Hey, my new BLOG is HERE,
if you haven't read it yet...


Restaurant reviewing
An important PR contact kindly took me to lunch at Marco Pierre White's new Wiltshire pub restaurant, the Pear Tree. I wrote a piece about it in my new 'What's it REALLY like?' section HERE. 
Meanwhile I've been helping produce a magazine for a Bath council, writing for Lexus and BMW, and  planning my next trips. I realised I'm not going to be able to do that car book but I hope I can do the mountains book, we're still negotiating that one.


Preparing for the big one
Suddenly two people want me to write books - one about cars, one about travel. I'll investigate and see if I can do them both, although there's another issue of the BMW Magazine coming up that needs my Editing skills too. 
Taken a few trips to London, Wales and Dorset but bracing myself for he big one - 77-miles on the South West Coast Path in August. That's for a national newspaper. I'll be trying to encourage my family to keep up with me up and down the cliffs of North Devon. Wish me luck with the weather...

Stockholm, invitations 
and a new book

I'm just back from an interesting trip to Sweden for the Mail on Sunday. I always like Scandinavia, despite the price of food and drink. 

On this trip the prices stopped me drinking altogether: £7 a beer, £40 a bottle of wine. Just one darned ice cream cornet cost me over £6.

But Stockholm was beguiling as usual. One day I'll go back for a really long stay. It feel like the best city in Europe to live in - although you can't really tell till you've done it. Give me a house on the archaepelago...

Rural Sweden was neat, green and watery. Maybe not as exciting as Norway or as moody as Denmark and Finland though.


Got back to an invitation from a PR pal to go straight away again (press trip to swanky hotel in Switzerland) but I'll have to turn it down. There's no work in it and I've got a family trip to Wales on Sunday and a trip to the Isle of Man next week.

I'm also negotiating a UK travel book deal with a major publisher that looks pretty close now. That's going to take up a lot of this summer if it happens. Stay tuned...



My Sweden travel blog is HERE

Just when I thought I had time for some gardening suddenly I've got people wanting me to go to a fancy new holiday site in the Loire in France and then I'm taking a boat from Gothenburg to Stockholm in Sweden.

I'm also negotiating an exciting new book deal - if it comes off I'll be doing a lot of research trips around Britain this year. Until that's sorted I'm holding back from committing to too many other adventures.

Nevertheless, I do have two cruises, a family adventure to the Rockies and a long walk along the South West Coast Path to fit in somewhere as soon as possible.

You'll read about these trips here. Also see the Mail on Sunday, the Mail's website and thetraveleditor.com for more of my stories and reports.

Interesting debate about travel blogs and what they're for HERE