Tbilisi

After a protracted farewell to Kiev – one involving a long delay and a cross Ukrainian called Shouty Bob – I was airborne again and heading for Tbilisi. Shouty Bob (for his Facebook fans) boarded last, several sheets to the wind. Terrifyingly, he eyed the empty seat next to me for a few moments before bumping…

Checkin’ Kiev

I love airport names. In Santiago, Cuba, the airport is named after a Cuban revolutionary – Antonio Maceo. For some reason he and his roll call of fellow freedom fighters – Ignacio Agramonte, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, Jose Santamaria, and Jose Marti stick in my mind some 20 years after I left there. Probably, I…

Lost Cause

There are some events in life that remind you why you like the people you like as much as you like them. Just back from a fantastic lazy, hazy, sunny, funny weekend on the Welsh borders, part of the starring role of which was a reunion with my best girl from university, Neek and her…

Why I Annoy You on Facebook

I know. I know. I post stuff all the time. I have FB OCD and Twitter tourettes. I’m ALL OVER your timeline/newsfeed and you just can’t get away 😉 I sympathise. Really I do. For every person who says ‘I love your updates’ there’s another saying ‘Mark Zuckerberg should pay you a retainer’ with that…

Plane Speaking

Those of us who travelled over the festive season seem to have got off moderately lightly. Sure, there were the usual jams, the trains were a bit patchy and you had to get out and swim if you wanted to go South West of Portishead but there were no strikes (apart from the tube on…

Taking the Mickey

And it came to pass that there went out a decree that in the ninth year of a child’s life each family should go to Disney. And this decree was made when Assad was governor of Syria (but not for long). And by sundry other despots whose word is the law. And in the dark…

An In Tents Weekend

I’m writing this in the middle of a woodland glade in the twilight toasting my toes on the campfire. I’m really only writing it to give my laptop something meaningful to do while it charges my mobile. My camp mates keep accusing me of ‘doing emails’ (who, me?) but this honestly is the very last…

Zen to the Power of Three

I’m feeling like I’m living life in sixth gear with the revs stuck too high at the moment (and drawing on my newly extensive experience of motorsport, grappling slightly to manage my supersoft tyres at speed and with a few too many holes in my chassis) so I thought it was time to blog about…

Tourist Trophy Wife

After my amazingly knowledgable post on Formula 1 a couple of weeks ago (joking) I thought I’d follow up with one about TT – the world famous Tourist Trophy or as my very perspicacious friend Kathy puts it ‘Wow, it would seem as though the whole of the Isle of Man has been turned into some…

How to Name A Toilet

I happened upon a fabulous phenomenon the other day when my friend Mike started to plan the detail of his May wedding. A wedding will generally teach you more than you would ever want to know about types of terrine, napkin folding techniques and the five hundred varietals of party favours. It will give you…