The iconic image of the city of Wakefield is the cathedral’s spire as it is visible from all over the city and from miles around. Yet there are many that are unaware that Wakefield is even a city, let alone that it has a cathedral. It certainly doesn’t rank high amongst the UK’s most popular cathedrals when…
It’s that time of year again where the city of Wakefield in West Yorkshire gets super excited as they welcome the fabulous Rhubarb Festival. Organised by Wakefield Council, the festival celebrates the city’s long history with the sour, sweet pink vegetable. It takes place every February and features a huge variety of market stalls selling a wide range…
Christmas time would not be the same without the adorable Raymond Briggs animation The Snowman. It was certainly a Christmas staple for me; as quintessential as the Turkey roast, the giving and receiving of gifts and the drinking of sherry. It tends to be shown on TV on Christmas Eve afternoon and I never once made it through watching without…
A new year and lots of new things to look forward to… But it’s also that time of year when you look back over the previous year and take stock: what happened – the good and the bad. There’s plenty of 2019 that I’m glad to see the back of including lots of ill health. However…
Although I have my favourite places to walk amongst fallen leaves, I always like to visit somewhere new during autumn. It’s the season when our landscape turns all shades of orange, red and gold and I just love it! I’ve previously visited England’s Herefordshire woodlands during autumn, in particular Queenswood Country Park and Arboretum which…
Autumn is my favourite season of the year for lots of reasons. The heat of the summer is over and the long cold nights haven’t drawn in yet either. It’s one of the shoulder seasons for travelling which means lower prices and quieter tourist areas (always a bonus!) However, my main reason is the fact the trees turn…
It may shock all my regular readers to know that Elmer’s Big Parade Suffolk was only my first sculpture trail of 2019. How did I get to summer’s end and only do one trail? There have been so many good ones this year, many of which have just come to an end after their summer adventures. However, with…
It is hard to comprehend what seeing 100,000 knives in one place would look like and with the best will in the world, I’m not sure anyone could have imagined the Knife Angel would be the result. When I knew the Knife Angel sculpture was going to be in my local city of Liverpool, I knew I had…
Oh 2019, you came around so quickly… I don’t know where the end of 2018 disappeared to and now its half way through January! It does mean one thing however: it’s time to look back at what I’ve been up to throughout the year. This time last year I wrote about my Top…
I recently had the pleasure of dining at Barristers Restaurant at The Courthouse in Knutsford after been invited along to try out the new winter’s menu. Being December, it was a fabulously festive treat without being another Christmas dinner. The food was delicious and the setting luxurious. Disclaimer: I was invited to review the new winter’s menu and…
This is what happens when you give a team of ice sculptors 4 months and 4000 litres of water to play with…or maybe you can visualise it better in terms of tonnes of ice: over 250 of them! The Manchester Ice Cavern is part of Britain’s very first dedicated Ice Village. It opened in November 2018…
It’s no secret to anyone who knows me or follows me on social media that autumn is my favourite time of year! Mainly because of how beautiful our earth looks cloaked in its fiery autumnal coloured coat, from bright yellows and shimmering gold, through orangery ochre’s to brilliant scarlet and rusty russet. Nothing beats sunny autumn days crunching…