It’s often hard to put into words why you love a particular place. It might be a specific sight or smell or meal you had. It might be that you had an especially good time there, because you were with people you love and something hilarious happened. You might not even know why you love a particular spot the way you do; you went there, maybe once, maybe many times, and something about that place wormed its way into your…
There’s a lot of pressure, when you live with someone, to make their birthday special. You are the person they wake up to on the one day of the year they can reasonably refuse to do any washing up and you have to begrudgingly say fine. Jake turned twenty-three last week and I was ready to create birthday fun times. The real fun of Jake’s birthday had been planned for the weekend, when a group of our friends descended upon…
I read a lot of travel blogs. For me, there is no better procrastination than reading about places and moments that I’d want to experience. Or liking shark pictures on Instagram. But I am always interested in shark encounters (just… don’t, okay? Everyone has their weird interests) so I guess this does loosely fall into the same category. This being said, I don’t just read other blogs to procrastinate. I also read them for inspiration. By reading a variety of…
I am tired as I write this blog. It might be the eight Lebküchen I just ate flooding sugar into my brain or the fact that the sunrise now being at 7.45am makes me feel like I need three extra hours of shut-eye to make it through the day. I should probably just give up and go to bed, because the likelihood that someone is sitting out there eagerly awaiting the next installment of Jellie Down Under is as small…
We arrived in Perth after a solid twenty four hours of flying. It sounds weird, but there’s a particular smell that I associate with landing in Australia and it’s not just eucalyptus. Actually, it probably is just heat and eucalyptus, and the notable feature of this scent is not the scent itself but how identifiable it is to me. I feel like I know what Australia smells like. It feels like coming home to somewhere brand new. I get so…
As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m going to be mining my earlier 2018 travel adventures for blog posts as I spend many winter hours at my desk or on the sofa. I never want to give a false image of my real life, so while I am truly blessed to spend some weeks and weekends of the year doing amazing things in awesome places, there is also plenty of work time, chill time and hours spent reading, writing…
Other than a brief trip to Poland in December with Jake’s family (are we all ready for me to unleash my elementary Polish on the world with abandon? Take cover) my passport will be staying put for the rest of the year. Given I’ve taken 19 flights so far already this year – I’m sorry, polar bears – I’m okay to keep the passport usage to a minimum. However, as this is a travel blog, it means I’m going to…
I recently chronicled the story of me and Sophie travelling the entire length of Vietnam, and then some, in one day in order to get from Ho Chi Minh City in the south to Cat Ba Island, which is off the north coast. Some of you might have noticed a few references to a burn I was nursing while on this adventure. We had a great time charging through Vietnam, but waking up the morning after arriving in our lodge,…
Writing is fun. Telling stories is fun. I spend a large part of my day telling stories verbally, because I love holding court, so I guess it makes sense that I’d enjoy putting fingers to keyboard and making my random chatter even more widely available. It also means that I’ll be able to remember. So many funny, important or beautiful things have happened and, without photos or words that can be accessed for posterity, these moments only live on as…
I haven’t written anything about Cornwall yet. This is a huge tragedy. Due to Jake’s family having a place near Bodmin moor, we’ve popped down to Cornwall maybe five or so times this year. When I say popped down, I mean it. Last Christmas we spent five hours driving there and five hours back for only one night of West Country family time. Is it family or the prospect of pasties and clotted cream that made this appealing? Who can…