Anger, despair, lethargy, isolation, love, community, gratitude, indifference, helplessness, hopelessness, resilience, heartbreak, loneliness, creativity, turmoil, fear, anxiety, kindness, hope… If you recognise this tumultuous range of emotions as a summary of the last 18 months, then you are not alone. The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown us all onto an emotional rollercoaster with the ups and downs of wading through…
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Sculpture trail season has started in earnest in the TJG household as I headed to north west Norfolk to follow the Explore-a-Book book bench trail in King’s Lynn and Hunstanton. I am so excited for this year as there are some amazing sculpture trails planned in, as well as all the postponed trails from last year too…
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Despite having lived within half an hour’s drive of Dunham Massey my whole life, I’d never visited in the spring. That is until now… it was literally the first place I went beyond the constraints of my local town as we emerged from the UK Covid lockdown 2.0. I soon discovered that Dunham Massey…
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Walking up Rivington Pike and Winter Hill in the snow is an experience I’ll never forget. Winter Hill will be familiar to anyone living in north west England. If you are driving north up the M6 past Warrington, Wigan and Preston, Winter Hill is the massive rounded lump of a hill to your right crowned by an enormous telecommunications…
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In my recent 2020 review post, I asked you guys what you most wanted to read about next based on my favourite travel related experiences of last year. I was so surprised at the result… Several of you got in touch saying you wanted to see more of the Burton Swans sculpture trail after not knowing anything about them…
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I think it’s safe to say we’re all glad to see the back of 2020. However I’m not going to concentrate on the sheer number of crappy things that happened during the year and rehash what we all know, because we’ve all lived it… many of us have lost loved ones and we’ve…
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2020 was the first time the Blackpool Illuminations were extended beyond their usual two month duration, which meant this free awesome spectacle carried on lighting up the Lancashire coast into early January, bringing a bit of extra Christmas cheer to the festive period. The decision was made this year (2022) to extend the illuminations for the third consecutive year to…
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One thing I think we all did in 2020 is to get outside more and explore the area near to where we live. For me, this area is Warrington in Cheshire, situated half way between the big northern cities of Manchester and Liverpool. Surrounding Warrington are some lovely landscapes and excellent opportunities to explore the great outdoors. One of those…
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As a child, there was nothing I loved more than a game of crazy golf. On our annual family summer holiday, my parents would allow my brother and me to each decide the itinerary for a day. This has lead to some interesting experiences, the most memorable being a highly entertaining horse riding trek in Crete where I’ve never…
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Set against the beautiful backdrop of Hutton-in-the-Forest on the edge on the Lake District National Park, I finally got to experience the exciting creative event of ‘Potfest in the Park’ back in 2020. This fabulous annual ceramics festival has been going since 2001 and it had been on my radar ever since doing ceramics as part of…
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It’s not often that I venture into my old home town of Macclesfield since moving away 8 years ago. I mean – my parents live in the area so I’m always back and forth, but I don’t have much call to visit the town centre. Until that is: August 2020 came round, and I found myself in Macclesfield…
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I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve visited Speke Hall over the last 8 years since it became my most local National Trust property. I’ve seen it in all seasons and all weathers and I still love returning. However, with the current Coronavirus situation I knew this visit would be very different…
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