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We went geocaching today for the first time in ages. It’s been a hot weekend, filled with breakfasts and lunches on the patio, bike rides across town and lazy mornings spent soaking up the sun.
So it seemed only natural [...]

The Orchard in 1910
I don’t know when I last went to Starbucks. Ages ago. A couple of years, perhaps. Our most commonly-used coffee haunt is Coffee Link on the dockside in Ipswich. It’s independent and friendly, and it does good cakes.
As we found ourselves not entirely coincidentally in Cambridge this weekend, Coffee Link was obviously [...]

The Hop Farm describes itself as ‘one of Kent’s most popular tourist attractions’ and ‘the ideal place to visit in 2008′. I don’t doubt it. It was certainly popular at the weekend, after all, although we weren’t specifically there to look at the reindeer, pigs and chickens (although we did clamber into the chicken run [...]

I had two companions while out watering the plot last night. Here’s one. The loveable lazy cat who likes nothing better than to be made a fuss of while slobbing out on the bed (the towel keeps his hair off the pillows).

The other was this little chap, who sat by me and watched as I [...]

Noisy, noisy, noisy. We went to the races at Snetterton today, setting out under cloudy skies, wrapped up tight in coats that we had to take off before lunch. By the end of the day we were burnt and stinging, such are the vagaries of a British summer.
It was a meet of the British F3/GT [...]

On Saturday we went to Sizewell and walked down the beach to the bird reserve visitors’ centre. There were almost as many binocular-wielding twitchers as there were actual birds but it still made for a pleasant, interesting walk. We stopped for tea and picked up some leaflets; among them one for Rendlesham Forest.
So it was [...]

The bonus of backdating blog posts is that you can write up your notes when you get back from travelling and post them on the appropriate day.
The downside is that anyone using a browser rather than a feed reader will probably miss them by not scrolling down past postings that then appear above them.
So as [...]

We are woken up by the musicians. They come stamping around the camp shortly after seven, standing by the flap of each tent and banging their drums. It certainly beats the hey-hey-hey Mickey Mouse message they played down the phones on a press trip to Disneyland Paris a couple of years back.
Today we were leaving. [...]

Today we left Marrakech, but not to go home. Instead, we assembled after our meeting for a briefing by Azim’s team. They gave us maps, emergency mobiles and the keys to a fleet of twenty-odd 4×4, and sent us off into the mountains.
The idea was that we would all make our way out of the [...]

Marrakech is famed for its Souq. At home we have markets, but they don’t compare to this knotted tangle of streets, lined by tiny businesses that will have been trading in its shady corners since the Normans invaded Britain. It’s many travellers’ sole reason for coming to Marrakech.
After an early briefing we split into groups [...]