The burning question eating away at us all in these trying times - 'What if we run out of parsley?'. Well fear no more, because I've accidentally grown enough parsley to make garlic bread for the entire United Kingdom (incidentally, can you do anything else with parsley? Please. I have so much parsley.)...

My friend Sam told me about Corona Bingo. Fortunately it isn't a neighbourhood window bingo event because I'd definitely feel like I had to participate in that and it would be cold. Corona Bingo is where you tick off all the things you're doing that you thought were unique and creative, but in fact the entire country is baking banana bread and 90 of it is better than yours. ...

Flippantly taking our lives in our hands (according to everyone I told I was going to South Africa), we rented a car and drove from Johannesburg airport to Kruger Park. The other drivers were fine, everyone drives on the left (unlike in some countries where side of the driving road seems to be more of a suggestion than a rule), and the roads themselves were grand....

The positive of going to Athens early March when Coronavirus was just starting to kick off is there were only four other tourists trying to see the acropolis. Negatives of going to Athens early March when Coronavirus was just...

Most DIY guides you read on the Internet are, rightfully, written by people who know about DIY and are good at it. So I'm here to fill the niche of DIY Guides from Someone with Enthusiasm and the Ability to Watch a YouTube Video....

Port Douglas is about an hour's drive north of Cairns and is supposedly nicer than Cairns. We wouldn't know, as all we saw of Cairns was the airport. The first thing that struck me about this part of Australia was how tropical it was....

When we lived in Australia, we never saw the outback. This was due to a series of circumstances but the dominating factor was that we had a car in Melbourne and didn't want to rent a second one in the Northern Territory....

I've been to Adelaide once before. When we lived in Melbourne, Dan and I adopted an Australian attitude to driving and drove 8 hours to visit my cousin Frances and her boyfriend Rob. This time, as we live in Edinburgh, it was easier to fly....

Since we were only spending 2-3 days in each place, and had planned to visit 7 places over our three-week period, we thought wed end our trip with a nice relaxing beach-front hotel in Drake Bay. Two hours from Manuel Antonio is a town called Sierpe...

We flew from Arenal to Drake bay, via San Jose, in a Cessna Caravan. These are tiny little planes with 10 seats, no tea trolley, and about 3 jokes about the tea trolley per flight. We sat right up the front and could watch the course and weather maps...

Defying all expectations, we made it out of Colombia alive. Our first Costa Rica stop was Arenal, an area of tropical national parks surrounding a volcano. Getting there from Cartagena was standard. Deathly early flight to Bogota, stopover,...

Bogota, Medellin, Santa Marta, Cartagena is arguably a trip through Colombias tourist centres (a phrase I use lightly as Colombia is still far from touristy) from least to most attractive. I highly recommend this route, and not the reverse, ...

Santa Marta is easy to pronounce, which was a great start. We had booked a handy 11am Avianca flight from Medellin to Santa Marta, so wed arrive at 12. Avianca had other ideas, and booted us off our nice flight and put us ...

Medellin is pronounced Med-eh-jean, you uncultured swine. So now weve both embarrassingly learned that after pronouncing it wrong to several locals, lets continue. Edinburgh should have prepared me for all the bloody hills in Colombia....

Bogota introduced me to a new, unfamiliar friend: altitude sickness. Bogota is 2640m above sea level, which means the air is thinner and you feel like you have a permanent hangover. However the feeling is probably not dissimilar to how one might feel after having...

After a year and a half in Edinburgh, Im assured Id still not be mistaken for a local as I dont yet detest the Edinburgh Fringe. I also dont understand pies. Why does everything here have to be a pie? Meat pie, Scotch pie, ...

One day, I opened my Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Series (the name is important in case any poor soul decides to buy this mechanical travesty of a laptop) to find the screen was coming away slightly from the casing. I thought I should really investigate that ...

When I lived in Galway I had to go to the Cliffs of Moher a lot. Initially of my own volition, then eventually because everyone who came to Galway wanted to go. This is roughly how it happened:...

Im not great with plants. I like the idea of growing my own herbs, like Jamie Oliver, but it never really looks like Jamie Olivers herb garden. I once kept a parsley plant alive for about 9 months but really, for the last four it was practically begging me to let it die....

Some absolute legend of a prankster switched all the doormats around in our apartment building. So now we have a thick luxurious mat, and two doors down is stuck with our threadbare, furled mat. More hilariously, this rogue decided that...

I got a job in Edinburgh so we moved here yesterday. Our reasoning was that wed moved to Australia with a suitcase-worth of stuff, and that was fine. So really, bringing the car on the ferry was just so we could get the car over, not so we could bring 400kg of belongings....

Battery powered Christmas decorations are a source of distress in the Middleton household. My Mum bought a nice string of lights with bows, and 3 AA batteries. No sooner had she adorned the windowsill than my Dad was working out the current draw...

Seven nights was the longest wed stayed in one place since leaving Australia. Wed read that a week is a good amount of time in Havana. This is true, but it probably wouldnt hurt to see more of Cuba if you could....

Mexico was only ever meant as a route to Cuba, but we figured we may as well see a bit of it so we booked 4 days. Originally we were going to stay on the beach in Cancun but Dan rightly insisted Id hate that after one day so we stayed in Mexico City instead....

Antigua is another old, scenic city surrounded by volcanoes. This one is particularly scenic and you can watch Fuego erupt a bit every few minutes. The first time I saw it (its just puffy black smoke) I panicked, wondering why no one else was panicking....

Our trip from Flores to Lake Atitlan involved driving through a bit of Guatemala City. I admit to feeling a little wary when the driver stopped at a garage so we could use the toilet. It was just people paying for petrol and buying chocolate bars....

When we told people we were going to Guatemala they reacted with shock, mingled with trying to cover their shock, followed by sadness that theyd never see us again. Thats sort of how I reacted when Dan suggested Guatemala in the first place....

We spent two days in Chicago after South Bend. Dan and the rest of his wedding friends lived in Chicago for a summer during college so they found everything nostalgic. Id never been there before so irritated everyone by stopping to photograph all the buildings....

Having the USA in the middle of our tropical adventures was a little jarring. South East Asia, boiling heat, mosquitoes, no one speaking English, then suddenly cold, easy, Western Chicago. I would have much preferred to ...

If we'd known better, we would have skipped Hue and spent the extra day in Hoi An. But the only way you get to know better is by making the mistake and going to Hue in the first place....

Many months ago, for reasons that now elude us, we planned one night in Hue. Its on the mid-Vietnam coastal tourist trail so that was probably a factor. But we in no way considered anything to do with timing...

Phong Nha is a region of Vietnam known for its large caves. Unfortunately its also known as the area that has the most amount of leftover explosive ammunition from the war. Its not hugely dangerous, we were told....

No one in Vietnam calls it Ho Chi Minh. All the written signs still say Saigon. Saigon is a much nicer name anyway. Saigon can best be summed up by Dans thoughts at the end of our first day: How do you cross the fucking road? There are no apparent road rules...

There isnt a whole lot to see in Kampot itself, but its a good place to rent a moped and roam around on your own. Unlike the cities in Cambodia, the traffic isnt like a relentless herd of stampeding buffalo scooters....

If my last post seemed a bit of a downer, we spent our only day in Phnom Penh going to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (commonly known as S21 Security Prison 21) and the Killing Fields....

I had no idea what to expect of Cambodia. A well-travelled friend of mine once told me it was her favourite place in Asia, but people have all sorts of crazy opinions. Im sure Bangkok is someones favourite place in Asia. I sort of ...

Awful. All they ever seem to have is Lipton. Id even take Twinings over Lipton....

My first impression of Bangkok was quite good because there was only one taxi rank at the airport. Upon landing in Phuket we were greeted with approximately ten different taxi stands, all with people shouting fare offers. What are ...

Ko Yao Yai is a small island in Phang Nga Bay where we spent two scenic nights, and ate 2 immense dinner buffets. Our room had a view over the bay and we watched a spectacular sunset. But no one cares about that....

There is a world of difference between what you get when you Google Phuket and what you get when you go there. The airport is in the North, and we were staying in Kata, in the South so we got a colourful and expensive taxi drive ...

A few people told me not to bother with Singapore, as it was just a big city. What they didnt say was that its a big city that looks like a futuristic utopia straight out of pretty much any Sci Fi film. I pretended I was in space for much of the trip....

Last year we got a tour bus from Melbourne to the Twelve Apostles via the Great Ocean Road. You can read about it here, when I was a lot less verbose in my blog posts. We really wanted to drive ourselves...

When I lived in Galway Id often drive across the width of Ireland to Wicklow for the weekend. It was lengthy and boring. What I didnt realise was that theres no such thing as a long drive in Ireland. Australians wouldnt think twice...

In classic Irish fashion, my friend Laura decided to come to Australia too. Her presence, combined with my rather flexible working hours AND the fact that Im leaving soon, mean I constantly drag her on sightseeing roadtrips. Shes been here about a week...

Youll hate skiing, everyone told me. Incessantly. Why is everyone so determined that I would hate skiing? Is it my general dislike for exercise? The outdoors? Fun? Well I ignored the negativity and went skiing in Queenstown....

I have some Middletons living in Moteuka, North of the South island, so naturally we decided to impose ourselves upon their hospitality, demanding food and wifi and entertainment. I hadnt seen these particular Middletons since I was about 9...

Wellington will forever be ingrained in my mind as The city where I didnt get to try an Occulus Rift. Ive wanted to try out virtual reality ever since I was 10 and RTE used to show The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest. Wellington is a small, rather scenic city....

In spite of the fact that we do a lot of travelling, Dan and I never seem to learn anything. Heres my number one tip for aspiring travellers: Plan Everything. Do not assume youll recognise it when you get there. Do not assume transport will be easy....

Ignoring the fact that I lived in Ireland for 25 years and never visited France, which you can literally drive to, we figured it would seem ridiculous to not visit New Zealand while living in Australia. So we arrived in Auckland and added a new element of stress ...

Since arriving in Melbourne, Paulette, a family friend of Dans, has been wonderful to us. She feeds us, teaches us about driving with the trams, and yesterday brought us to Healesville Animal Sanctuary using two of her family passes....

Since I lived in Melbourne until I was 2, logic would dictate that I had 2 birthdays here already. On my first birthday, my parents brought me for a walk on Frankston beach where I waddled around in a small red jumper. A nice idea, we all agreed, would be that I spend my third ...

Maybe its because Australians arent really into tea, so they dont realise the merit of a top quality biscuit to dip in the tea. Whatever the cause, Australians are terrible at biscuits. And chocolate. ...

got this HP620 laptop 5 years ago. The fan makes a lot of noise, the speaker doesnt work, the wireless network adapter turns itself off and sulks for random periods and Ive reinstalled Windows 3 times....

The jungle countryside is idyllically beautiful and extremely green. The people in Sumatra were friendly, chatty, hospitable and had excellent English. Poverty there is depressing....

My Dad enjoys going on motorbike trips around various European countries, and as such had some valuable advice to impart. Write notes on things you do every day, because you will definitely forget everything, and youll have no semblance of a timeline. ...

Everything in Indonesia is really cheap compared to Ireland. Or Australia. Or the Western World. You'll hear people say this. I say it. Everyone says it. The price discrepancy allowed us to book a few nights in a beautiful ...

The orangutan portion of our jungle adventure took place in another village called Bukit Lawang. We pulled up to a reception building in a somewhat normal town and were greeted with Our luggage! Spirits were elevated....

About 7 years ago, Dan got an American visa stapled into his passport. When leaving, the American customs guy ripped it out, and tore a tiny piece off the page corner. Usually this has warranted no more than glare and...

The people are extremely polite and have been trained in queue etiquette. A lot of people approached us offering help when we stood confused and upset in many a train station. The streets are very clean but there are no bins....

The Bullet Train isnt as exciting as Id hoped. Its comfy and fast, but I had rollercoaster fast in mind. Truth be told, it didnt seem any faster than a normal train. It looks really cool from the outside and did get us to Tokyo...

All the advice on the Internet said to visit Kyoto when in Japan as it is full of beautiful temples and scenery. What we didnt know when we booked, was that it was cherry blossom season, when all those classic Japan pictures...

As with much of our Japan journey, Koyasan featured a generous amount of public transport and confusion. Koyasan is a mountain-top Buddhist temple village, which is every bit as epic as it sounds...

We got off the plane to Osaka at about midnight and joined an hour-long queue of absolute mayhem for passport control. We realised there were going to be no more trains and were filled with immense sadness...

The train and metro system is easy to navigate. There is some really beautiful scenery, especially the Great Wall. You can get cheap electronics, but only if you know what youre doing. We didnt....

Shanghai is big, shiny and modern and its very easy to eat Western food. Its almost TOO easy to eat Western food. Impossible, you might think. But what if I told you Shanghai has a Tesco and a Marks and Spencer?...

Chengdu is the place to go for pandas in China, according to Google (and hopefully Bing, otherwise no one in China will know). We booked three nights there with our only aim being to go to the panda sanctuary...

Beijing isnt a particularly pretty city but it has character. Initially I was rather overwhelmed with its bad points and oppressive smog. After four days it grew on me a bit and the really good stuff left me with a more positive view....

At Christmas I made a snap judgement to quit my job and go travelling around Asia and Australia for the year, funding myself as I went working as a web designer (Dan conveniently already works from home)...

Dan and I went to New York for a week. I'm not very well acquainted with America, having only been to Vegas before now. I was assured Vegas was not representative of America as a whole, which is good because its the most loud, obnoxious and tacky place I've been....

I decided to get a bit fitter and healthier for my impending travels. If Im going to be trekking through the jungle in Indonesia, it would be better if I could still breathe after walking up the stairs....

I recently (yesterday) launched my very own web development website, with my friend and fellow web-developer Laura Russell....

I always knew I took tea seriously, but the true gravity of the situation was brought home to me this morning. I take my tea the correct way: Lyons, strong, no sugar, tiny drop of milk. I regard any deviations from this configuration with disdain....

Today I managed to stuff a double duvet into the duvet cover, whilst on the phone.Normally it takes two hands, a foot, your face, and 3 other people.I considered adding this to my LinkedIn profile but dont think I could handle the torrent of offers....

I have an obsession with buying kiwis. There are 8 kiwis in my fridge right now. Every time I go to the supermarket I think Oh I must just pick up some kiwis. Sometimes I pass the kiwis and panic, wondering have I in fact run out of kiwis. What if I dont get back...

Australia was good because my cousin Frances and friend Marty both live there and know how to work the tram system....

I went to Malaysia and Australia for about a month in April. I didnt have a blog then, but I did write about it. So Im cheating and putting up the interesting bits now....