon!

So first things first……………………where is Skiathos and what is it like?

Skiathos is a tiny little Greek island. It is part of a small group of islands called the Sporades islands. It sits just 76km to the east of Volos on the Greek mainland. It is the greenest island in the Sporades with dense pine forests, mainly of the Aleppo pine variety, covering 80% of the island. It is quite a mountainous island and is hilly.

If you like history, there is lots to see. There are ancient monasteries, old forts and the ruins of the former capital Kastro.

If you like literature, it was the home of celebrated Greek author Alexandros Papadiamantis, so famous here that they named the airport after him!

If you like films, and a bit of Abba, then you will probably be aware that Skiathos and the neighbouring island Skopelos were where Mamma Mia the movie was filmed.

If you like clear azure waters and golden sand beaches then you will be spoilt for choice. The beaches here are simply stunning. Gently shelving, crystal clear waters, lapping on fine sand with a golden pink hue, all backed by fragrant pine trees…………………..and there are over 60 to choose from. The beaches are very clean, and environmental sustainability here has a big focus.

If you like walking there are so many paths through the shady pine forests, along the beaches, around the dramatic coastline and in the mountainous interior.

If you like bird watching, flora and fauna then May is the perfect time to come. There are swathes of pretty flowers and multitudes of birds to spot. There are marsh harriers, buzzards, Egyptian vultures and so many more. You might spot a tortoise or a pine marten in the forest, and you’ll almost certainly see lots of lizards. On the ground you’ll see wild cyclamen, orchids, crocuses, rambling roses and anemones. Wherever you walk it just smells beautiful at this time of year – a mix of pine, honeysuckle, jasmine, oregano, sage and thyme.

If you like a little bit of traditional culture then you’ll find it on Skiathos……….with less that 7,000 permanent residents, most of them local…………it is very ‘Greek’. The local ‘kafeneia’ (traditional Greek café) will be full of little old men first thing in a morning, usually all lined up on a bench outside, having their morning shot of Greek coffee, so thick you can stand a spoon up in it. The main religion here is Greek Orthodox and church attendance is high. Tourism accounts for 70% of the island’s income , the remainder from agriculture………………. namely fishing, pine honey and olive oil.

If you like food then you will be in heaven. I love Greek food and here they eat a lot of red meat. You get all the wonderful traditional dishes like Stifado (a tomato based beef stew with shallots), Souvlaki (grilled, skewered meat, normally pork or chicken) and Kleftiko (lamb oven baked in parchment paper). If you are vegetarian worry not……………..there are so many fresh vegetables and local cheeses you won’t go hungry. Fish and seafood eaters will also love it here……….straight from the morning boat, onto your plate.

Just imagine all of the above on a tiny island only 12km long by 6km wide. It is a perfect little pocket of paradise where ancient meets contemporary, and traditional practices and culture blend seamlessly with sustainability and modern innovation.

I’ve been to quite a few Greek islands…………………Kos, Kefalonia, Crete, Parga on the mainland………………I’ve liked them all but this is hands down my favourite Greek island so far, the one which I felt most relaxed in, and would love to come back to.

I’ll share as much as I can about the holiday, but like I said…………………this was a very rare package holiday for me. The intention was to rest, stay on the beach and read. And guess what……………………………I managed to do that, and it was bliss! I left the village we were staying in only three times for a little adventure. After my running exertion in Snowdonia the week before, I so needed this rest.

Skiathos is easy to get to on a package holiday from the UK as both Jet2 and Tui fly direct to the island. If you want to go your own way, and are budget travelling or island hopping, you will find it a lot cheaper to fly to Athens and make your way to one of the 3 mainland ports that provide ferries to Skiathos (sailing time around 2 hours). If you are island hopping it is also well connected to the islands of Skopelos and Alonissos. I took a Jet2 direct flight from Newcastle Airport in the UK, which was part of my holiday package.

With regards to accommodation there are so many options. There are villas, apartments, bed and breakfasts, rooms, hotels, resorts …………….. ranging from basic to luxurious. If you are a party animal you’ll want to be as near to Skiathos Town as possible, or the nearby beach resort of Megali Ammos. All the beach resorts then run along the South coast of the island, and all offer something slightly different. Troulos and the area around the middle of the island is probably the area which is best for families. They have strict building regulations on the island too, so you’ll not see any high rise sprawling hotel complexes. They will either blend in with the landscape or be white, and most certainly limited in height to just a couple of floors.

Right at the far end of the island is the village of Koukounaries. However, it’s still only 20 minutes on the bus from Skiathos town. And that’s another nice thing about the island. You don’t need a car. There is one main road along the south of the island with bus stops 1 to 26. It’s 3 Euros to go right from one end to the other in 20 minutes, and the buses are every 15 minutes. The island is only 6km wide, so if you fancy a little wander to the North, just get off at whichever bus stop number you fancy and walk no more than 5km North on a well signed forest track and you’ll probably end up on a beautiful secluded beach with only you on it (more on that in a minute).

I’d chosen to stay in Koukounaries, right on the far end of the island, at the 5 star Elivi Resort as this is my once a year ‘treat’ holiday and part of my work hard, play hard mantra…………………….I work my butt off all year giving 110% so I can do this. The remainder of the year, I love to explore and see the world but on a more budget basis: cheap flight, B&B or apartment, living like a local, shopping at the markets, cooking, exploring, adventuring. That’s probably the way I prefer to travel, but every once in a while it’s lovely to have a rest and be looked after with a little bit of luxury thrown in.

R.Spivey’s ‘Skiathos Travel Guide 2025’, which incidentally is a fantastic little book, describes Elivi resort, Koukounaries as representing the “pinnacle of island luxury – expensive but the experience proves transformative. The resort seamlessly integrates with its protected natural surroundings. Their private beach sections, infinity pools, and sophisticated dining options attract discerning travellers seeking seclusion”. I’d say he’s got the summary spot on there and I could not describe it any better. I wanted seclusion, and beautiful beaches in natural surroundings, and I got it by the bucket load! And it must have been transformative. On my return I went straight to see my mother who declared, “Goodness, I haven’t seen you look this good for a long time!” 🤣 She makes be laugh so much………….she has no filter………….I did not know whether to be pleased because I looked good or mortified because apparently I looked terrible before. 🤣

The attentive service and luxurious rooms were an added bonus. But it is luxury and attentiveness in a discreet relaxed way, rather than a pretentious way. But that being said, Greece tends to attract a more unpretentious and relaxed European clientele anyway. My mother for instance would never go to Greece………………it’s just not posh enough for her! 😂 She can’t understand why anyone would go somewhere where you can’t put your toilet paper in the toilet and there are stray cats!🤣🤣However, I can confirm that that is rather a dated misconception. Yes, there may still be some places where you have to place your used paper in a bin due to dated sewerage systems but in all newer resorts, and certainly at Elivi, I can confirm that the toilets worked just fine if that would be an issue for you.

It’s quite a short flight of just under 4 hours from the UK. It’s quite an interesting landing! It is well known amongst pilots for it’s unique and challenging approach. It requires special qualification and certification to land a plane here. Apparently pilots use reverse thrust and ‘automatic braking’ to slow down because the runway is so very short with deep blue sea at each end. The approach has to be extremely low and has to miss a holiday complex, a beach (you look like you are going to land on a someone’s towel), and all the plane spotters……………………….. who apparently like to stand behind the fence at the start of the runway to be knocked backwards by the reverse thrust (You Tube search ‘Skiathos Airport Jet Blast’ – why would you do that ? 🤣😂). The wheels have to hit the tarmac immediately, with a firm bang and no floating or cruising in, otherwise there’s not enough runway left to stop. I’m not great at flying……………it’s not my favourite pass time……… and I am very observant on take-off and landing, so I did appreciate the pilot, 10 minutes before landing explaining what would happen and what it would feel and look like, otherwise I think I might have been saying a prayer and trying to make one final call home. However, I did appreciate him holding back the information that he’d “cocked it up completely” on a previous flight until after we’d landed!😆

A little bit about the Elivi Resort then. It’s beautiful. It’s split into three areas and you choose the area which best suits you. There is ‘Xenia’. This is where the main hotel is situated and where the breakfast and Greek and Italian restaurants are based. It has direct access onto Koukounaries beach, a 1km stretch of golden sand with a bit of an upbeat vibe. The young clientele, and those with young children, seem to like this area better. There are bars on this beach, water sports, music, and ferries to other parts of the island.

Then there is the ‘Grace’ area. This area has spacious, elegant, individual suites with access to an infinity pool and the private Ambelakia Beach. All the suites have south facing sea view floor to ceiling windows, large patios or balconies and some have their own small pools. The suites are surrounded by nature, and gorgeous planting schemes. The emphasis in this area is tranquillity and relaxation in nature. There is a beach bar but there is no loud music, or water sports, just peace, quiet and the sound of the sea gently lapping on the shore. I stayed in this area in a Deluxe Sea View Suite without a pool, which I sacrificed for a large balcony (I’m more of a beach girl as I like to hear the sea). I had access to the gorgeous Grace infinity pool but I did not actually go in it, the beach was perfect.

Then there is the ‘Nest’ area. This area is west facing and the accommodation has direct access to Big Banana and Little Banana Beaches. These are beautiful beaches but with a bit more of a family vibe on Big Banana. There is a bar and music on this one and there are a few too many beds and not as much space for my liking. Some of the Nest suites have two bedrooms, so are more suited to families. This is also the perfect place to come to watch the sunset with it facing West.

Little Banana beach is for the ‘naturists’, but you don’t have to be naked to go on it. See, I told you everyone was catered for.😆 I went for a look (at the beach😂) and this too is lovely. I didn’t hang around long……………..it brought back memories of the last time I was on a nudist beach…………a story for another time which involved the break down of my day hire boat off a small island in Croatia! I jumped ship, literally, with my two small children, and paddled to the beach while we could still get there, leaving Mr F. in charge of said boat to call the mainland for rescue. Concentrating entirely on getting my two children to safety it was only when the eldest (about 8 years old at the time) said, “Mummy……………….why hasn’t anyone got any clothes on?” did I realise we’d swum onto a nudist beach! It was the longest half hour of my life………….sat on a rock fully clothed with two young children who were gawping at everything in sight and asking far too many inappropriate questions.😆

We arrived at Elivi at night time, so it was very dark and I could not really see much. The resort is spread out on a hillside and peninsula and covers a large area. If you don’t like walking worry not………………..you just dial reception and a golf cart will come and collect you and take you to wherever you want to go: breakfast, beach, spa, pool, another part of the resort. There’s also a lift from the beach to either the restaurant and spa area, or reception. I like to walk so I only used the golf cart on arrival and departure with my luggage, but if mobility is an issue, or you are just feeling lazy, dial a cart.

The room got 10 out of 10. It was fully serviced daily. There was a coffee pod machine (filled daily), king size bed facing the floor to ceiling windows and one of those fantastic showers with so many jets coming from all directions. Then there was a panel at the side of the bed where you could control everything from the bed…………..curtains, main lights, air-con, reading lights, mood lights, room service……………………..even the door…………you could open the door without getting out of bed! In fact, you could have spent the whole holiday in bed! 😂But best of all………………….my favourite…………………….robe, slippers and luxury toiletries. We all know how I like a robe and slippers in my room. So I did my unpacking quickly, and excitedly got my PJ’s on and my robe and slippers to send a photo home. This is how you can tell I don’t do luxury often…………….I still get excited by the robe and slippers!🤣It’s the small things!

I slept like a baby, but when I awoke I just could not believe what was before my eyes. It was dark when I got there remember, so I had no idea what anything looked like. I drew back the curtains and this was my balcony and my view!❤️I was so giddy, jumping around so much that I woke Mr F. up too! Yes, I forgot……………….Mr F. ……………………..he came too. And he’d advised me that he was having a full week off running and having a relax too! Now that can be a bad thing…………………he get’s bored………………..and when he get’s bored he pesters as he can’t entertain himself. Sometimes I prefer him to run, as when I’m relaxing and reading my book I don’t like being ‘pestered’! He’d already advised me he’d brought his cycling Top Trump Cards, a murder mystery game, and Uno………………………..and they all needed two people so he needed someone to play with! 😂”Oh Joy!” I thought!………….. I suggested there might be someone else that might play with him as playing Cycling Top Trumps with me might not prove to be much of a challenge!🤣

First stop on the first day was breakfast, as we were on a bed and breakfast basis. It was fabulous. There were hot and cold options, savoury and sweet, Greek, Continental and British options. It is served on a lovely terrace, under the pine trees, overlooking Ambelakia beach and the bright blue sea.

There were so many cakes to choose from!

Another amazing discovery is that they eat savoury pies in Greece for breakfast and I love a pie! The main fillings are a traditional Greek cheese or a mixture of spinach and feta.

My breakfast was usually started with some fruit, Greek yoghurt and some nutty granola.

This almost bordered on being too healthy.😆 So I jazzed it up with a drizzle of Greek pine honey. This honey was on another level! They had a whole honeycomb in this sort of dispenser every morning. You just cut a piece of honeycomb off and drizzled the honey on your breakfast. It was the nicest honey I have had anywhere……………….you could taste and smell the pine.

This was followed by the main course which was a little assortment of Greek pies, piece of tortilla or omelette, a little bit of bacon and a slice of tomato (just to make it look slightly more healthy).

Then if I hadn’t made myself feel too sick by this point, I’d squeeze a piece of cake in with my cup of coffee. Usually one that was the cake version of a peanut and chocolate Snickers bar! 😍 Except on the morning when they had milk and white chocolate dipped strawberries when I had those instead!!!!!❤️

Then it was off to the beach to lay on a sun lounger all day and read my book. I didn’t need lunch as I normally did not start to feel hungry again until around 7pm for some reason. 🤭

This was my book of the holiday…..’Small Island’ ……….it’s on the BBC’s list of the ‘100 books which shaped our world’………….which I’m working my way through.

So day 1,2,4 and 6 I don’t have much to report. I did indeed lie on the beautiful Ambelakia beach all day on sunbed number 67 and read my book, sipped the odd cocktail and iced latte and just chilled. It is the most beautiful beach.

The nice thing was there were so many sunbeds there was none of that scrum for a sun lounger which I absolutely hate and refuse to take part in. The British are terrible for it, and the Germans are even worse. It’s like ‘Pistols at Dawn’ except it’s ‘Beach Towels at Dawn’ …………….. you can see them all creeping around at dawn laying towels on sunbeds to reserve them, even though there’s a sign forbidding it. I don’t particularly like confrontation so I will just find somewhere else, whereas Mr F. just scopes the spot for 10 minutes to check no-one is on the sunbeds, moves the towels, puts his own down and then has the confrontation.😂

Mr F. had taken his proper triathlon goggles, so when he got bored he went off for a swim………………….he gets bored quite often as he has to be ‘on the go’ so I think he clocked up two miles each day. Sometimes he’d be gone for that long I either thought he’d swum to mainland Greece or drowned. 😆 Oh gosh I did have to laugh though, and I am allowed to share this picture as he knows I’ve taken it in the name of research and actually finds it quite amusing himself. I’m a big fan of Daniel Craig, also known as James Bond……………………..particularly the scene where he trots out of the sea in his little, tight, sky blue trunks, and I make no secret of this! Now Mr F. likes to continually remind me that two separate ladies at his place of work, on two different occasions have told him he is the spitting image of Daniel Craig. 🤣🤣 Now, he’s a fit and handsome chap but he is no match for my Daniel in the ‘exiting from the sea in trunks’ department! He gets quite cross when I point this out and won’t stop going on about it until I agree there is a slight resemblance. I promise you that the only resemblance is that they both wear a watch in the sea!🤣 So I thought I’d do a spot of undercover research to prove my point to him!!

Now, perhaps if I’d have had a few more Mojitos and squinted a bit I’d have seen it, but the man on the left is the one and only Daniel Craig / James Bond and the one on the right is my long standing, ultra running other half Mr F. who , whilst very fit, looks absolutely nothing like Daniel Craig!!😂 I’ve told him not to worry though……………………I’m sure there are lots of things that Daniel is not good at that he is. Daniel would probably not be able to mend my garden gate, teach me to map read, decorate, do DIY, coach me etc. etc. And who wants a fit man in tight little blue trunks and millions in the bank anyway!?!😂

I’m not going to disappoint you though with my adventures. I did manage to get into trouble with a map before day 1 had ended!🤣 But I swear the issue was the map and not me! Mr F. did look slightly worried when I put my makeup on and nice dress to go out to dinner. Then I grabbed my little leopard skin clutch bag, but paired it with my trekking sandals, a map of Skiathos and a cheeky grin. Sometimes I get stuck in the middle of the transition between Dora the Explorer and Disney Princess………….I can’t decide…………so I try to do both simultaneously which makes for an adventurous night out! 🤣 “Where are we going?” he asked.

We were on the ‘Grace’ side of the resort peninsula, but the sun sets on the ‘Nest’ side of the peninsula on Big Banana Beach and Agia Eleni beach. They eat quite late in Greece, like in a lot of Europe, so I suggested a little ‘stroll’ for a pre-dinner cocktail on the beach to watch the sun set. “Why do you need a map though?” was his question.

I’d spotted a little path on the map that ran around the headland, so I thought why go the boring road way when there’s a coastal path which will be so much prettier. It was all going well and we made it to Big Banana Beach where I had a ‘Paloma’ …………… one of my favourites as I love a bit of Tequila!

We wandered along the beach and it was very nice and I felt all warm, fuzzy and a little bit wobbly after my very large cocktail.

I then proceeded to find the path from Big Banana to Agia Eleni beach. I found it no problem, but half way along it sort of disappeared, the path that remained was very steep, rocky, and overhung with spikey bushes. Mr F. went on up front, but my progress came to a quick halt when I got my dress stuck on a thorny bush on a steep path down to the beach. I could not untangle myself. The more I wriggled to try and work myself free, the more the thorns got caught in my dress. I shouted loudly and Mr F. came running back to the rescue, where he carefully unfastened me thorn by thorn whist muttering something about me and maps!😆 But the trouble was that the map was a very basic map. It had no contour lines on it and no vegetation marked, so how was I to know!! It was purely a mapping error and not a navigational error!🤭

Anyway, we got to the beach, Mr F. kept his cool with me, and we proceeded to walk to a lovely taverna for dinner. I’d booked Elivi on a bed and breakfast basis and I tend to do this for a reason. Greek islands have such amazing food and local tavernas. Whilst Elivi has some wonderful restaurants the offering is not that traditionally Greek, it’s on the expensive side and the menus are not that diverse. The typical ‘resort’ offering. The main consideration for me though, is that large resorts like this can take an awful lot of business from the local tavernas and have caused many to close over the years. You will get a much better value, nicer, more traditional, Greek meal if you can just be bothered to walk into the village of Koukounaries where there are a multitude of excellent options. We ate at three restaurants in the village over the course of the week but my absolute favourite and the one I would recommend is Strophilia. Excellent service, beautiful Greek food and such a lovely atmosphere. And if you like a glass of wine with your meal the Greek wine is really good……….and at 4 euros for 250ml it’s cheap too!

Their Stifado was one of the best I have tasted anywhere!

And the peach, pineapple and mango Yoghurt cheesecake topped with blueberries in syrup was to die for!

That was pretty much the routine on most days…………breakfast, beach, read, shower, out for stroll with pre-dinner drinks, dinner and a relax on the balcony.

However there were two days of exploration where I can show you a little more of the island. Day 3 was a cloudy and windy day and was not really beach weather. So we decided to walk from Ambelakia beach in Koukounaries, northwards through the pine forest, and then along the north coast and back around in a circle, a total of 7 miles.

By doing this we were able to marvel at the beautiful pine forests and their flowers, birds and insects, and see the secluded and isolated beaches on the north coast. It really is a feast for all the senses. The floor is thick with pine needles and it is just like walking on a carpet. You can hear the crash of waves and so many different birds chirping, smell the sea and pine trees, see the beautiful flowers and azure waters, touch the warm soft golden sand and taste the salt on your lips.

The paths are really well marked and take you to some fantastic beaches. Mandraki Beach was spectacular. It feels so secluded and isolated with no-one on it, but yet it’s only 3km through the forest from Koukounaries. On the way back we passed herds of goats with their new kids and it was just a lovely day out.

I’d deserved another lovely cocktail after exerting myself so that evening’s cocktail was a Caipirinha………………because I love a bit of Cachaça too! I tend to err towards the sour citrus flavour cocktails rather than sweet and sickly. I like that sharp taste of the citrus and also that little lick of salt you get around the edge of some of them. Yummy! I’m not a huge drinker and don’t really drink at home but I do like a holiday tipple or two! 😆

The next day was another beach day but I decided to play a bit of ‘bus stop bingo’ in the evening to liven things up a bit, have a change of scenery, and try somewhere different for dinner. Mr F. (after rolling eyes at my idea) had to pick a bus stop number between 1 and 26. In the end he just went with the flow believing it to be another of my silly instantaneous ideas which would not end well. The number 15 was selected and we went on a little 10 minute bus stop adventure to Bus Stop 15.

He was wrong! We were rewarded by a lovely little beach, had a drink, and went for a stroll to find somewhere to eat. Infinity Mare restaurant was discovered, and the very flamboyant and welcoming Konstantinos! He gave us a lovely table overlooking the blue sea, perfect for watching the sunset. Infinity Mare’s speciality is seafood and I had the most delicious seafood linguine and a nice glass of wine. We started with grilled aubergine stuffed with garden vegetables, mint and feta…………….equally delicious. It was gorgeous. So if you are in Skiathos and fancy a change hop on the bus to Bus Stop 15 and find Infinity Mare taverna.

Day 5 was another day of discovery. The plan was to take the bus all the way to the other end of the island, to Bus Stop 1, and discover Skiathos town. From there we were going to take the bus to Evangelistria Monastery, look around there, and then walk back to Skiathos Town for dinner.

Plans quickly changed when I discovered we did not need to take a bus there at all! ‘Capetan Nikolos’ runs a high speed water bus from the resort to Skiathos town in a total of 20 minutes for the grand sum of 7 euros…………bargain! The boat leaves roughly hourly from 10:00 to 17:35, apart from the very long three hour lunch he has at 12:00.😆

Let just say it was an experience! If you get slightly sea sick or don’t like water or rollercoasters then stick to the bus! I loved it!!!! It was like being on a big dipper for 20 minutes all the way to Skiathos Town. Capetan Nikolos turned up with his ghetto blaster blasting out dance tunes. He looked a bit like Robinson Crusoe would after 1 litre of Ouzo for breakfast!🤣He’s not really bothered how rough the sea is, it’s foot to the metal the whole way while you literally bounce all the way to town. He’ll cram on as many as he can as his objective is to do as many trips with as many people as possible at 7 Euros a go. A waterproof jacket might be an idea, as you arrive in Skiathos looking like you’ve just been in the eye of a storm! If you like an adrenaline rush it will be your best 7 euros ever spent, far better than anything at Disneyland Paris!😆

We caught the bus straight up to the monastery and decided to look around the town later in the afternoon. Evangelistria monastery is beautiful. It’s set on what is almost the highest point of the island, so you get some lovely views from the bus on the way up. Its proper name is ‘Monastery of the Annunciation’. It was founded in 1794 and it was where a group of Greek Freedom Fighters hid out in 1807, and where they designed and wove the first blue and white Greek Flag as we know it today, on an ancient loom. The loom and lots of other artefacts relating to the Greek War of Independence are on display in the museum, which is a really interesting little place.

There are only seven monks associated with the monastery today, four live there and the other three live outside the monastery. In addition to their worship they spend the rest of their time being as self sufficient as possible. They have their own vineyard where the make a Red Muscat wine, produce liqueurs, honey and grow their own produce.

The grounds of the monastery are beautiful, particularly on a sunny blue sky day like this was. There are such gorgeous plants all around the monastery, amongst which sleep the monastery cats which keep control of the mouse population.

The honey coloured stone reflects golden in the sunshine, set against the sky and ocean which glistens blue in the distance. Silence is observed in the grounds so it is a really peaceful place.

It’s also worth having a look in the monastery chapel. It’s really tiny but very pretty with some lovely detailed cut out metalwork and a unique conical roof that looks like the bee hive on ‘Winnie the Pooh’.

The walk back down to town from the monastery is equally lovely. Far reaching views across olive groves, right down to the blue sea.

There are lots of lovely roadside wild flowers at this time of year too.

Eventually you are deposited in the bustling port of Skiathos town.

It’s a port of two halves and two personalities, well three really. At the far side of town is the commercial port where the inter island ferries and car ferries dock, and that’s all there is there really.

If you walk around to the west then you come into the modern harbour where there is some serious bling! Think superyachts!!!! But ‘super-duper’ yachts. This is the place where you come with your own very expensive boat, or boat charter if you’ve hired one and are Greek island hopping. It’s nice to walk along the promenade and have a look at some of them as there are some beautiful boats, and some serious partying and champagne drinking going on here. It’s not as glamourous as it sounds though. My godfather and Uncle, and then my cousin, owned such a yacht until around 10 years ago when it physically got too much to manage. I was very lucky enough to spend time with them when I was younger sailing around the channel islands in my school summer holidays. It’s glamourous when the sea is calm but when it’s not it is anything but!

Keep walking and the next part of the port is my favourite. It’s the traditional fishing harbour. No sleek white yachts here. Blue, red, yellow and white fishing boats. Some small ones, some larger trawlers, all bobbing around on the water as their day of work is done. The fishing takes place during the night and early hours of morning and the boats dock and sell their catch in the fish market at 6am to the hotels and restaurateurs. It’s all over quite quickly apparently, and all that’s left to be seen in the afternoon are nets drying, nets being mended and a large number of drunk and animated fishermen discussing the day’s work! I like this authentic side of town better as it shows life as it is in Skiathos when the tourists have gone home.

The ‘old town’ of Skiathos is beautiful too. Pretty white buildings and winding streets that you can get lost in. Little squares full of artisan craft shops and bright bougainvillea on every corner.

Tavernas bustle for space and it’s easy to find a lovely little corner for a coffee.

Wander up to the hill top church and clock tower of Agios Nicolaos and you get a wonderful view over the rooftops and down to the port, and you will also be on the film set of Mamma Mia, the church making an appearance in the movie.

I did a little shopping, some Greek pine honey for Dad and olive oil soap for Mum, and after all my wandering I was ready for a sit down and a glass of wine.

For this I recommend ‘Bourtzi’ also known as ‘BU Bar’, situated on the Bourtzi peninsula. Here you can get coffee, cake, food, drinks or cocktails all day, under the shade of the pine trees, whilst gazing out at the blue Aegean sea. We had a lovely Greek salad and a vegetable and houmous wrap. I washed mine down with a lovely dry white wine, local to Skiathos, whilst Mr F. of course had a much healthier alternative!😆

All too soon our trip had come to an end, just one more evening of watching the sunset from the balcony.

So would I recommend Skiathos and Elivi Resort…………………………yes to both!!! I like to go to different places and explore but this is one of the places I would definitely return to again.

Back to the real world with a bump now though. Work is hectic beyond belief as the last half term always is. It’s important to see the bright side of life though and there’s lots of good.

The new perennial border is bursting into full bloom and there are bees and butterflies everywhere.

Stars of this week are my clematis and my Astrantia!

Steve’s bees (Steve has the allotment garden next to mine) have been very busy on the allotment and have once again produced some amazingly scrumptious village honey! Not quite as nice as Greek pine honey but so much better than the supermarket stuff!

However, it’s been a challenging few weeks on the technical front for me!🤣I love technology when it works but I absolutely dread getting a new phone. Firstly, my very old Samsung finally gave up the ghost so I’ve had to invest in a new one. OMG!!! It’s driven me crazy……….first of all I lost all my contacts. Then I got them back but now none of the apps work. I’m having to painstakingly go into every app and prove it’s me my jumping through a multitude of hoops and sending verification codes everywhere, changing passwords and I’m almost at that stage where I could throw it out of the nearest window. I’ve decided I’m just going to sort one app a day and by mid 2026 I may have it functioning correctly.😆 I’m also in trouble with the offspring because I should have bought an iPhone apparently…………….but I can’t be bothered to learn how to use a new interface, so it’s another Samsung…………………and to make matters worse I’ve got a crocheted case on the way for it!!🤣🤣 Apparently according to them no-one in 2025 who has anything about them has an Android phone in a crocheted case! Except me!!! There’s nothing wrong in doing your thing and being a bit of a rebel!🤭

Technological nightmare number 2 comes in the form of a new Coros Apex 2 sports watch. The GPS, altimeter and everything on my Garmin had also ceased to work. But it had served me well, measuring thousands of miles and many, many meters up and down. There’s nothing wrong with the new watch itself………………..I’m loving it and would recommend it to anyone who’s a bit fed up with their Garmin and the odd little quirks they have. The problem with this is that it almost gives me too much data. I only really need to know how far I’ve gone, how fast, how much up and down and a couple of other things…………………..which it does perfectly. And I guess the problem is not with the watch but with Mr F. He loves a bit of data……………….especially mine……………….and he’s driving me absolutely crazy with it! If he mentions ‘Zones’, ‘anaerobic thresholds’ and ‘training loads’ to me one more time I’m going to password protect the data! 🤣 I do not give two hoots what Zone I am in! I am simply putting one foot in front of the other, the entire objective, being to keep fit and to arrive at the coffee shop with an appetite for cake at the end of the run ……………….. and I told him so!

That’s all for now! Very busy 4 week run up to summer ahead as I rush around trying to get school wrapped up for the end of year closure and myself and home ready for my usual 6 week long summer absence in Spain. There might be the odd mountainous adventure beforehand, we’ll see, and a few little adventures with my youngest. But this weekend has been a nice relaxing one culminating in a little dash down to London to see my big boy and take him out for lunch! A bit of a long round trip in a day just to see him and feed him, but a Mum will travel hundreds of miles for a hug and a squeeze in person. I’m back at home now, tired, happy but bankrupt………………..how is it when you are paying they manage all three courses and a load of drinks!🤣But as my Dad would say………………”work for it and spend it, you can’t take it with you!” So that would be my bit of advice for this week!

Until next time………………

BOOM!!!!! I did it!!!!!!…………………………….by far the most technical and difficult race I’ve ever done…………..far, far harder than my marathon. I thought it might be my first ‘Did Not Finish’……………….but oh my goodness…………….I dug very deep and got the T-shirt and the medal, and I still can’t quite believe it!!!! I am the proud holder of a ‘Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc World Series Running Stone’…………..allowing me to enter the ballot for the legendary 110 mile UTMB Mont Blanc ………………… worry not, I’m not actually going to enter it! 😆

Did Mr F cheer me on………….only once, half way in, into and out of the aid station at the bottom of Mount Snowden, the only place where spectators were allowed. Other that that I was completely alone. He was not allowed to assist, or physically support me in any way. He was only allowed to offer ‘words of support’. However, Mr F does ‘tough love’…………….his idea of ‘support’ is entirely different to anyone else I know! 🤣. At the aid station half way around he did actually ask if I was OK. But on seeing I was crumbling a little mentally at the start, full of self-doubt…………….at the time, I did not appreciate him telling me off! “Remember…………….Form! Shoulders back! Slow your breathing! Relax! Stop crying, and get a move on and finish it off like I know you are capable of …………… or I’m leaving you in Wales!”🤣 (I don’t think he would have, but I’m not 100% sure. 😆)

My telling off was despite the fact that I have learnt how to poach eggs (more on that in a minute). 😆 However, I’m very self motivated and determined…………………..I run for no-one but myself and what I care about. I run to be at one with the world, to challenge myself, to compete with myself, for my boys to give them a good example of resilience and determination, and to be still! Now, that might seem like the strangest statement…………”I run to be still”……………by still I mean my mind is still. My legs are making up for the stillness in my mind, but whilst I’m running, I’m out in the open, my cares and worries are somewhere else, I’m breathing in the air, I’m taking in the views, and I just love it! Try it! And if you can’t run, walk instead, as that has exactly the same effect. Anyway, the ‘tough love’ must have worked…………………I did grow a backbone, and finished the job off!

I’ll give you a little race update and some pictures in a minute because prior to Wales it was such a busy few weeks and I have a few things to share.

First of all there has been the lighting of the ‘beacon’ in the village. I almost did not go to this because of my stance on war. I live in a small village in the countryside, and we are quite a tight knit community and uphold our little traditions. We have a ‘beacon’ on the top of the aptly named Beacon Hill. The beacon is at the highest point in the village at 300 metres. In days gone by it was filled with fuel and set on fire to warn of approaching enemies. It was first erected and used in 1588 as part of a network of nationwide beacons lit to warn of the approach of the Spanish Armada.

Now we just light it on special occasions. It was lit in June 2023 for the King’s Coronation and again in June 2024 for the 80th anniversary of D Day. This time we were lighting it to commemorate the 80th Anniversary of VE Day (Victory in Europe Day), on 8th May. I’m very anti war, for me there are no winners in a war where 51 million allied forces died. However, I thought about it for a while and I thought, “I will go, because at the end of the day we are not celebrating the fact that we were winners and another country lost, we are celebrating victory over hatred, dictatorship, territorial expansionism and crimes against humanity. We are celebrating common values, a shared vision and democracy”. And frankly, never in my lifetime have I felt that we are so close to losing those things as I do today so I did feel it quite important to go along and show my support, for those things if nothing else. It was quite moving watching the sun set as the beacon was lit and lovely to see the whole of our small village come together, so I was glad I went.

Then I’ve been in my garden most weekends because it’s just that gorgeous time of year. Everything is so green, the birds are singing, the chicks are hatching and there are so many little gardening jobs to do.

My wisteria has so many flowers on it this year…………………………… it is beautiful. ❤️

And I have made a new perennial border and planted lots on new plants, with pretty flowers in all different shades. I can’t wait for them to explode into a riot of colour.

I’ve also replanted my planters at the front door to make them more maintenance free. Because every summer I fill them with seasonal bedding plants …………………… and then I go abroad for my 6 week summer break and my offspring starve them of water and kill them, even though it is the only job I leave them to do. 😆

To make me feel like I am constantly in Spain, Greece or Italy, I have planted two lovely little olive trees from Sicily!😆 I know that olive trees and Yorkshire don’t really go together. My olives will probably grow into little hard peas, shrivel up in the cold and drop off. There’s going to be no Single Estate First Press Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Chateau Yorkshire Girl just yet. 😂 But they make me smile when I leave my house and when I return, and they look very happy in their pots so that’s all that matters.

I’ve also competed in the 10 mile Cake Race over Saddleworth Moor. I loved this one! Mainly because of the cake at the end………eat as much as you can! 😂 I was determined not to come last and there be no cake. I was a respectable 116th out of 152………….not bad now I’m in the golden oldie category. However………………I did have a little giggle at the segments on Strava. I never made a secret of the fact that I was doing this entirely for cake!

I’ was consistently at 9:30 to 10:00 minute a mile which is about right for me on a hilly moorland course. I did manage an 8:25 going downhill but the segment is only 0.1 of a mile. However, the final segment entitled ‘First dibs on the cake’ I managed a full 1.41 miles on a rock strewn path at 8:45 🤣 🤣 It just goes to show what my body is capable of when there is cake involved. 🤣

Another little discovery I made on that day was the intelligence of Google Analytics and AI. I know we moan about it a lot, and I really don’t like the idea of being spied on. Sometimes it freaks me out when I’ve been looking at something and then the ads start popping up almost instantly……………………….. and they are so tailored to your searches it’s frightening. Anyway, sometimes it can come in quite handy. The race set off from Diggle Hotel, but you had to park at Diggle Band Club. I wanted to know how far they were apart and how long it would take me to walk between the two so I entered it into Google Maps.

I found it quite amazing that of all the places it could have highlighted, in the middle of the screen, was Grandpa Greene’s Luxury Ice Cream Parlour! 😆 There are tens and tens of cafe’s and eateries in Diggle, isn’t it clever, thinking that I might possibly need to know where the ice cream parlour is and nowhere else! I can’t imagine why it thought this! 🤣 Anyway, it did indeed pique my interest and I thought I’d deserved a double scoop of Pistachio, so after the race I did check out Grandpa Greene’s which was in a lovely setting at the side of the canal lock. The ice cream was delicious and I recommend it.

Where else have I been? Oh yes……………I’ve been to ‘Gloria’s Wood’, because the bluebells are out in force. This is a lovely little place just over my garden hedge and down at the bottom of the field. It’s a little patch of woodland owned and tended by Gloria, the lady who lives next to it.

She allows you to enter and enjoy the wood, as it has a little path through it, provided you stick to the path and don’t disturb the wildlife or trample on the bluebells etc. It truly is a magical place, a carpet of blue bluebell flowers, trees, birds and quietness and we are lucky to have access to it. Gloria has erected a bench in there and sometimes it’s just lovely to go down there when the bluebells are out and sit and read. Which incidentally my boys think is ‘weird’……………..and anyone who sits and reads a book in a bluebell wood, according to them, is a ‘weirdo’……………..hence, I do have the occasional tendency to be a ‘weirdo’ as I like to disappear to quiet places and read. 🤣 Sometimes I feel so out of touch with their generation…………….I wonder if when they are older they will appreciate sitting quietly reading a book in a wood, whether it’s something you grow to like and need, or whether it’s something lost for ever and that generation will just sit there scrolling or with music blasting out?! Who knows!

And in other news…………………………….I’ve learnt to poach an egg!🤣🤣 Laugh not! I am being serious………………it’s only taken me 54 years! This is my major failing as a ‘wife’.😂 Mr F loves a poached egg or two…………………….most healthy fitness type people do because they are full of protein. But for 26 years I have been a disappointment as a wife due my complete inability to poach an egg!😂 I am of course overexaggerating as I can do an awful lot of things……………………..sew, bake, cook most things, organise, support, encourage, crew races, garden, sing, paint, run, play the piano, keep a tidy house, speak another language, touch my toes, have a University degree, give good hugs, am empathetic, can solve most problems……………………..on a score of suitable ‘wife’ material, even though I say it myself, I think I’d score quite highly. 😂 However, I’ve been a complete disappointment on the egg front. I think it’s mainly because I don’t like eggs………………….well I do and I don’t………………….let me explain. I just can’t stomach the fact that biologically it’s an egg for a start. I love omelettes, quiche, tortilla, cake and anything with eggs in but they have to be beaten. As soon as you give me one where the albumen and yolk are separate I could heave. YUK! And if it has any little red flecks in it where the foetus has started forming then I’m done completely. Now……………..nobody is perfect and there’s always that one thing that alludes you………………….I’ve tried numerous times to poach an egg and I’ve just ended up with tens of little pieces of egg white bobbing about in the pan with an overcooked yolk bobbing around separately. Then I bought some silicone ‘poaching pockets’ thinking they would be the answer………………but then you just get rubber-like discs of eggs that would bounce off the floor if you dropped them. Well, I am pleased to announce that last weekend, with an hour to spare, I thought, “I’m going to watch a ‘You Tube’ tutorial and see if I can learn to poach an egg and then I’ll be almost perfect!” 😆 Well, I’ve learned the error of my ways. Previously, I’ve had the water too deep, too hot and have not got my wrist action and swirling right. Two inches of simmering water (a bit of vinegar added), in a lidded pan, a little swirl of the water and flick of the wrist on entry, cover, cook with the heat off for four minutes and “Voilà”! Two perfectly poached eggs with soft yolks with smashed avocado on toasted sourdough just waiting for their twist of black pepper!

Right then, let me tell you about this race, the UTMB World Series Snowdonia 25k. It said on the entry form that it would be ‘Beautiful beyond belief, and savage beyond reason’…………..and it was both. It is part of a running festival that spans the whole weekend. There are 100mile, 100km, 50km and 25km race options over the weekend. The festival is part of a series of events which take place all over the world, at which successful competitors can collect UTMB ‘running stones’. These stones allow them to enter the ballot for the legendary 110 mile UTMB held in Chamonix every August. I guess all the smaller races through the year help them fund the main event and ensures that everyone who gets into it is up to a certain standard, as you have to work hard for a stone……………..they make the cut offs deliberately tight for that reason.

It’s held in Snowdonia National Park in Wales and sets off from the town of Llanberis. The route of the 25k race takes you right from the town, at just above sea level, to the summit of Mount Snowden at 1,085 metres, down the other side, and then 7 miles up and down around the bottom back to Llanberis. It is beautiful but it’s notoriously difficult and technical. The terrain is as you can see above……………….it’s rocky, slippery slate in some places, boggy in others, frequently pathless and just generally energy sapping! And the thing is I don’t always like running up hills…………..every Thursday night has been hill reps in the woods near home in preparation for this race……………………. 8 to 10 reps up the steepest hill I can find. I have found it absolutely soul destroying and boring!😆 And on more than one occasion I have got to rep 5 and burst into tears, exclaiming that I don’t want to do it anymore and I’m pulling out of the race…………..I have had a few tantrums!😂…………..I really do hate them that much sometimes.

But when you get to the top of Snowden, the views are absolutely stunning, and it makes it all worthwhile. This is a shot taken on the day by the official race photographers who were dotted all-over.

We went down to Wales on the Friday as Mr F was running the 50k on the Saturday. That’s quite a short distance for him and he did really well. This is his playground, he’s down here training frequently, unlike me who can testify that this was only my third visit to the summit in all my years and the second was on the recce the other month! On Saturday I was on my own for the day in the little town of Llanberis and my instructions were to “keep calm, eat often (carbs if possible), drink lots and don’t use your legs too much”. I was excellent at following this instruction, but unfortunately there was no medal for carb loading😂………………..I found a little outdoor sofa in front of a gorgeous café, got my book out and had plenty to drink and eat. Wales is famous for Welsh lamb…………………..so it would have been remiss of me to come all the way to Wales and not eat a Welsh lamb and mint pasty. 😍

The weather was hot, well hot for the UK, in the mid 20’s, so the organisers had instigated the hot weather policy. This is all well and good, but it means you have to carry an awful lot of water as there is no aid station until the descent at the bottom of Snowden, 9 miles in…………….and water is heavy. The evening was spent packing my race pack, attending kit check and registering. I know you will be wondering……………….so I will confess, with Mr F safely up a mountain and out of sight undertaking his race, during pack preparation and kit check, room was made for a Nars Lipstick in shade ‘Coral’. It fitted perfectly into the zip pocket with my £5 note (ice cream money) ……………… because who wants to be stuck up a mountain without a lipstick and money for cake or ice cream?! Not me!!! I’m ‘mountain ready’ don’t forget! 😂

The rest of my evening was spent eating pasta and getting anxious. With Mr F safely back there was nothing to do other than spend the night tossing and turning in my bed unable to sleep. 😆

I got to the start line and was in a bit of a state but not as bad as I could have been. I purposely got there after Wave 1 had set off. I was in Wave 2 of 3 and I’m a lot worse if I have to stand around looking at everyone that appears to look so much faster than me. No sooner had I arrived, had my telling off, and I was on my way, which was a better approach, less time to get myself too worked up. After all what could possibly go wrong? I had money and a lipstick!

Did I cry? Of course I did! 🤣 Numerous times, at the start, during, and at the end ……………………. particularly when I had to confront the things I don’t like: being isolated, falling down, feeling lost, physically and mentally exhausted. But that’s fine, because in any race like this, anyone will tell you that there are ‘dark places’…………..and by that I mean in your mind…………………..and most runners who run long races in this exhausting terrain and heat terrain will have experienced it. For myself it normally happens when I’m not just physically exhausted but mentally too. Half way down the mountain my ‘dark place’ found me. I have to concentrate so hard on the descent, I’m not a natural. You lose concentration and upsetting things you don’t want to think about come creeping in…………………………it can be absolutely anything………………..a pet that died years ago, an ex-boyfriend from school, a long lost relative, nostalgia, someone you miss…………..and there is absolutely NOTHING you can do about it other than let it in and let the tears out. It passes…………………and you carry on. If you try to fight it it’s worse, it lasts longer, you just have to let it go.

Somehow, when you need to be tough, you can be tough…………….even if you are a touch emotional like me and cry a lot!😂 When I need to ‘man up’ I can. Do I have a strategy for races like this? Not really. I would just say do ‘you’. It’s a little bit like the hare and the tortoise. I know how fast I can run, at what gradient and for how long. I’m not racing anyone. If I push too hard I know I won’t finish and it will be an awful experience. I set off right at the back of my Wave deliberately and just chip away, one step at a time, in the little personal battle with myself. You get to the second half of the race and you will catch everyone up who has set off too fast, underestimated the challenge and ‘blown up’. Races like this are more about mental resilience, coping with the unexpected and pacing yourself, it’s not a race of speed like a road race, and that’s why I prefer this sort of running. I’m not fast, but I am determined, resilient and tough when I need to be despite my extremely soft exterior! One of my poles broke at the top of Snowden with 11 miles still to go and two questionable knees……..but I thought “there’s not a thing I can do about it, manage as best as you can with one, and just get on with it”………once you’ve set off you are not allowed to swap any equipment, and there is absolutely no point worrying about something you can’t control.

I eventually crossed the line, picked up my medal and swiftly searched for the ice cream van……………….only to find I’d have to settle for a soft drink because it had sold out, packed up and departed. Worry not, I’ll be making up for the lack of post race ice cream soon. I managed to finish 1 hour and 10 minutes before cut off, was 11th placed V50 female, 108th lady out of 225, and 378th out of the 590 total participants both male and female. Not too bad for the cake eating, ice cream lover from Yorkshire who likes to trot around the fields on a Sunday morning. I’ve been a little sore this week but it’s nothing that a week on a sun lounger in Greece drowning in ice cream, gin and Campari won’t sort out! 😂

So my words of wisdom this week would be from the ‘Hare and the Tortoise’………………………..patience, perseverance, consistent, persistent, steady, slow effort is better than a fast, over confident approach. Just one step in front of the other and keep going……………………..oh…….and don’t worry about the things you can’t control, which is most things!

So that’s all for now. One busy half term coming up after a little break to Greece tomorrow. I’m as giddy as a kipper and very excited! I will share Greece with you at some point before I take my long summer six week break in July /August, where I disappear abroad to relax, rest and retreat from the world for a bit, and I will be unusually quiet as I take a little break from writing and everything else, as I usually do in Summer.

Successful little outing tonight! Not one, not two………..but three little trophies at the annual presentation evening!

Orienteering………..1st place V50 female and 2nd overall female.

Club Championship Female V50 Cross Country Champion 1st place.

Club Championship Female V50 Fell Running Champion 1st place.

Club Championship Female V50 Road Running runner up 2nd place.

And finally………………. Overall Club Championship……………Fell Running Club Champion!

🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏆🏆🏆💪 A little confidence boost for next weekend’s big one!

Pleased with myself because it’s been a tough little year. There will be no fuss, fanfare or Facebook posts………………….just quietly celebrating, and I might treat myself to a little ice cream or some chocolate tomorrow. But don’t worry I’ll not get too big for my boots……………child number one has just declared….”But how have you won the orienteering trophy Mum? You can’t read a map!” …………………. Talk about keeping you grounded! 🤣🤣🤣

Just one foot in front of the other and keep going ………………….. those words of wisdom apply to life as well as running by the way!

Wow, oh wow, oh wow! I have just had the most amazing week! Well, a few weeks ago at Easter but it’s taken me a while to put this little post together and sort all my photographs out as there’s just so much to say about this place. 😍

Where have I been? I’ve been to La Isla Bonita……………………otherwise known as La Palma.

La Palma is one of the Spanish Canary Islands………………it gets the name ‘La Isla Bonita’ from the people of this group of islands who will tell you hands down that La Palma is the beautiful one of the Canary Islands, and they are not wrong! I walked through Gran Canaria last year, it was gorgeous; Tenerife I’m not bothered about, too many British; and all the others like Lanzarote and Fuerteventura just look a bit brown and dessert like to me, and I like green. However, La Palma’s beauty just blew me away, it’s breath-taking.

So where is it? It’s off the north west coast of Africa and is the most north westerly of the group of islands. It is the one with the most tropical climate………..it rains a lot compared to the other islands and therefore is unbelievably green. It is also small compared to the other islands, ranking 5th out of the 8 islands in terms of size.

It’s quite difficult to get there from the UK, and not as well known, which means that for a whole week, other than on the flight out there, I did not encounter anyone from the UK or further west, which was great, because not only does it allow that disconnect from everyday life, it also made me practice my Spanish. Particularly in the places I visited, which were well away from any of the few hotels on the island. English is not as widely spoken on La Palma as the other islands, but you will get by.

You can fly there directly from the UK but there are just two flights a week, both on a Thursday, one from London and one from Manchester, and they are expensive to book on a ‘flight only’ basis, as they are with one of the major tour operators. I had limited time…………..working in a school and with the flights being midweek, I could only go for one week, during a two week school holiday, unless I went in Summer, which I suspect would be too hot for me to enjoy what I wanted to do. So to make the most of my time, and because I’ve been wanting to visit for such a long time, I did fly direct for one week during this last Easter break. If you can take your holidays whenever you want and aren’t constrained for time, cheaper options would be to fly via Spain, or fly into Tenerife and take the 2 hour ferry across to La Palma, as there are numerous cheap flights to Tenerife.

So why would you come here? It won’t be to everyone’s taste. You’d come here if you like nature, adventure, disconnect, walking, gorgeous beaches, dense forests, stunning volcanic landscapes, stargazing, beautiful little towns, slow pace of life, natural volcanic swimming pools, birdlife, flora and fauna, millions of butterflies, good food, nice wine and lovely welcoming islanders. Don’t come here if you want to lie on a golden sand beach……………….the beaches are gorgeous fine sand but they are black sand…………………..the island is a volcanic island. There are two major areas of volcanoes and around 10 volcanoes in total, making up most of the surface area of the island. And just like on Tenerife these volcanoes are active volcanoes. Many of them have not erupted for a number of years, however there was a huge eruption in 2021 which I’ll tell you about in a moment.

Don’t come here if you want to party, I’m talking adventures of a different kind. There are a couple of ‘resorts’ but they are very small, quiet and quite upmarket, usually just containing a few upscale resort style hotels. You are not going to find the equivalent of ‘Veronica’s’ and ‘The Strip’ here, stick to Tenerife if you want that. La Palma is for those who want an away from it all, disconnect in nature, to explore an incredible island. The only place I can liken it to which I’ve been to before is Madeira………………if you like it there you will love it here, it’s like Madeira but twice as beautiful and much safer and easier to drive around. Although the roads are steep and mountainous, they are maintained very well and the standard of driving here is very high.

I’d recommend you hire a car. There is a good bus service on the island but to see all the best parts of the island you really do need your own wheels to make the most of it. Car hire is cheap and the island is easy and safe to navigate.

If you come here to walk the only thing to be mindful of is that it is not flat…………………..it is ‘the steepest island in the world’.🥵 You are not going to find a walk here that will not leave you huffing and puffing a little. To say it’s such a small island it goes from sea level to it’s highest point, just below 2,500 metres above sea level very quickly. You don’t have to go to the top though, there are plenty of walks with manageable height gain, but it’s definitely somewhere to pack the poles if you have any sore joints or don’t want to have any by the end of the holiday.

Where did I stay? I wanted the freedom to come and go as I please and not be constrained by meal times. I also wanted to get away from it all so I rented an apartment, in a block of four, in the lovely little traditional town of El Paso, a couple of miles from the West Coast of the island. It was around 30 minutes drive from Santa Cruz de la Palma, the capital, and the airport, which are both on the East coast of the island. It was a relatively new apartment, built in 2021, with a gorgeous roof terrace for chilling, and a small pool for if you wanted to take a dip. It was owned by a local gentleman who lived in the town and the communication was really good. It was spotlessly clean, with a nice little welcome pack on arrival and had everything you could need and more. I’d rented one of the apartments on the upper floor as it had an amazing view over the sea and the west coast, to allow me to watch the most glorious sunset with a glass of wine on most evenings.

The flight and journey there was quite straightforward, and I have to tell you that my favourite flight sweet, the Marks and Spencer ‘Percy Pig’ now come in a ‘Percy Pig Goes Globetrotting’ edition! How cool is that……………..perfect for all your travelling needs and helping to make your ears pop on the flight when you too are going globetrotting!😍😂

This was a holiday with Mr Fitness. The important thing to do before you go anywhere with him, not just on holiday, is to manage his expectations, otherwise it just turns into an extreme physical challenge and competition ……………especially when you are heading off to somewhere that is just like an adventure playground for him. 😦

I had had an extremely stressful half term. It’s the term I get the school budget allocation and have to somehow miraculously make the funds cover the projected expenditure, which it never does, and I spend an awful lot of time being creative with numbers and spending hours in meetings trying to match the figures to the school strategic plan…………………………we got there in the end but I was mentally tired and needed to build in a little rest time too.

I did want to explore and adventure, that’s what life’s about, but rather than spend the entire holiday in my playing out clothes, which is what normally happens with a Mr Fitness itinerary, I had said to him that I wanted to plan my time wisely so that the exploring was done by afternoon so I could dress up in my nice clothes, go out for dinner and enjoy a glass of wine, read my book and watch the sunset. I needed an element of relaxation. Sometimes I get fed up of being all dirty in my playing out clothes……….in reality at home I am 50% Dora the Explorer and 50% Disney Princess but mostly you only get to hear about Dora on here, as this blog tends to be all about my adventures! He looked a little crestfallen as I pulled out my own little pre-prepared itinerary and I’d got visions of going out to dinner on my own, but once I’d explained the concept of ‘compromise’ he looked like he’d understood and he thought he may just be able to manage it!😂 So here’s what we got up to.

It was a late flight getting us there just before 11pm so I’d planned an easy first day with just a steady afternoon walk. I got up and the sun was shining. I pulled on my equally sunny dress and headed of to the supermarket to buy breakfast and picnic making provisions for the next few days.

One of the first things I noticed about La Palma was its absolutely fantastic traffic roundabouts. Every roundabout is maintained gorgeously and will have some elaborate statue on it, a theme, or something akin to a whole botanical garden on top of it. This one was the first one that greeted me in El Paso………it is a Graja, or Calder Crow which is endemic to La Palma and North West Africa. It has a red beak and legs and is more similar to a raven than a crow. This one is made entirely out of sticks in the middle of the roundabout and I risked my life taking its photo. 😂 There are some really elaborate constructions to see.

I found the bakery and had a lovely cinnamon and nut swirl and my first café con leche! That first Spanish café con leche and pastry always gives me an “Ahhhhh” feeling…….like I’ve arrived home.

El Paso has a lovely little square and park in the centre…………………..

…………………and some lovely street art representing the main economy of the island……………………agriculture.

After buying my provisions, I made my little Iberico Chiorizo, Spanish sheep’s cheese and cucumber bocadillo picnic sandwich (yummy) and off we went for the little short adventure that I had planned for that afternoon.

This was a short walk of 4 miles around the rim of the Caldera de Taburiente. This area is a National Park with limited parking so you have to book a car parking space online in advance, but they are free of charge, you just show your booking pass at the park gate. This was a lovely walk around a very small section of the caldera rim. The caldera is like a huge hole covering a large part of the north of the island, it is 10km across. It’s an erosion caldera, formed by landslides and erosion and not a caldera formed by volcanic eruption. It is really deep and the rim in places is 2000 metres above the caldera floor.

The cloud was down slightly but the views across the caldera from the look out points were spectacular nevertheless.

The steep walls of volcanic rock towered all around you and as you walked into the caldera you got a sense of just how lush and green the island is. Huge pines with amazing bark and a distinctive aroma reached out their branches above you, and with the low lying cloud it had a really mystical feel, with the occasional shaft of bright sunlight penetrating the cloud and making the green of the forest even greener. It was a lovely little walk and the perfect introduction to the island.

On the way back to the apartment we went to look at something quite spectacular geographically, but a bit horrific at the same time. If you ever go to La Palma you must go and take a look as it is difficult to describe the scale of it. From the apartment window looking inland I could see a towering, steaming mass of grey and orange rock around half a mile away. Jose, our host, advised me that this looming mass was the Volcano Tajogaite, which forms part of the Cumbre Vieja ridge, it is in the municipality of El Paso where we were staying. He finished building his apartment in summer 2021 and on the 11th September of that year Tajogaite erupted, the first eruption on the island since Vulcan Teneguia in 1971.

It erupted from 5 main vents for a total of 85 days and caused 863 million euros of damage. It destroyed the two neighbouring villages next to El Paso, destroyed around 3,000 homes, resulted in the evacuation of over 10,000 people, closed schools, impacted hospitals and flights and miraculously only resulted in the death of 1 person who inhaled toxic gases. Jose had recommended we drive right up to the edge of the lava flow to understand the scale of the natural disaster…………….so we did.

The lava flow is 6.2km long at 3.5km wide and stretches right down to the sea.

You can view it from the edge but you cannot walk on it without specialist equipment or a trained vulcanologist as it is still extremely hot in places and emits toxic gases. You can understand when you see it how it was impossible for anything in its path to have survived. There is nothing of the villages left to be seen, they are completely buried under a cooling lava flow metres high. The entire area is desolate. They have now built one road which cuts through the lava flow close to the coast to reconnect the south west of the island with the north west but other than that there is nothing. You can just see mother nature starting to do her work with shoots of new green plants miraculously sprouting from the lava flow where nothing else survives.

Despite this, El Paso is a safe place to visit and the volcano sleeps silently for now. The volcanoes on the island are active, but they are monitored constantly. The eruption was expected, hence the low number of casualties, with 22,000 small earthquakes of up to 3.5 magnitude being measured in just one week before the eruption. So it does have it’s own in built early warning system.

It had been a long first day so I changed out of my playing out clothes and went out to dinner at the lovely Tasca Barbanera in El Paso………..beef tenderloin, Roquefort sauce, Padron peppers and roast potato wedges………………oh and a lovely glass of wine to round off the day.

Day 2, I was up early and much better rested after travelling. The plan today was to do a circular walk around an area on the north east of the island called Cubo de Galga. This is an ancient laurel forest on the edge of a ravine and gorge. It’s around 6 miles long. It was drizzling slightly but warm and humid. This added to the atmosphere as I can only describe this area as ‘magical’. It’s like its own little enchanted eco-system. You don’t get wet due to the tree cover but it’s really humid, a bit like being in a rainforest in the Amazon I guess. There is bird song everywhere, water tinkling over mossy rocks and flowers and fauna all around.

All the walks we went on are in a book I took with me called ‘Walk La Palma’ its a ‘Discovery Walking Guides’ book by Charles Davis. It was an invaluable resource as it gives you a narrative and secret little d-tours. It is a must if you want to walk on the island. While other people carried on the main path it directs you to take a 50 metre d-tour off the path through a little wooded area. You emerge at the most spectacular waterfall. There isn’t a lot of water, but it is coming from a great height and forms a refreshing shower if you are brave enough. It’s the perfect place to enjoy your bocadillo in peace and quiet before continuing.

You pass under little ancient aqueducts, through overhanging trees, across little streams with huge round mossy boulders until you emerge from the top of the gorge at a spectacular mirador over the sea.

It’s an easy downhill walk then, through agricultural land, passing through people’s smallholdings featuring an array of crops and animals, back to the car park.

For any nature lover, bird watcher or anyone who likes the idea of being in an enchanted forest a million miles from what’s going on in the rest of the world, I can’t recommend this walk highly enough.

We just had time to stop in the capital Santa Cruz de la Palma for refreshment on the way back and I might just have been tempted by a little glass of sunshine. 😂

First impressions of Santa Cruz were good. Bright colourful buildings, pretty flower filled squares in preparation for Easter, bustling cafes, statues, flower filled wooden balconies, old colourful doors and spotlessly clean. I vowed to come back and explore more later in the week.

The compromise was going well, back in time to get my girlie clothes on and out to the neighbouring town of Los Llanos de Aridane for pizza………………..

…………….after I’d also had time for a little afternoon nana nap………………at 54, I sometimes need one of those too now after a day of adventure!😂

There was the usual Easter procession taking place in the town and I love to watch a procession. 😍

Day 3 started with a little relax on the roof terrace………………

and a little bit of plant spotting around the garden………………………very pretty.

Today the plan was to do a walk from the town of Tijarafe where we would leave the car. We would then walk the circular PRLP12.2 path to the Cueva de Poris de la Candelaria then down the Barranco Del Jorado and then back up to the town. Whilst only 9 miles long this is a steep one with 1,000 metres of down and the same back up! For anyone with bad joints the good news is that there is also a road that gets you closer to the cove of Candelaria if you aren’t able to walk to it as it’s definitely worth seeing.

En route to Tijarafe you are likely to drive past the Mirador El Time. It’s a spectacular viewpoint looking over the west of the island. You get an idea of how high you have just ascended in the car………………………….and a plus point is that there is a café here which sells the most delicious home baked banana cake! So as you can imagine a stop was made for cake, coffee and to admire the view over the town of Tazacorte.

The walk to Candelaria was beautiful…………………………..different to the previous days as this is a coastal walk. Poppies and flowers were in bloom everywhere.

You get incredible views of the bright blue sea all around you.

But it is an incredibly steep downhill walk to start.

You eventually come to the parking lot and there is a nice path down to the Cueva de Poris de la Candelaria. This really is a magical spot. No pirates today. It’s a little fishing village built inside a natural cave. All the houses are white and blue. Whist fishing has moved on and out to the nearby port of Tazacorte the little houses still remain and are maintained by local families who use them as second homes, beach houses and just a respite form the world. There is no internet, phone signal, rubbish bin or anything. They have managed to bring electricity cables down from the town and water pipes but other than that there is nothing.

It’s really pretty.

While we were there, there were a few families, repairing and painting their homes for summer and a handful of walkers who like us, had gone to marvel at the pretty little cave village.

We had our picnic on the rocks, being careful to remove all traces of rubbish, and had a little sunbathe and then began our trek up and then down again into the Barranco del Jorado. This was a steep in and out, much steeper than the path to Candelaria. There is a lovely little beach at the bottom and a few little beach houses that have been erected by the locals as a respite from the heat of the town and somewhere to disconnect at the weekend. This gorge is also well know for its birdlife. We saw plenty of kestrels and choughs nesting in the rocks and lots of lizards running between our feet. It was a tough slog back up to the town though.

Knowing it would be quite a long walk I’d taken my dressing up clothes with me as I thought it would make more sense while we were out that way to stop for dinner on the way back and explore the lovely little town of Tazacorte. It’s a nice little town surrounded by banana plantations, but then again the whole island is full of banana plantations.

The town is split into two. There is the main town a mile or two inland and then the port area which has a few hotels and a lovely beach. We went to explore the town first. It’s very colourful and we found a lovely restaurant called Los Lavaderos which was situated in some former wash houses. It was a lovely meal. I had a lovely Campari Spritz whilst deciding what to choose and had a little rest. We started with a very traditional Canarian dish…………Volcanic Papas Arrugadas with Mojo Rojo. These are wrinkled baked Canarian potatoes, baked in a fire so they are black and have a bit of a charcoaly taste on the exterior. The potato inside is really sweet and the red mojo sauce has a little kick to it, containing red peppers and paprika. Really tasty!

Then one of my favourites……………………….fried fresh squid………………..I ❤️ squid! And there is nothing like some fresh fried squid by the sea.

I didn’t have dessert because I wanted to go down to the port to sit on the harbour wall and watch the sun set as it looked like it was going to be a lovely sunset……………….and I’d also read there was a fantastic Heladeria (Ice Cream shop) down there.

It’s a pretty little port town, quite busy and you can climb up onto the harbour wall and walk all the way along to the little lighthouse at the end.

Then pick your perch on the wall and get ready for the most gorgeous sunset.

And what better way to finish off the evening than a visit to the Heladaria……………….which I can confirm is amazing! This is Amarena Cherry flavour…………………YUMMY! It tasted just as good as the Fabbri Amarena Cherries in the blue and white jar………………I get a jar of these at Christmas as a treat and have to try so hard not to just eat them with a spoon out of the jar. 🤭 Another lovely day.

Day 4………………I needed a rest day, much to Mr F’s absolute dismay! 😂 So there’s not a lot to tell you about Day 4. I was saving myself for the big one on day 5. I felt like a beach day! So after a lazy morning it was a trip to the fine black sand beach of Charco Verde. It was lovely. I chose this one because it does not have any towns nearby so it’s nice and peaceful. You can only get here by car but there are toilets and a fantastic little chiringuito at the back of the beach . It serves great fresh seafood, croquettes, tapas, cakes and has a bar. I was very comfy on this beach reading my book for the afternoon. There were a few people around but not too many.

The chiringuito was good. I made two visits……………once for banana cake and coffee and once for beer. There’s nothing like a Dorada in the sunshine listening to the waves crashing in! Perfect little spot if you are all adventured out and need a rest.

So Day 5………………..the BIG ONE!!! This was epic and if you are fit enough to do this one walk on La Palma then this is the one you must do……………the highlight! It’s called Ruta de los Volcanes or Route of the Volcanoes. It goes from a recreation area called El Pilar in the middle of the island all the way southwards along the ridge, which forms the backbone of the island, to its southernmost tip at the Faro de Fuencaliente (lighthouse). In its entirety it is 17 miles with 800 metres of ascent. And if you miss the bus back to town, as we did, it’s an additional 4 miles and another 680m of ascent to the next nearest bus stop in town to get back to your start point. 🥵

It runs all along the ridge of Cumbre Vieja passing a large number of volcanic cones, craters and lava flows created by these active volcanoes. It is truly spectacular.

We’d waited for the perfect weather window………………..a blue sky day but with some cloud, with the base of the cloud at around 500m.

It’s good to have cloud because if you take the ‘over the top’ route, over the peak of Volcan de la Deseada at 1945 metres high, you get the most spectacular cloud inversions below. The cloud literally tumbles and crashes over the rims of the volcanoes………….it is amazing to see.

One minute you are running through dense pine forest, the next you are on a barren ridge surrounded by nothing but volcanic ash.

It’s not a particularly difficult walk navigationally …………………….it’s well signed. But it’s quite steep and long and once you’ve committed to it, whilst there are some escape routes off the ridge, they are long ones. So it’s important to go prepared. You need lots of layers, waterproofs, food, lots and lots of water, a head for heights (mine is getting better) and a sense of adventure!

I took absolutely hundreds of pictures and although this was meant to be a slow and long training run, I stopped so many times it was anything but a run.

It’s a bit of a tricky day trip logistically because it is point to point, not circular, from the middle of the island to the southern tip, so at one end you will need transport.

We left the hire car in Santa Cruz. I had arranged a taxi via Whatsapp to take us up to El Pilar up in the mountains (40 Euros and half an hour drive) and then after the walk there is an hourly bus back from Los Canarios (the town above the Faro de Fuencaliente) to Santa Cruz (really cheap at 2 Euros 60). The bus takes around 50 minutes.

Our taxi driver Ignacio, was so informative. All the way up to El Pilar he was explaining, very slowly in Spanish for me as he spoke no English, about the topography and agriculture of the island. I understood that as far as you can see, whichever way you look you can see banana plantations. However, Ignacio advised that the island has an abundance of avocados and mangoes too. The push at the moment is to plant avocados as the price of bananas has slumped. He advised that bananas fetch 1 Euro a Kg, mangoes around 3 Euros but avocados fetch 5 Euros and for that reason a lot of farmers are replanting some banana plantations with avocados.

When you get to El Pilar there is a visitor centre and I highly recommend you take a look before heading off. It will tell you all about the volcanoes you will pass, when they erupted and give you lots of tips as to what to look out for on the route.

Another aside is that you can finish the walk in the town of Los Canarios and make it a walk of just over 13 miles if you want. You don’t have to walk the last 4 miles to the lighthouse at Fuencaliente. If you don’t stop in Los Canarios and carry on like I did, I would still recommend stopping in Cafe ‘Mi Gusto’ on the main street. According to Mr F this serves the best home made lemon pie he has ever had. Yes, you heard that correctly…………….he had lemon pie…………..a huge piece!! 😂 I have committed it to my memory bank to remind him of the fact next time I get told off for cake eating!

We made it to the lighthouse (very windy) to find that we had just missed the bus which runs every two hours back to Los Canarios to get the onward bus back to Santa Cruz. Two choices – sleep in the bus stop for the night as we could not get a phone signal of any sort, or attempt to walk back to Los Canarios, 4 uphill miles in an hour and a half to get the last bus back. We chose the latter and made it with 10 minutes to spare. I needed half a bag of Bassetts Jelly Babies and we fell out a little because I may just have moaned like a baby intermittently on the way back!🤭 However, it did not spoil an utterly breath-taking day.

Day 6 was most definitely a rest day……………well, car tour day. I was not really up for using my legs! Nevertheless it was a very interesting day.

We drove up to the north of the island to the highest point…………the Roque de Los Muchachos at 2,426m……………..crossing the island from West to East in the car. I wanted to go up here to take some photographs for my eldest. It’s one hell of a drive up here and only for the confident drivers, which Mr F is, while I hovered somewhere between the gearstick and the footwell, jumping frequently.

The Roque de Los Muchachos is the location of the Observatory of the same name. It is the location of the largest optical infrared telescope in the world and the centre for astrophysics in the northern hemisphere of the world. There are another 20 more huge telescopes here. You can have a good wander around them and you can actually apply for a visit if you have a particular interest, but the visits are very detailed and designed for astrophysicists so it would have been a waste of someone’s time showing me around, I would not have understood a word of what they were talking about, but I know it’s on my eldest’s bucket list.

It is still worth visiting though. You feel like you have stepped onto the set of a Star Wars movie and I had a special motive to be here. My eldest is an astrophysicist, and for his placement year he applied to come here for one whole year, in this barren landscape, doing astrophysical research. He got through to the final interviews and missed out, he was absolutely gutted. But I’d promised him I would get some photographs for him and some information.

I have to be honest with you, there is no way I could spend a year here! I would feel so isolated stuck up here with a bunch of scientists. But I guess we are all different and if that’s what floats your boat then so be it, but you are miles away from ice cream, cake and vino up here so it’s not for me. 😂

We arrived back on the east coast and decided to ease our achy legs (well mine anyway, because the bionic man does not appear to get achy legs) in the natural swimming pools at Charco Azul. These are lovely and are a safe way to swim in quite rough sea. They are pools formed with volcanic rock, creating a barrier from the sea. It was just the perfect amount of ‘rough’. The sound was gorgeous and the waves crashed over the top, creating an effect like a wave pool and a jacuzzi.

I can swim but I’m not the strongest so I thought I’d send Mr F in first, see if he survived without drowning, and then I’d maybe take a dip.😆

It looked gorgeous and I decided my little legs would thank me for it so in I got. I had a little splash around, listed to the roar of the sea and got thrown around a bit in the waves. It all ended when a rather large wave came over the top. That wasn’t a problem in itself, but it brought with it the hugest red crab with the most massive claws which decided it was going to swim alongside me and brush itself against my leg! So that was it for me……………I’m Ok swimming in the sea until I see a sea creature or feel something brush along my leg or foot, then it’s game over for me! But it was nice while it lasted.

Day 7 and unfortunately my final day on this beautiful island. The flight was not until 9:30pm that evening so we did have a full day.

I didn’t want to get too hot and sweaty so found a nice short walk exploring the area on the hillside just outside the capital of Santa Cruz. It was called the Ruta de Los Molinos………………..or the water mill route.

It’s sets off from the Plaza de Espana, which was gloriously bedecked in fresh red and white flowers for Easter.

It winds up the hillside through the agricultural back gardens and pretty squares until you reach the Mirador de la Concepcion where you have the most spectacular view of Santa Cruz and the port below.

You can take a little d-tour to the Real Santuario de Nuestra Señora de las Nieves. It’s a nice little church with a square and café. The church was the most beautiful I’d seen on the island from the inside……………….the smell of Easter flowers was beautiful and everything was gleaming.

On the way back down the hillside is when you pass the 5 water mills that the route is named after. It is here where they first experimented with producing energy using natural resources on the island by using the water tumbling down the barranco to power the mills.

It’s a really interesting little walk which allows you to see a bit of the agricultural life just outside the city as you walk past and through the land and gardens of the residents of the hillside.

Just enough time left for little wander around the capital, admire the street art, have some tapas and wine to round off a perfect little week of adventure.

So the verdict……………………………………..La Palma………………………………..if you like the sound of it then you must go! It’s gorgeous. I’ll definitely be back, I’ve only done 5 walks out of my 38 walk walking book! Lots more to explore! And if you discount the flight cost and have the flexibility to come via a cheaper method this one can really be done on a budget.

The book read of the holiday, if you are a book reader, was “The Lost Bookshop” by Evie Woods. I love a bit of far fetched fiction, I love books and I love a little love story. This one takes you on a journey through your imagination……………it’s for all the dreamers out there. I loved it……………..a nice easy read which I did not want to put down.

I’m back at work now, slaving away and working really hard. But that’s not a bad thing, I really do enjoy my work and my colleagues. And it’s my job and working hard that enables me to go on my little adventures. “Work hard……….play hard”, as they say. One week in Mr F’s company was enough……………..I’m not fit enough for any longer! 😂

I have a couple of big runs planned over the next few weeks but am struggling a bit with a niggly knee at the moment so we’ll see. Old age! 😂

The next trip away is at the end of May when I shall be having my relaxing week on a Greek island……………….this time the cosmopolitan little island of Skiathos with its lush pine forests, crystal clear azure blue waters and 68 sandy beaches to choose from……………………………..and no exercise other than a spot of yoga and swimming…………and no trying to keep up with Mr F. I like a bit of variety on my trips, I’m not all adventure believe it or not. There’s usually not much to report on this annual holiday as it is my one week where I go to a nice hotel, get looked after, read lots, move very little and RELAX, but I shall share a few details nevertheless on my return.

Then there will be one very busy half term until my usual month and a half summer in Spain where I have a bit of all sorts planned and you don’t hear from me for a couple of months as I take a long break from school.

So, enjoy the tales of La Palma and I’ll be back soon with a few tales of adventures closer to home and possibly a Greek adventure if I have time to write about it before summer. Otherwise I’ll update you on Greece in September after my usual summer hiatus! I’m thinking that maybe I’m in the wrong job………….I maybe should hire myself out as a holiday planner and guide! Bookings and suggestions being taken for 2026! 😂

Happy, Happy Easter from gloriously sunny Yorkshire! Time to get the bright clothes out and have some fun!

I know Easter is nearly over……………..I’m a bit late with my best wishes……………..but better late than never. Just like the Pope I have some words of wisdom for you………………….you can always rely on me for these!😂 My Easter message is:

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”” – Hunter S. Thompson

So that’s what I’ve been trying to uphold. I’m fresh back from an amazing week long adventure abroad on a very delayed flight which saw me get home at 5am on Friday morning so I’m a little bit tired. I’ll tell you all about that when I’ve had chance to sort all my photographs and tales over the next few weeks.

But this morning I’ve been on a little Yorkshire adventure because I’ve done something a little bit silly so I thought I’d share some lovely photos from home and tell you what I’ve done.

I got home from holiday to a house full of men. Both boys home, along with friends from their University days who have come to stay for 4 days. Of course they did not announce this before arriving (why would they!?🤣) Now don’t get me wrong, I love a a house full of their friends, but it’s been a bit of a hectic house full of testosterone. Far too many male hormones, so today I’ve escaped them for a few hours and they’ve had to look after themselves!

It just so happens that while I was on holiday I got a notification from a friend about a local race in two weeks time called the ‘Cake Race’. Well, as you can imagine my eyes lit up because I have eyes bigger than my belly don’t I? Especially where cake is involved.

It is a fantastic concept! The advert said £10 entry, reduced to £5 if you bring a home baked cake, and EAT AS MUCH CAKE AS YOU CAN AT THE END!!!!!!!! I didn’t even get to the end of the advert……………..I entered and pledged a cake! Now I’m not going to lie to you…………the clue is in the race name, and I have entered this race entirely for the eat as much as you can cake…………….no other reason whatsoever.🤣I’ve just got to get to the end and finish.

After clicking the payment button I thought…………………………hmmm…………………….maybe I ought to look at some details as to how far it is. Well, panic not……………it’s a 10 mile / 16.1km fell race with 500 metres of ascent………………..it’s just about doable with my dodgy knee. So today I thought I’d escape the men and go on a route recce on the moors on my own.

It was bliss. This is a gorgeous route. Enjoy the pictures of glorious Yorkshire on a sunny day. However, there is a lot of up and an awful lot of steps……………………too many steps for my liking up and down the many reservoir dam heads and paved flagged stairs onto the moor. It took me a long time…………………2 hours and 10 minutes. Not ideal.

I’ve had a look at last year’s results and I’m a little perplexed…………………….this is a very serious race……………….it looks like people may not have entered for the cake like me………………….it’s a very young and fast competitive field of athletes! The organisers have no idea how much cake I can eat after 10 miles. However, today’s performance last year would have put me in 170th place out of 200. So I’m starting to worry that there might not be that much cake left by the time I get back! 🤣 What a disaster that would be!

I have a plan though! I may have just talked a fast friend from running club into entering the race too. They will be at least 40 minutes in front of me. How wrong would it be to give them my cake shopping list prior to the start gun and getting them to save my cake wishlist for my return? 🤭 I’m sort of thinking that that would be quite acceptable.

I’m sure on the day I’ll be a little quicker as knowing there is cake at the end I’m sure I’ll find a little spurt in my step. When the going gets tough and my knee hurts I find that chanting something over and over again can help take my mind off things. Try it, it can be anything! If my knee hurts a lot sometimes it’s a swear word so I have to chant it sliently in my head. 😂 Today it wasn’t too bad and I have made the discovery that chanting “Victoria Sponge” worked perfectly. I don’t know whether it’s the number of syllables at 5 or what………….my cadence was maintained at a nice smooth 175 per minute. “Chocolate Cake” and “Lemon Drizzle” did not work quite as well.

So if you spot someone running up and down for 10 miles over Wessenden and Marsden Moors two weeks today chanting “Victoria Sponge” it will be me!

I’m having a pretty restful Easter Monday after today’s escapade……………………..I’ve had a little trip to the garden centre yesterday. Always a mistake as I can’t resist plants. I don’t have room for any more but I bought them anyway so tomorrow I have to dig a small amount of my lawn up to make my perennial border wider so I can fit the plants in! 😂 Where there’s a will there’s a way.

But this evening I am eating Easter Cornflake and Chocolate Nests with Cadbury Mini Eggs that I’ve rustled up for the guests. I’m eating as many as I like because if you are going to do a race recce properly you have to do it ‘exactly’ as it will be on the day. The deal was…………………run 10 miles and eat as much cake as you want. I’ve run 10 miles so here goes!🤣😍😍

Happy Easter!

I’ve been a little quiet……………I know! And usually when I’m quiet that means I’m up to something, or I’m getting into trouble! Or BOTH! 😆

All is well, I’ve just been a very busy little bee! I’ve been working hard, and when I’ve not been working I’ve been having little mini adventures and spending time with friends and gardening. It’s that lovely time of year when those little bulbs you forgot you planted in October make an appearance to remind you of a gardening afternoon well spent in Autumn and the marvels of mother nature.

I’ve been getting out in the Spring sunshine as we’ve had quite a lot of it……………….and I’ve had a birthday……………one more year makes me 54! One year older and one year wiser! 😂

I’ve broken up for the 2 week Easter holidays this last weekend, and of course I have a little adventure planned for just one week…………get me out of here!! I have a good feeling about this one, so sit tight…………more adventure tales from abroad coming your way in a few weeks.

But mainly over the last few weeks I’ve been ‘Hyggeing’ my life and my space, because I needed to, much to everyone else’s annoyance! I’ve had lots of time to think and reflect, both on my little trip to Copenhagen and afterwards, and we all know I like to think. And I’ve been thinking about happiness and happy spaces and adding some Hygge to my life. Because the world is a funny old place at the moment and it could make you quite sad. But whilst the news makes me feel a twinge of sadness, and probably anxious too………………..I’m generally quite happy and positive, but so many people aren’t. So here’s a couple of tips about my thoughts on happiness which you can take or leave.

About this Hygge then! I’ve been uncluttering my home, and got myself into a heap of trouble. I’ve done this partly because clutter drives me nuts and partly because I’m planning on retiring and spending less time here in the UK and I just needed a good old sort out! I like minimal, calm, uncluttered spaces……………….the trouble is that everyone else is a bit of a hoarder. I’m also a bit of a doer, not a procrastinator, so I’ve uncluttered everyone else’s space for them too! 🤣

I’d been reading a book about Hygge after my Copenhagen trip, and came across another book about the ‘Art of Swedish Death Cleaning’. Panic not, I’m not planning on going anywhere just yet, but you never know do you! It was quite an interesting read about cleansing your life of all that crap you hold onto and decluttering……………and the nice happy feeling you have when you’ve done it. I can only liken it to that feeling I get when I’ve cleaned the bathrooms! 😍 Or is that just me! 🤭

I was going to Hygge the bedroom first, followed by the office/study and then move onto my big boy’s room now he’s moved out………………….and I wasn’t doing it in one month, two months, or three…………….I was doing it immediately! Which is very like me…………..idea, followed very quickly by action, and plan as you go! And this is where it can go a bit wrong. I saw a perfect window of opportunity! The youngest and Dad off skiing for a week, followed by the eldest and Dad on a mountaineering and ice climbing course for a week…………………that equates to two perfect weeks to get creative, busy and de-clutter……………..hence only the time for mini adventures, because I also had t fit in a full time job!

I’d already bought some gorgeous fabric………………….all hand embroidered, neutral oatmeal coloured, with pretty ferns to bring a soft, calm and natural feeling to the bedroom………………all ‘hygge’. So out came my sewing machine and I got to work on two pairs of curtains and a roman blind for the bedroom.

I really enjoyed making these as I love creating and interior design. I’m a bit of a perfectionist though and the blind drove me crazy. I like the gap around the edge of the blind to be even all the way around the edge (the perfectionist in me)……………….and it’s only when you are making a roman blind that you realise your windows are not quite as square as you thought they were! 😂

There was a bit of swearing, readjusting and getting up and down stepladders but I got there eventually…………………but it did take quite a lot of after work and weekend stitching, as I like all my hems and seams to be hand stitched on the reverse, not machine stitched, as I don’t like to see machine stitching on the right side of the fabric. Anyway they are finished now and I’m quite pleased with them!

I framed my linocut print which I made the other month and put it up on the wall!

And I re-potted some of my orchids and purchased a couple more plants. I love, love, love plants. In fact I had a little giggle to myself when Copenhagen Mette wrote a review of me on Airbnb as this reviewing thing works both ways now. I love a plant, and while staying at Mette’s I thought I’d take care of the plants too! Which did not go un-noticed!🤣

I took the old curtains and bedding to the charity shop and purchased some lovely pink linen bedding and a lovely green velvet bedspread. Final touch was a sheepskin cushion and a little sheepskin rug for the side of the bed. These wooden floors are ok but I do like to step out of bed onto something warm, soft and fluffy in a morning so this little rug does the trick perfectly on the ‘hygge’ front.

Lighting is important too………………so I added some nice bedside lighting, and a gorgeous hand woven rattan light shade hand made in Bali. This makes a really nice pattern on the ceiling when it’s lit.

The only problem is that at this point no-one else has any idea what I’m doing. I’d saved up my pennies over a few months to make my purchases but because I’d exhausted my little home improvement budget it did not stretch to an electrician. “No problem”, I thought! I’ll just watch a video on You Tube, I know where the fuse box is………….I’m sure I can change and rewire a couple of light fittings myself!😦Now this is where my able assistant comes in………………………..Brian Bucket!

Now Brian Bucket is my amazing 85 year old Dad! Who, on learning that his only child is going to tamper with the household electrics was not too happy! The fortunate thing is Brian Bucket is very handy…………………he was a maintenance engineer for the National Health Service (NHS) for many years. Everyone in the NHS knows him as ‘Brian Bucket’, they gave him that title………………..and that is because wherever Brian went………….the bucket went too! Brian has no time for modern fancy tool bags from the big brands which weigh too much and mean you have to carry all your tools everywhere! In Brian’s opinion, they are completely unnecessary, you just take the tools you need for the job in your trusty bucket!😆

So he said, “Stop right there! Don’t touch anything! I’m coming to supervise!” Now I adore my Dad! He retired 20 years ago but he still misses work, his colleagues and just the feeling of being useful and helping. So there he was, one hour later, dressed for the occasion in his NHS uniform 😂😍 which he still dons at any available opportunity, even though it’s now a bit threadbare, with his trusty bucket in hand! ❤️

The deal was he was going to sit, drink tea, eat biscuits and impart his wisdom and I was going to do the climbing up the ladders and do the doing. I only had to shout at him a couple of times when I caught him half way up the ladder (he can’t help himself), but all in all we were a super team and I am very pleased with my decluttered, hygged bedroom and new light fittings!

Whist looking for bedroom lighting, I spotted a big orange and beige drum shade to add a pop of colour to the sitting room………..a bargain…………………..”Oh that will look perfect with my Moroccan rug”, I thought. So that found a new home too and that was the next little bit of lighting DIY done.

Next room ……………………. the big boy’s room. He’s been gone 5 years now and it was still a shrine to all things Alex, hot chicks and gaming. The curtains had gone with him and it was looking tired and untidy. He has no plans to come back so with his permission that’s had a little spruce up too. It’s now a guest room, but also his room when he comes home to visit……………………….so I could not go too pink and floral in here.

I found some fabulous fabric for curtains and it was so cheap! So another pair of curtains were made, another plant purchased, a nice rug, some lights, cushions, the bedding I managed to get in my rucksack from Copenhagen and I am all hygged in here too…………….even retaining space for his precious guitars!

Last but not least the office/study! Which is where I came unstuck! 😂 We all have that one room where the hoarders of the house cram those things that might come in useful at some future, undetermined date! And this is the room! It had some old pine furniture in there, an old book case, rickety computer desk and loads of what I would term ‘crap’! I decided the best thing was to empty the entire room into the family bathroom that no-one really uses, as they use the en-suite. From there I could sort it out. It’s not until you start emptying a room like this that you realise just how much ‘crap’ it’s been possible to get in one room and what a big job it’s going to be. A few trips to the British Heart Foundation Charity shop and I did not seem to have made much headway.

I’d sort of run out of time and the main house bathroom looked like this on their return!🤣🤣 To say I was in trouble was understatement of the year! I promised It would be sorted by the weekend.

So I had a little trip to IKEA, which we all know is my favourite shop…………………I’m being sarcastic……………….I get lost and can’t find all the ‘bits’ I need. Anyway…….floor to ceiling storage units were purchased…………….the less said about the self assembly the better!😂🤭

Piles and piles of ‘crap’ have gone to the charity shop, to friends or in the bin! Everything is all nice and tidy and ‘hidden’ in my new white, glossy units and I have much, much less than I had before. The computer is on a nice little desk, I’ve welcomed another fluffy sheepskin rug, and into my life I brought ‘Roger’, the rubber plant, who looks very happy in his pink pot in the office.

So that’s why I’ve been quiet! I’ve been busy! I’ve got this Hygge and Swedish death cleaning down to a fine art. I’m all decluttered upstairs and it does make you feel so much calmer, happier and with a smug sense of achievement! But I’ve been banned from starting the downstairs just yet! But watch this space………………………I just need a small window of opportunity to open up and a few more months to squirrel away some savings and secret bargain purchases!🤭

So about this ‘happiness’ then! I’ve been thinking a little bit about this. Why are so many people in the Western world so unhappy? And what makes you happy! I find it quite sad and alarming that a lot of the younger generation are so sad and not happy. One of my own has his ups and downs and I’m always ready to catch him when he falls, so I’ve been thinking about it. I’m not saying you have to be happy all the time, I’m not happy all the time, I don’t think anyone is, and sometimes it’s medical, like in his case, and I get that and understand it. I’m just talking here about general every day happiness for everyone.

There’s that age old saying isn’t there that “Less is More”…………………..and in a way that’s so true. After decluttering I have so much less than I had before…………but I’m happier. Life is a lot less cluttered.

I sort of decided that it might be because we live in a world where everything can be bought, or at least people think it can, and the focus is on ‘more’ not ‘less’. In a world of social media everyone is comparing themselves to the ‘ideal’ ………………… whatever that is…………………….and often these ‘ideals’ are unrealistic, unattainable ideals, and then people feel sad when they can’t achieve them.

However, happiness comes from within, it can’t be bought………………….and I think it’s only when you get older and wiser that you realise this.

And there are so many women in particular………………..partly due to social media, TV, and advertising, who are not happy with how they look and don’t think they are enough as they are. I’m fortunate to have been brought up to always believe I’m enough. If someone doesn’t think you are enough, then how they act towards you is more likely to be a reflection of themselves and not of you. Remember that! Mum was laughing the other day. There was a feature on the radio and people were phoning in to reveal the best piece of advice their mother ever gave to them. Mum said to me, “What is the best piece of advice I’ve ever given you?” She thought it was hilariously funny when I said “Don’t ever pluck your eyebrows!” 😂 But I was being serious.

I was always terrified of plucking them as she told me they would grow big and bushy if I did!🤣 But now I’m so glad I didn’t. They are a sort of natural colour which matches my hair, neither fat nor thin, natural shaped and I made friends with my eyebrows many years ago.

So many people now feel the need to do things cosmetically, either eyebrows, inject things into their face, or other parts of their body, for wrinkles, etc. etc. the list is endless. And that’s fine if you are doing it for you! It’s also fine if it makes you you happy! But not if you are doing it to try and achieve an unachievable, unsustainable ideal, to please someone else, or if it does not make you happy………………………because surprise, surprise……………….beauty comes from within and you are enough as you are.

Take for instance this picture of me below which I have no issues posting! It’s not my greatest! 😆How many times have you looked at a photograph of yourself and pulled it apart. Well don’t!! You know that gorgeous sunrise or sunset you took a photograph of that just didn’t look the same as it did in real life……………….well that’s because things are always so much more beautiful in real life, including you! Because beauty is not about how you look, it comes from inside, it’s about your smile, your wrinkles, your bushy eyebrows, your personality………………..not just what you see on the photograph…………that’s just an image.

So this a photograph of the working me, at work after a reasonably stressful day. You can see my 54 year old, unplucked eyebrows. 😆 When you get to 54 you are more bothered about the hairs growing out of your chin than your eyebrows, believe me! Which by the way, I will allow you to pluck! The body at 54 is an amazing thing and each week I look forward with eager anticipation to see what I am going to grow and sprout next and from where!😂

I have white bits all over my black jacket…………….that’s because I have just had a tussle and altercation with an overfull shredding machine in the server room. My hair is curly, unruly and all over the place. It has a life of its own and is different every day, there’s not a lot I can do about it! I’ve not got much make-up on because unless I’m out on the razzle dazzle I can take it or leave it, you get me as I am! Yes, I like lipstick and a bit of mascara, but a bit of mascara is all you will see on this photograph. When I do put my makeup on, it takes me all of 5 minutes to apply it, I’m definitely in the less is more camp on this front! But deep down I am a bit of a girlie girl, absolutely! I love to get dressed up, I do own lovely dresses, but I like playing out in my playing out clothes equally as much.

If you zoom in I have wrinkles! Particularly around my eyes……………………but I’m quite happy with them. I have no intention of injecting Botox or fillers into my face as every line tells a story of my life and a different adventure ………………….. and my face also allows me to smile my smile, scowl, wrinkle my forehead in disapproval, show my excitement or otherwise. I have one of those very expressive faces…………………..you know exactly what I’m thinking……………I feel everything and my face says it all! Anyone who has ever met me will tell you that, you get it exactly as it is, you’ll never have to second guess my thoughts!😂

So that’s me…………….barefaced, no filter, wrinkles, eyebrows, covered in shredding paper and happy that I’m enough.

So my little tip to you is less is more…………………..declutter……………….and remember that you are enough and real beauty and happiness comes from within………………it can’t be bought.

Just a couple of days now until I leave on my little adventure, so that has given me just enough time to have a good old catch up with my boys over the last couple of days. My little mini-me works shifts, so despite the fact he lives at home, I don’t see him that often. Yesterday he had a day off and the sun was shining so I dragged him up a local mountain, Kinder Scout, for some fresh air! It was hard work getting him up! 😂 But we put the world to rights and I proved to him that cheese and pickle sandwiches on sourdough taste much better at the top of a mountain.

Then on Sunday I went to see my big boy. He’s a three hour drive away……….but sometimes you just need to invite yourself and make that drive. He’s been working so very, very hard over the last few months and I’ve not seen him really. He’s not the greatest communicator. They tell you they are ok but as a Mum sometimes you can tell they are bit tired and under the weather, and those one word affirmations are not enough. You feel the need to visit, see them in the flesh, give them a big hug, feed them, take them a little food parcel and make sure they are definitely ok.

So 6 hours was spent driving there and back in the car to see him for 3 hours………………but it was worth it…………..he got fed, we had a good catch up, and I got to give lots of hugs and give him that once over inspection that only a Mum can give! 😆

There is just one more exciting discovery I need to tell you about before I go! Whilst shopping for the aforementioned little food parcel I discovered this!

OMG!!!!! I cannot tell you how good this is. Britain’s favourite posh food store has brought out a new chocolate bar. Dark chocolate is my favourite chocolate and I love nuts! So imagine chunky, melt in the mouth, dark chocolate with no shortage of hazelnuts, almonds and pistachios all through the chocolate. It is divine.😍 Now, ignore the 3 red warnings on the front for fat, saturated fat and sugar……………….it’s green for salt which I’m taking as a positive! And it’s almost Easter when you can eat as much chocolate as you want and it does not count!

So that’s been the last few weeks………………….normal adventures will resume shortly and be reported on in due course!😂

But for now I’ve worn myself out decluttering so this weekend I’m just doing a triathlon!🤣🤣

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Poem by George Byron (Lord Byron)

And there was pleasure in the pathless woods……………………..and a whole load of pain too! 🤣🤣🤣

So this poem…………………one of my favourites by the British poet George Byron (1788 – 1824). I like it because for me it rings true, I can relate to it. At the moment while all the world is in turmoil, things challenge us, we lose loved ones, have a nightmare day at work, fall out with our other half……………no matter what card life deals us, on any particular day, there will always be pleasure in the pathless woods. And it’s important to remember that and remember all those people that love us who are always sending a virtual squeeze.

The poem can mean anything you want it to. It’s an ode to solitude. It’s an ode to nature. It’s not saying you don’t love people…………I love people………but I perhaps love nature equally…….and animals too! But to me it’s saying that you don’t have to be a follower and do what everyone else is doing. There is pleasure in the ‘pathless’ woods, meaning those where you wander, plough your own path, do your own thing, travel the path that no-one else or very few do. Do what makes you happy!

So this weekend I’ve been playing out, in nature, off the path, because goodness did I need it after reading the news every day………..which I’m trying not to do because it upsets me! And I’ve found great pleasure……………………and also a huge amount of pain. 😆 But I am so very, very proud of me and I’ll explain why!

You may remember that for Christmas I got the very unwelcome present of a Eryri 25km race entry. 🤣 Well I hadn’t, and still haven’t, decided if I’m running it as I have a bit of imposter syndrome………………I think it’s way out of my league. So Mr Fitness has been going on and on for weeks and weeks, trying to find out if I’m doing it or whether he’s wasted his money!😆 We sort of reached an agreement when we saw yesterday’s weather forecast that we would drive to Wales and have a little recce.

Now this race is 16.5 miles (26 and a bit km) long. It does not sound a lot, but it goes to the summit of the highest mountain in Wales and England…………………Snowdon (or Yr Wddfa in Welsh). Snowdon is in Snowdonia (Eryri in Welsh) which translates roughly as ‘land of the eagles’. If you like your mountains it’s a stunningly beautiful area, but there’s no easy way up, even the easy way is not easy! The summit is miles and miles from the closest road. As a UK citizen, Wales also happens to be one of the very few places I can get into without having to wait for hours in an immigration queue post Brexit. 😂 But don’t get me started on that one!

So the challenge of this race is to run all the way to the summit of mount Snowdon from the bottom, up the easy path that’s not easy! It’s well over 1,000 metres high. You then have to run all the way down the Rhyd Ddu path, which is nothing short of a rocky ridge without much of a path. You end up on the opposite side of the mountain to which you began and then have to run up and down all around the bottom of the mountain, through bogs and disused slate mines, through a mountain pass, all the way back to Llanberis where you started.

I didn’t really want to go……………….but I was persuaded that it would be an excellent idea. Mr F said it would give me chance to check my pack, poles, clothing, equipment, nutrition……………………it was a much longer list than that but I switched off half way through the list. 😆

I’ll tell you a little bit about how it went but this post is really just to share some photographs of beautiful Snowdon (Yr Wddfa), in case you’ve never walked up it…………………just to prove there is pleasure in the pathless woods in this world of doom and gloom.

It’s only 2.5 hours from home, but wanting to make an early start and be on the mountain for 9 am we went down the night before and stayed in an annexe of a Welsh stone cottage. It was cheap and cheerful. It was a bit like a Youth Hostel but a lot nicer………….three rooms (two of which were occupied) sharing a bathroom, kitchen and living space with an help yourself breakfast. We were only there to sleep and have breakfast so it was fine, I’d use it again.

Mr F had already pre-warned me that he would be doing lots of ‘coaching’! ………….And we all know how I love being coached. 😂I promised to listen, not have a tantrum, but we agreed that he had to listen to me too! Now, I know I moan about him and his coaching, but I would not be the runner I am without his coaching! He has lots and lots of experience and knows an awful lot, so as much as I can be a madam……….I am also very grateful, once my tantrum has passed!😂

So after the first argument, which was about whether I needed to carry a lipstick for 16.5 miles in my pack (I lost the argument)………….we set off minus the lipstick. We also had a little argument about what we were doing. Mr F said half the route was enough for me, and then he’d run on, get the car and come and collect me. However, I naively declared I was running the full 25k route! 😆 My argument was this would possibly be my only recce so I wanted to see it all, in order to decide whether it was doable. He reluctantly agreed but told me I must say if I changed my mind as he did not think it was doable for me at this stage in my training.

It was a glorious route. The so called ‘easy’ Llanberis path up the mountain was made not so easy by the presence of a cap of snow and ice on the mountain, not so bad that the crampons had to come out, but bad enough to make me a little uneasy, and over cautious, on the edges.

It was a bright blue sky day and the navigation, which he was leaving up to me as I’ll be unassisted in May, was relatively easy. I power walked the steep bits and ran the sections that I could run extremely slowly. He did keep interjecting on my posture, reminding me when to eat, telling me to slow down, reminding me when I might need my windproof jacket……………………..but all in all I think I was a really well behaved student! 😆 We reached the top in just short of 2 hours which I felt really pleased with.

We crested the summit and started our descent which is when the fun began a little bit for me. There is no clear path as such in some places on the Rhyd Ddu descent. There is lots of loose slate, quite a bit of rocky scrambling, a ridge with a steep drop off and lots of things that really I’m not too keen on. I tried to just focus on putting one foot in front of the other, not look down and tried my best not to trip, fall down or stumble. There were lots of shouts of encouragement from walkers, and although my quads were starting to burn I was still feeling positive.

The bottom of the Rhyd Ddu path was reached after a total of just less than 3.5 hours of running.

The next bit was really tricky from a motivation point of view. There are still 7 miles to go at this point but you are very, very tired after having run up and down the highest mountain in England and Wales. The final section of the race is very up and down with another 400m of climb to the end. In order to get to the mountain pass where the descent into Llanberis starts you have pathless fields of bog and disused slate mines………………….it is really energy sapping and is really hard to keep going. Mr F can sense when I’m loosing my motivation and he was trying to say all the right things but I was starting to get tetchy.

We reached the mountain pass and started the descent which is a 3.5 mile slate track, off the mountain, and into the town. The final 300 metres of descent before the main road is so steep, and my legs, hips and back were screaming at me. About half a mile from the end I could feel the tears welling up inside me, I just wanted it to be over. I held it all together and just kept trotting it out until we reached the start point when surprise, surprise..I cried like a baby. Mr F, full of surprise, could not quite work out what was wrong with me and I don’t really know myself. I think it was relief I’d done it, pain, adrenaline…………….the whole lot………it just hit me like a wall. So I sat on a wall and had a good cry and then I heard him utter the word ice cream.

Now just like a small child, bawling it’s eyes out………..somehow, at 54 years old the word ‘ice-cream’ can still solve most of my upsets!😂 So I had my ice cream and off we went to the café for my de-brief. This is the bit I hate …………………… he’s obsessed with stats! I sit there not taking it seriously and he is peering at his phone reeling off all my data and what I need to work on.

Anyway, the summary is I need to work on my descending, particularly my posture. Apparently my ascending is fine but I lose time on over cautious descents. He did actually point out that on the way up, which was very busy with runners and walkers, not one person passed me.

I”ve got a bit of imposter syndrome because this is a UTMB race with a cut off at the bottom of Snowdon, and again at the race finish. It’s 3.5 hours to the bottom of Snowdon and 5.5 hours to the end. It does not matter whether you are 18 or 54, male or female, world famous or the girl from Yorkshire who plays at running…………..the cut off is the same. All I wanted to know is how far out I was and how much work I need to do if I decide to go for it.

Beaming widely, for the first time ever, Mr F said “You did amazing……………be proud of yourself!” Now he might just be saying that so as not to waste his £100 race entry fee and use it as a psychological lever to get me to press on and turn up on the day. The conditions were perfect, and there is always the possibility they may not be in May………………poor visibility or a wet surface would make it a lot harder. However, I managed to finish, still running, 5 hours and 20 minutes later and was just 10 minutes inside what would have been the cut off at the bottom of Snowdon. I was consistently slow. 😂But I was consistent and just inside the cut off with 2 months of training to go.

So I’m feeling quite proud of me and wondering whether I should just go for it. I won’t do another road marathon again………….I don’t like road running, I don’t like racing, and I know I can do one………..so there’s not really a challenge. But there is something quite motivational for me in entering something that I know I might not be able to finish within a tight cutoff………….my first DNF! How far do you know you can go if you don’t push yourself to the limit?!

So there you are…………….Mount Snowdon…………………and a few pictures of me trotting around it courtesy of Mr F. The downside was everyone had to get their own dinner ready! I got home, had a shower and just thought I’d have a little lie down and a ‘Nana nap’, on a towel, with my wet hair, on my bed. My ‘Nana nap’ lasted 14 hours until 9am this morning and after discovering me one hour into it they very kindly let me be! And today Snowdon would not be an option……….the house stairs are enough of a challenge!😆

So, do I, don’t I? That’s the question! I think quite possibly I do……. I’m 60% yes, 40% no. Who knows! Anyway, enjoy the Snowdon pictures and just remember there is pleasure in the pathless woods even when the world is falling apart.

What an absolutely amazing city!

This was an amazing little trip away from home with my new bobble hat! Yes, Copenhagen in winter is so cold I thought I could quite possibly need a new bobble hat. 😆 So I welcomed the ‘Hat Mandu’ into my bobble hat family. This little beauty has been hand knitted in Nepal with 100% of the profits going back to the community there…………..that, I thought, gave me enough of an excuse and justification for its purchase!

I had a lovely little few days at home before I departed, and these had adventures too! Most unusually, I’ve been to the cinema a few times recently, and I have some good films to recommend……………..all different, but all good. I don’t really like going to the big commercial cinemas. I find it hard to sit still through a film as it is. In the UK we have small, locally owned, picture houses too, and I like to support those. They are really cute, art deco, historic buildings, usually with one of those big old fashioned red velvet curtains framing the screen. At my local one, ‘The Paramount’, we usually have a mid film interval where the curtain comes across, the film pauses for 20 minutes and the bar opens! 😍 So what did I see?

First up was ‘A Complete Unknown’ – the Bob Dylan story. I loved it! Possibly because I love music and I like Bob Dylan. I actually saw him live around 25 years ago with Van Morrison. It was great to see them live and Bob Dylan’s voice was unmistakable.

Next up ‘Vermiglio’ an Italian film nominated for best Oscar in the Best International Feature category. I went with a friend as a bit of homework for my Italian class, but don’t be put off by the fact it’s in Italian, there are English subtitles and the Ladin and Sicilian dialect is so strong even I had to have the odd look at them. The cinematography in this one is fantastic as it is set in the Italian Alps, in a small village during the war. It’s a film about the culture, the ripple effects of war, a love story, resilience and the struggle for a woman to find her place in such a patriarchal society. I saw this one at the lovely ‘Hyde Park Picture House’ in Leeds.

My final visit was to the Wetherby Cinema to see ‘Maria’. I almost did not go to this one as I had to go on my own but I was so glad I did. It was a midweek film in the school holidays and it was the story of Maria Callas, the opera singer. I’ve always sung since being small but none of my closest friends do and aren’t really into opera. Wetherby Cinema only seats 24 people on double seat sofas or armchairs. It was almost sold out, but they had one armchair on the front row, so I had to take that. There was a seat on a double seat sofa on the back row but I didn’t feel like snuggling up on a two seat sofa on the back row of the cinema with some random person I’d never met before. 😂 Now this film you will either love or hate, the reviews are split and there’s no in-between, it depends whether you like opera and a true love story. It is however a long time since I have sobbed uncontrollably through a film for the entire second half and still been upset when I got home. I think the last time was ‘Watership Down’ when the rabbits got run over on the railway line it’s that long ago.😆 I found it tragic and heart wrenching, but I loved it all the same. I’d read Maria’s story before, so knew of her love affair with Aristotle Onassis but Angelina Jolie’s portrayal of her was excellent and the finite details of their relationship, throughout his marriage to Jackie Kennedy Onasis (who he said he married just because ‘he had a free day’), until his death was so sad.

I’ve also had a couple of races. The most important one being Hoppits Hill race, a fell race. I loved this one, there’s nothing I like better than running through mud and cow shit on a Sunday morning.😂 I was all smiles at the start as I did not know what was to come, but the clue was sort of in the title. However, it was not quite true……………I thought that there was one hill as per the singular ‘Hill’ in the title, that’s why I’m still smiling at the top of it………..however, by the end of the third hill I was not smiling! I have suggested they amend the title to Hoppits Hills next year to avoid false advertising.🤭However, my efforts were rewarded with a bottle of wine for an age group placing and the race secured my spot as the running club Female Fell Running Champion for the second year running.

I’m bowing out now of the multi-discipline running though. The fast road running takes its toll on the joints and I don’t really enjoy it. I’m going to turn my attention to slower, longer, fell and trail running only this year…………………lots of mountains and maybe my first ultra, we’ll see. I want to be in the open, in the mountains, go slower and enjoy it.

So, onto Copenhagen, silver boots, orange rucksack……………..Copenhagen here I come! I wanted to choose a city off my bucket list which probably would not appeal to the rest of the family as I was going on my own……………and Copenhagen won. The boys and their Dad went to Italy skiing for a week while I was working. They did offer to go in my holidays and wanted me to go but the thing is, I am the Bridget Jones of skiing (if you’ve watched ‘Bridget Jones – The Edge of Reason’ you’ll know what I mean). 🤣 I’m full of enthusiasm and bravado and in my mind I’m world downhill and slalom champion all rolled into one! The reality is I’m a danger to everyone else and a liability to myself. I told them they’d have much more fun without having to wait for and rescue me all the time. I last went 6 years ago, and I only made it three days into the trip when I sprained my MCL and had to sit the remaining 4 days out in a cafe (which I obviously did not find difficult 😆), and I walked with a limp for 10 whole weeks. I am definitely safer at home, although they were lacking in the entertainment department with my absence apparently!

I almost did not make it to Copenhagen after having to rush my mini me to hospital, 10 hours before my flight, with tonsilitis (AGAIN!!!!!). This happens often when he burns the candle at both ends, parties like there is no tomorrow, no doubt kisses half the girls in the nightclub and does the things that we did when we were 21! Peter Pan is showing no signs of growing up…………he just never seems to learn and the pattern keeps repeating itself. Anyway, 4 IV drips and 6 hours later we were back home, he looked so much better, and he convinced me I should still go, so the care was handed over to Dad, and mini me promised he was going to behave for 4 whole days (which I’m sure was a challenge for him).

I made my train to the airport but I was so tired after my lost night’s sleep I actually tried to check in and get through security in the wrong terminal at Manchester! 😂Anyway I eventually made it to Copenhagen late in the afternoon and promptly went to bed. I thought, “Exploring can start tomorrow, I just need to rest and catch up on sleep!”

So why Copenhagen? Well……………Denmark is consistently voted ‘Happiest Country in Europe’, and Copenhagen the happiest city. I wanted to go somewhere ‘happy’ and see what it was all about. I thought, “How can one of the coldest and most expensive places in Europe be so happy, I hate being cold?” Well, it’s all down to ‘Hygge’. I’ve often heard the word ‘Hygge’ and thought “What is that?” Well, basically you wrap yourself up warm, in a blanket, grab a cosy hot drink, a book, your knitting or whatever, be present in the moment, and EAT CAKE! That’s it…………………that’s Hygge! That’s why they are so happy. It’s a mindset. They eat cake all day and sit around all snuggled up and read books. So I tried it………..and it works…………especially the cake part………….it makes you really happy and I was very good at it 😂. I am definitely going to continue to practice it now I am back at home.

No, seriously, Copenhagen has so much to offer in addition to Hygge. It has a great culture, amazing museums, pretty buildings, gorgeous parks, fabulous restaurants, bustling bars, fantastic shopping and a beautiful waterfront. The whole culture is based on: life in the slow lane; being at one with oneself and nature; the environment and being in harmony with it; sustainability; the community and belonging. And the art and design scene is just amazing here. I felt so safe here too………………..it’s the nature loving, art loving, cake loving, introverts paradise! So here goes………

If you are in the UK it’s a quick 1 hour 40 minute flight away, and another 30 minutes by train sees you right in the centre of the city. I bought a ‘Discover’ card for 4 days. It included entrance to as many museums as I wanted, all my transport including airport transfers, and a boat trip. I more than broke even but work out what you want to do first and see if it works for you.

It’s so easy to get around the city by metro, which is included in the pass, and the M3 line which circles the city, being opened only in 2019, means it is one of the cleanest, newest and most efficient metro systems in the world. It operates 24 hours a day and is a driverless system. You can even sit at the front and pretend to drive yourself with the little steering wheel sticker panel they’ve stuck there for children (I did not have a go 🤭). I didn’t use the metro an awful lot as I prefer to walk, and it’s a very walkable city with minimal traffic as 60% of the population commute by bike.

I stayed in an Airbnb apartment in a really cool urban area just outside the city called Vesterbro. It is one of the 10 areas of Copenhagen. At one time it was the red light district where the meat processing factories were located. It’s now been redeveloped and is a popular place for younger people and young families to live. It’s full of good independent shops, nice cafes, buzzing bars and some great restaurants, in addition to it’s fair share of green space and cool street art. All the housing is located in gorgeous old style apartment blocks. It’s a good area to stay if you want to sample the culture of the place as there aren’t many hotels or tourists, they tend to be in the area in the centre. Vesterbro is a 15 minute walk out of the centre, or 5 minutes on the metro.

The apartment was gorgeous…………….it was Hygge with a capital ‘H’. Probably because it was owned by Mette, a lovely lady a similar age to me who is from Copenhagen. She might just have had a midlife crisis like me as she has upped sticks and gone travelling and working in South America for a while, so she is letting her home out while she is away. I’ve never met the lady in person but staying in her home I think we would have got on great as it looks like we have a huge number of things in common. She’d left a little note to say make yourself at home and feel free to use anything you come across.

I felt immediately at home. It had a separate yoga space all equipped for my morning yoga and a lovely large kitchen with some fabulous cooking and baking books. The living room was gorgeous with comfy sofas, calming colours, lots of plants and lots of soft lighting and sheepskin rugs. There was a gorgeous box of blankets to wrap yourself up in and get cosy and I noticed she had a wool and craft bag at the side of the sofa. There was an amazing collection of art and travel books and she had left all her vintage dresses and shoes on display. It was like a museum to all things ‘Hygge’. She had such amazing taste in all things design related and it was a little space I could not wait to get back to and snuggle up in at night. The kitchen was so good I actually really enjoyed shopping in the market and cooking for myself on a couple of the evenings. I was so glad I’d chosen it over a hotel. I met a few of the other neighbours on the stairs and it felt like such a lovely community. They also had a lovely little roof space and a shared garden with children’s toys and BBQs and I would imagine in summer it’s buzzing with life and conviviality.

I had a lovely sleep in my very comfy bed and woke up on day one ready to explore. Light flooded into the apartment and I did my bit of yoga, had my morning coffee and wrapped myself in around 10 layers (including the ‘Hat Mandu’) to head off to the waterfront. It was very atmospheric. There was a faded pink light as the sun started to rise and light up the snow on the ground in the parks. I could not help but notice there were bikes everywhere and no-one locked their bike up. The streets were clean and uncluttered and it felt so calm and quiet compared to other capital cities I have visited. I was however, extremely cold, around minus 5, which I think immediately justified my bobble hat purchase!😆

I passed some fancy waterfront sculptures, old reclaimed warehouses turned into fancy restaurants, large boats, and eventually reached Nyhavn, which is probably the most photographed place in Copenhagen. Copenhagen is crisscrossed by canals and Nyhavn sits on the side of one of these. It has rows of 17th century, brightly coloured houses, bars, cafes and restaurants (which apparently are very expensive and of questionable quality) so I did not stop here for a drink. But you have to come for a look and a photograph as it’s really pretty. I met two lovely girls from Chicago here who were studying for a year in Florence Italy and were on their semester break travelling to Copenhagen and Amsterdam, so we did the usual taking of each other’s photos. They said that when they are 53 they hope they are still brave enough to explore on their own, and I said I wish I’d studied in Florence for a year when I was 20…………..so both inspirational to each other in different ways. They shared some stories of their travels and it sounded like they were having a fantastic time.

I headed along the waterfront, passing through an interesting sculpture which was also a walkway. Called ‘The Wave’ it was an immersive experience with laser lights moving around like waves and underwater sounds coming at you from all directions. It was really quite good. Then you pass a large replica of Michelangelo’s ‘David’ and some old mechanical cranes which looked quite atmospheric in the mist. Past At Albans Anglican church and the statue of Marie, Princess of Denmark, until I came to the statue which I was looking for which attracts quite an audience.

The statue is that of the Little Mermaid. It is based on the story of the same name which was written by Denmark’s most famous literary fairy-tale author Hans Christian Andersen. I was brought up with a compendium of Hans Christian Andersen fairy-tales and it is one of the earliest birthday presents I remember being given………………….the Little Mermaid, the Princess and the Pea, Thumbelina, The Snow Queen, The Emperor’s New Clothes……………they were all in there, so I was eager to see this statue. Lots of people state being underwhelmed by the statue because of its size……………..but I loved it. Yes, it’s not large but it’s to scale. It is of human size and proportion and with the mist on the water and the sun rising behind it I thought it was perfect.

So, what else is Denmark and Copenhagen famous for?………………………CAKE!!! Danish pastries to be precise and I’d already made it a priority in my pre-trip research to find the top 3 bakeries …………….. and guess what…………..one was close by, I’d walked a long way, and it was cake o’clock. The bakery in question was ‘Juno the Bakery’, supposedly Copenhagen’s finest, so I thought I’d better find out if that was true. It’s so well known it does not display a name on the outside, it does not need one, you’ll spot the queue. However in February the queue is not too long and it moves quite quickly.

The cakes looked amazing and there are so many to chose from. I could not decide between two so I bought both. 😂 I thought I’ll have one now and save one for later! I bought a Cardamom Bun, which Copenhagen is renowned for so you have to try one, and then I also bought a Blackcurrant Cream pastry, for no other reason than it looked nice and I have eyes bigger than my belly. 😆 The blackcurrant bun was devoured straight away (it was AMAZING!!!) and the Cardamom bun was taken away……………..well it lasted around 5 minutes in my bag before I could not resist the temptation and ate it as I walked. 🤭 A top tip though is that Juno don’t do coffee so if you want a coffee with your bun, nip to Prolog Coffee just around the corner, where they serve the most excellent take away coffee and take it with you to Juno as they have tables outside for you to enjoy your coffee and cake.

I then decided it was Palace time. Denmark have a Royal Family like we do in the UK, and there are various castles and palaces around the city. I chose to go to Amaliansborg Castle first of all. This is where handsome King Frederik X lives. He has only been King for a year, taking over from his mother Margrethe II who abdicated last year, after being Queen of Denmark for 52 years. So this is like the Buckingham Palace of Denmark as it is the official residence of the King.

I decided to walk there and on the way I got distracted by rows and rows of uniform, very old ochre coloured houses. These are apparently part of the Nyboder housing scheme, completed in 1758. Copenhagen was the main port of Denmark in the 16th and 17th century and also home of the Danish Navy. There are 600 houses in total dating back to this time They are still lived in now, and they were built by the state to house Navy personnel during the 18th century.

Just before Amaliansborg Castle you also stumble across Frederiks Church (also know as the Marble Church). It has a fancy green copper dome and despite its name it is not marble. It was inspired by, and its design based on St Peters Basilica in Rome. It’s very nice inside and worth a detour if you have time.

The Palace did not disappoint. I was expecting bling and I got it! First of all there’s a man on a horse outside and we all know how I love a man on a horse statue! 😆 It transpires that he is Frederik V.

Although the Palace itself is huge, the rooms that are open to the public only take around an hour to get around. You get to go in the State rooms, the very glitzy gala hall, and you see some fine pieces of jewellery, like the ‘Order of the Elephant’ which is a Danish order of chivalry and is Denmark’s highest-ranked honour. Like at Buckingham Palace there are the usual guards in little red pill boxes. I missed the changing of the guard, apparently it happens at midday but I guess if you are travelling with little ones this would be good to see.

The next place I visited I think was the highlight of my trip! The Danish Design Museum. OMG!! Go here!!! If you like design you will absolutely love it here as the Danish are the masters of design, particularly interior design. You thought a cup was just a cup didn’t you!? Well it’s not!! Someone has thought about the shape, the material, the texture, the feel, the look, the environmental impact and the function in order to design the perfect cup to enable your brew to infuse and taste the very best it can. Everything you touch and use has been designed and this colourful museum takes you through oodles of design history of simple everyday objects like the chair, cup, and the kitchen (the first kitchen was based on a scientific laboratory!).

Then there is a section on all things related to textile design and fashion design. This part of the museum is a fascinating exploration of design showcased in an explosion of colour and vibrancy……………AMAZING! Being into my interior textiles, sewing and making things I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED IT IN HERE!

I was only in my first day but I’d already fallen in love with the city. It’s a city that does not feel like a city. It’s not overwhelming, there is little traffic, clean air, smiley kind people and loads of green space. I’m not a fan of Paris or London, far too busy for me, but I could have lived in this City. Although 60% of the people commute by bike, no-one locks their bike! If you left your bike unlocked at home it would not be there for long!😆I walked past numerous schools in the City and they had no fences or gates, they were completely open to the public and when the break bell went all the children filed out and played in the park which was also open to the general public. At home a school is like a prison, we’ve gone mad on ‘Safeguarding’………….high metal fences, key codes and barriers to get in. If you want to take the kids out of school you have to do a risk assessment, a risk assessment of the risk assessment and another one after that to be on the safe side, if you get what I mean. The risk has been completely blown out of all proportion and the resulting actions are completely over the top…………………in my humble opinion all they do is project anxiety and fear onto children, resulting in half of them needing support with their mental health by the time they leave! It was so refreshing just to see children being allowed to be free and act and behave like children. They were half way up the trees in the park and all sorts, no risk assessment in sight! 🤭🤭

I’d then decided it was time to cross the river and go and have a look at Christianhavn which is its own little island. But on the way I got distracted by a chocolate shop! No surprises there then!😂 But not just any old chocolate shop………….that of Alida Marstrand. They’ve been handmaking chocolates here in this tiny basement since 1930. And they are so good at it they are the chocolate makers to King Frederik X. So I thought if they are good enough for him they will be good enough for my other half, so I bought a gorgeous little box of handmade chocolates for the one I’d left at home. It took me ages to choose which ones to put in the box……………………..and then of course I had 3 days left to go so I had to hide the prettily wrapped box in the apartment and try and forget I’d bought them……………….we all know what happened to the milkman’s Christmas chocolates!🤭They did in fact make it home and were confirmed as the best chocolates he’d ever had!

Anyway, I carried on over the river to Christianhavn and it’s here where I discovered ‘Freetown Christiana’, and I’d encourage you to take a look and not be put off by the descriptions or any preconceived ideas. It began as a newspaper prank in the 1970’s when a group of hippie revolutionists took over a piece of land that was an abandoned military camp over on Christianhavn. The Government allowed the squatters to stay as a social experiment…………….and they are still there! It is a self-contained commune which is self-governed and focused on tolerance, ecology and self sustainment. They do not have police or any intervention from the outside world. There are 700 adults and 150 children living in the commune. They live in all sorts of buildings, from falling down shacks, to shipping containers, and shelters that they’ve cobbled together from corrugated metal and wood. If you like graffiti and street art there is loads of it in here. Drugs are freely available here, it smells of cannabis everywhere and there seemed to be lots of men huddled around fires blazing in metal drums on the afternoon I had a wander around.

You are allowed to take photographs, but they ask you to try and not get people on them and you are advised not to take photographs on the main street where the drugs change hands, for obvious reasons they can get quite tetchy if you get your camera out here. You are also advised not to buy drugs here as although the police are not able to enter the area, they quite routinely search on the exit as drugs are illegal in the rest of Denmark. The residents earn a living through making and selling things in a multitude of craft shops and there are plenty of outlets in there selling street food, coffee and drinks. If you are a single female traveller it does feel a little intimidating and I made sure to stick close to other people so I did not look as though I was on my own and I got out just as it started to get dark. But no-one bothered or approached me and they really do welcome people to take a look at the social experiment which is their home. I am really glad I went inside for a little look.

On the way back over the river you pass ‘Our Saviours Church’. This one is really interesting as it has a 95 metre spiral tower, but the 398 head spinning steps are on the outside of the tower and you can go up them. They get so narrow at the top they virtually disappear. Did I go up…………………..NO!😂 But I read about it in the guidebook and took a photo from the ground.

Exhausted and having walked too far on my first day, I went to look for well needed dinner. I walked through the main town centre up Stroget street with all it’s posh shops………..Louis Vuitton, Prada, Illums Bolighus…………….past the high end shopping mall with all it’s colourful lanterns…………..looking for highly recommended Kristinedal Burgers, where a Bacon Cheeseburger was just what I needed!

By now it was cold, dark and I needed my bed, my hot chocolate, my book, thermal PJ’s and my fluffy Norwegian bedsocks I’d taken with me.😂 It was while I was reading that night and making plans for the next day that I discovered an article on the Danish birth rate and the worrying conclusion that the Government might have to intervene because at 1.5 children it is way lower than the European average of 2.3 children. Well, I’d been there one day and as an outsider looking in, I’d worked out a solution already……………turn the heating up! It is so cold here in winter…………….far too cold to take your clothes off! Daniel Craig could not have enticed me out of my thermal PJ’s and bedsocks without turning the heating up and it’s a physical impossibility to procreate wearing these. 🤭 I am not in the least bit surprised the birth rate is low! So it you come here in winter bring lots of layers, and if you are looking for romance………….come in summer!😂

Onto Day 2. First things first………..breakfast……..and bakery number 2. I had a little wander around the Vesterbro ‘Meatpacking District’ on the way.

These listed white buildings have been recently revitalised and the industrial area now has a trendy dining scene and a buzzing nightlife, alongside a few slaughterhouses which still operate from here.

Bakery number two was Hart bakery. Now in my opinion the Cardamom Bun here is slightly nicer than Juno’s, more well done, crispier and not as sweet. There are a number of Hart bakeries around the city but this one was in Carlsberg Byen. This is Copenhagen’s newest revitalised neighbourhood and very nice it is too.

Carlsberg Byen is all based around the original Copenhagen founded brewery of Carlsberg, founded by Carl Jacobsen in 1847. It’s a bit of old meets new……………..new apartment blocks built around the old brick buildings which showcase the wealth of the Jacobsen family, with numerous statues, follies and towers.

I left Hart full of Cardamom Bun and coffee to walk to the area of Norrebro, past the old Wulff Cigar Factory founded in 1868, another imposing building.

On the way I passed through Frederiksberg Park. It’s huge and it’s such a beautiful place! Acres and acres of woodland and park, water features, and also (if you have little ones) because it’s next to Copenhagen Zoo you get an excellent view over the elephant enclosure. Naturally, at minus 2 and with a blanket of snow there were no elephants outside today. But there were some lovely bright yellow winter aconites on display.

Through the other side of the park you eventually get to Norrebro, and this is another really lovely area of Copenhagen. It’s very cool and hip, with lots of street art and an excellent outdoor free climbing arch which my two would have loved when they were younger.

Norrebro is also home to Assistens Cemetery, which is what I’d come for. It’s a huge space but really lovely to wander around. It’s not just a cemetery. There were joggers in there, people pram pushing, it’s a cemetery that doubles up as a public park and it is here that is the final resting place of Hans Christian Andersen.

It had reached lunchtime and I’d been in Copenhagen for nearly 48 hours and not had 2 Danish staple food items……………Smorrebrod and pickled herring. I’d heard one of the best places to sample real proper Smorrebrod was a restaurant called Aamanns. Their main restaurant you have to book weeks in advance, but they have a couple of other locations in the city so I headed back to the one in Carlsberg Byen which has the same fabulous menu as the main one, focussing on Smorrebrod with fresh local ingredients. Smorrebrod, literally translates as butter bread. It’s an open faced sandwich of rye bread with various toppings. It can be hot or cold. They recommend 2 to 3 per person so I ordered one cold to start, and then followed with a hot one. My thinking was if I just had two I might have room for dessert!😆

The first one, the cold one, was delicious. It was marinated pickled herring, curry salad, egg, cornichons, spring onions and roasted buckwheat. I had a suspicion I might not like picked herring, but I wanted to try it. I was wrong………..I actually loved it…….it wasn’t too overpoweringly ‘fishy’, and all the flavours combined perfectly.

The hot one was fried mushrooms, apples, creme fraiche, marsarla wine, lemon zest and parsley. It was just as delicious as the first one and if you are vegetarian there are plenty of other Smorrebrod toppings that would be suitable. The Danish traditionally drink a local Schnapps style drink called Aquavit with their Smorrebrod but it was a little too early for that for me so I had a lovely elderflower, verbena and jasmine tea with soda which was really refreshing.

As suspected I just had room for dessert!😍 I managed to squeeze in a creamy chocolate mousse with some sort of syrupy dried fruit on top (a fig, prune or date…..I could not really tell) with a coconut macaroon wafer. It was divine.

By the time I’d finished lunch it was 3 in the afternoon so I thought I’d walk into the centre, past the markets, and whilst I was doing so, I suddenly remembered my ‘Discovery’ card included a free one hour canal boat tour. I checked the times of the sailings and there was one at 4 o’clock, giving my rather large lunch, time to settle. I walked slowly over to Nyhavn to board.

It’s definitely worth doing. It was beautiful touring the canals while the sun went down. It was however probably the coldest trip I’ve ever been on. 🥶It’s one thing walking around, but sitting still on a boat, with a slight breeze blowing off the sea and it becomes another level of cold entirely. The tour sails on the inner canals and the large outer port area of water. You can see some great architecture from the boat. There was a lovely view of the opera house and the guide was really informative telling us lots of information…………………..like the fact that in summer the Opera House roof, at 25 metres high, is used as a diving board for a diving competition into the water. It’s seriously high and being not too keen on hights and only having breast stroke and backstroke (with my head out of the water) in my repertoire it was a terrifying thought.😦

Then you sail through the ‘Glaecier’ swimming area with it’s glass fronted saunas with all the bathers in them. I have to say there weren’t a great number of them in the water, but plenty in the sauna, and given that it was crusted in ice, which you had to chip off before getting, in I’m hardly surprised!

There were lots of pretty houseboats on the canal and some impressive new building projects………like the redevelopment of the papermills into some gorgeous apartments, designed to try and address the shortage of housing in the city. The canal tour was the ending to another really lovely day.

Day 3 was the final full day of sightseeing. Bad news……………….it was raining, damp and foggy. Good news was however that that meant it was a positive figure on the temperature front…………..a lovely +2 degrees. 😆 Your face no longer stung when you went outside. First things first…………….Cardamom Bun and coffee of course, and a revisit to Harts bakery as I had discovered there was one a few doors down the street from the apartment. It was alongside a lovely little knitting shop, which had balls and balls of gorgeous wool and patterns……………..but seeing as I’m still on with the ‘pandemic fair isle jumper’ which I started in 2019 I thought I better not! I loved this shop though, because whenever you walked past it, it was full of people, male and female, young and old, all sat in a circle knitting, chatting and drinking coffee.

Then it was onwards to the site of possibly Denmark’s greatest design innovation………the one that the world could not do without……………the Lego Shop! Yes, having two boys I have let out many a cry and painful howl after stepping on a piece of Lego discarded on the floor. So present number 2 was bought (yes, they still like Lego even now)! My eldest son is now the proud owner of a brand new Formula 1 MacLaren. Probably not in the format he would have liked but I can’t afford the real version as I’ve spent all my money on cakes!

Stopping point number two was to the Copenhagen City Hall to see a very important innovation for all mathematicians and physicists. It’s free to wander in and have a look at it and it’s not all that popular……………I was alone in here but it’s quite fascinating so take a peak as it only takes 5 minutes and it’s right in the entrance. It is Jens Olsen’s world clock. It has so many gears and cogs and tells you the date and time in every part of the world. It’s in a fully glass cabinet and looks impressive from the front, but the back of the clock is on another level.

The clock shows the changing positions of the planets, true solar time, Sidereal time and the date and time in every time zone of the world. Olsen completed all his mathematical calculations for the clock in 1924 but unfortunately died in 1945 before its build commenced. His grand daughter and the King at the time secured the funding for its build and made his plan a reality.

Next site to visit was the ‘Round Tower’. This is Europe’s oldest functioning observatory. From the top of it you get a 360 degree view of the city. The spiral staircase winds up 7.5 times around its hollow core. As you can imagine this was rather a challenge for me! But I wanted to go to the top and have a look. I was helped by the fact that half way up there is an exhibition space which currently has the most fantastic display of photographs of the galaxies and solar system up there. This took my mind off the challenge ahead.

It’s quite a wide spiral you walk up but then at the top there is a small spiral, enclosed staircase that operates on a traffic light system. This was the worst bit for me but I shot up like a rat up a drainpipe when it turned to green as I was determined to have a little peep. There are a few photos of the murky view just to prove I made it………….and then I shot back down again on the green light…………mission accomplished.

The remainder of the day was going to be a palace and history day…………I’d saved them for today as I knew it was going to rain. The day’s first castle was ‘Rosenborg Slot’ and gardens. It’s on the north side of the city, is walkable, and looks a bit like a Disney castle with a moat around it. It is set in the most lovely green space. It was built in 1607 as a summerhouse for Christian IV and it’s still one of the Royal Family’s Copenhagen properties now. So whilst most of us might have a summer house that resembles a shed in the garden, Christian IV had a spare palace with lots of statues.

It’s got lots of bling and collectables inside including the ‘Treasury’ which houses the Danish Crown Jewels which you can have a look at.

It was lunchtime after my castle visit so I entertained myself in nearby Torvehallerne food market for an hour. I love a food and produce market. They are so colourful and the smells are gorgeous. There were fruits, plants, vegetables and flowers outside. Inside there was so much food………….meat, fish, cheeses…………….and it’s one of those fantastic markets where you can eat there at various market stalls for a really reasonable price.

I had my lunch a Boutique Fisk, a fish stall, which simply serves their famous Copenhagen fishcake with shrimp salad, pickled red onions and taramasalata. With a Danish orange soda it was a lovely tasty budget lunch.

Copenhagen is extremely expensive compared to many other parts of the world but it is possible to see it on a budget. It is as expensive as you want it to be. If you want to eat at the top end restaurants, like world renowned ‘Noma’, you’ll need to book months ahead and you will no doubt pay a lot of money. But you can get some excellent, fresh, good value, local food at these markets.

The final palace of the day was ‘Christiansborg Slot’. I donned my extremely fetching mandatory footwear so as not to dirty King Frederik’s carpet!😂 This one is another Royal palace but it also houses the Danish Parliament, Prime Minister’s office, Supreme Court, the official State Rooms and the royal balcony!

This one had some serious bling………………..chandeliers, thrones, colourful tapestries only 25 years old which line the State Rooms and tell the history of Denmark and Europe over the past 1,000 years. I could have stood and picked out the detail on the tapestries for hours they were so interesting. They even included the Beatles!

There was just time for a little retail therapy before heading back to the apartment to pack. Illums Bolighus is a department store and a homage to Danish design, Fashion, furniture and more! I enjoyed it here as much as the palace!🤣 I might have bought a few little tasteful reminders of my fantastic escape to Copenhagen, but flying Ryanair they had to be reasonably small. I did however manage to squeeze a full set of single bedding into my rucksack much to the amazement of everyone at home (where there’s a will there’s a way!)

After a relaxing evening I was up early the following morning to make my way back to the airport. However, I have one last discovery to tell you about. I was sort of disappointed I hadn’t found it earlier. I needed breakfast and was walking to Central Station when I saw a sign that said, ‘Sort Kaffe & Vinyl’. Having an hour to spare before my train I thought, “Oh that looks like they sell coffee and vinyl records, I’ll go take a look.” I’m a bit old fashioned…………….yes I have Spotify…………but I love music and I still have my old turntable and a huge Vinyl record collection.

When I was younger my Grandma and Grandad used to give me a little bit of pocket money each week and I used to save it up and spend it all every couple of months in one of two shops in town at the time, ‘EGS Records’ and ‘Casa Disco’. Both of them were retailers of Vinyl records and I still have my collection now. So off I disappeared, following the sign. If you like a morning coffee and you like music then go here……………………..and the bonus is there are breakfast pastries too!

So I spent my whole hour there with a lovely coffee, a cinnamon swirl, rifling through the records whilst listening to the various artists they were playing. They played some older stuff and some newer stuff: The Doors; The Killers; Prince……………….one classic tune after another. I could have stayed in there for ages and so wish I’d discovered it earlier in the week.

So would I recommend Copenhagen……………………………..YES!!!!! We all know I’m not really a city girl – I love to visit and then leave to hide back in the countryside. This is one of a small number of capital cities that I can’t wait to return to……………….you can actually be an introvert and fit in here………..it’s so calm. It’s quiet, has minimal traffic, great food, loads of history and culture, an emphasis on nature and sustainability, lots of green space, a slow pace, smiley happy people and a focus on community, kindness and friendship……………………………… you can feel the love………it’s like a great big hug of a City!

Oh……………….and the Cardamom Buns………………………….don’t forget the Cardamom Buns………..reason alone to spend some time here!❤️❤️