Postcards, ticket stubs, keychains, shot glasses, magnets, napkins, receipts, boarding passes. The list of pointless souvenirs and momentos we find ourselves bringing back from our holiday is endless. Each flight we take, each restaurant we eat in, each museum or concert or park we visit, we insist on buying/keeping/stealing (ok maybe not the last one) something to ‘remember’ our trip by, only to be dumped in a box or the bottom shelf, to be discovered again when moving house.
By now you must have realized I often get an idea in my head that I get set on and then have to carry out no matter what. Learning to surf was one of them. I’ve had this fascination with surfing since I was small; I used to watch those ads for Roxy and wonder what it felt like to be enclosed by a wave. Obviously those were professionals, but I had to start somewhere and began to research where I could learn.
Mozambique, just the name sounds exotic. Although I saw very little of the country when we visited, there’s no doubt that this once war-torn country can’t stay under-the-radar for much longer. From the long arcs of cinnamon sand shelving into the Indian Ocean, to the heavenly mangoes that seem to fall from every tree, Mozambique makes the perfect post safari flop.
Since as long as I can remember, one of my biggest dreams was to swim with dolphins. I know lots of people have this on their bucket-list, but I always had doubts about dolphins kept in captivity just so we could enjoy ourselves. At the same time, after I visited Zanzibar, I saw how badly swimming with dolphins in the wild can go too. That’s why I was so happy to have found Wildquest, on Bimini island in The Bahamas, a little tropical paradise where you can swim with wild dolphins responsibly. For my 20th birthday present, I got to visit and make my dream a reality!
I’ve been wanting to visit a Greek island for as long as I can remember so I was super happy to have been able to visit Corfu in June. We decided to follow in Gerald Durrell’s footsteps after reading his book My Family and other Animals; the way he described the island meant we had to explore Corfu for ourselves. I’m pleased to say we made the right choice- our week was one of the best holidays of my life. Before leaving, I was a bit worried Corfu would be totally overrun and spoiled by the package holiday crowds that plague much of Europe in the summer. Luckily, we managed to escape the masses and have a real big fat Greek holiday. Mr. Durrell would have been proud.
