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With a new addition to the family, 2018 has been all about discovering great places in the UK to visit with our lovable cockerjack Django in tow. We presumed our summer holiday to Cornwall would involve a lot less days out at local attractions. I was wrong; it just involves a little more research and planning. So when I discovered that The Eden Project has been named the best dog-walking destination in the world I knew I had to return.  One of my last memorable trips with my adventurous nana (before true old age got the better of her) was to Eden, when it had only just opened to the public. An avid gardener, she was blown away by the sheer potential of the site – the size of 30 football pitches – I only wish she was still around to see what it’s become. While everyone talks about the tropical and temperate plant-filled domes, known as biomes, it’s just as exhilarating to wander the now mature and well established outdoor gardens that nestle in this huge crater. Back in...

Buying a rug in Morocco is a fun yet often daunting experience for the uninitiated.  Here's some tips to help you enjoy a stress-free rug shopping trip.  Measure up Don’t make the mistake of spending all your holiday money on a rug that’s too big to fit in your room. Write down your minimum and maximum sizes before you do and think about colours that will complement the room it’s intended for. Whittle it down Go in with a definitive idea of what style you want. It will save you time and narrow down the amount of rugs you need to look at in each shop. Have a budget And stick to it. It’s easy to get carried away in the moment but remember you still have to pay for shipping and customs. Prices vary depending on age and rarity of design. Remember to do a currency conversion before you agree the final price, you don’t want the shock when you return home! Go in clear-headed While I don’t advocate heavy drinking the night before, I once did my best deal w...

Moroccan rugs are having a moment. Look in any interior design magazine of late and you’ll see Beni Ourain rugs under many an interior designer’s coffee table. I prefer the less known and more colourful Azilal rug but if you do choose to buy a Beni Ourain make sure it’s real, as they are many fakes out there now to meet demand (You can tell by looking at the reverse of the carpet, if it has irregular knotting, it’s a sign that it’s genuine Beni Ourain). On a recent work trip to Marrakech I went with an empty suitcase. I was after a new rug for the living room and while it would have been far easier to buy online and have it shipped to my address, I love the thrill of rug shopping and saved a whopping 150% mark up. So how do you go about buying a rug with confidence? Shopping for a rug in Morocco is a fun yet often daunting experience for the uninitiated.  Before you do familiarise yourself with the different styles of rug sold in Morocco, made by one of the 45 distinct Ber...

You could say our year of ‘living more lagom’ isn’t quite going to plan as we’ve just welcomed a puppy into our lives. Our cockerjack Django is utterly gorgeous (aren’t all puppies?) but it feels a bit like we’ve been hit by a whirlwind of sloppy kisses, razor-sharp nips and freestyle toilet training. It’s a full-time job looking after a puppy and the washing machine seems to be permanently on; not to mention the amount of dog-related merchandise we’ve purchased to amuse his every whim. On the upside it’s hard to remember a time I’ve been so besotted since our daughter was born.  Being homebound with the family while Django settles in has at least given us time to assess how our Live Lagom project is going. For our food obsessed household, the main draw of pressure cooking is how it saves money, as food cooks in around a third of the usual time, using less energy. Yet pressure cooking is not for the faint-hearted. The hissing steam and potential to explode is far ...

Move over ‘hygge’; it’s time for ‘live lagom’. I’ve been chosen to participate in the Live Lagom project in Norwich, led by sustainability charity Hubbub and IKEA, to help create an active community of ‘lagomers’, and to learn and share ways to be sustainable at home. It’s a Swedish philosophy that means ‘just the right amount’. I’ll be looking at ways that our family of 3 (plus 1 grumpy cat) can #LiveLAGOM in our 3-bed terraced house. Our kitchen is without doubt the place we spend the most time. It’s not because I love slaving over a hot stove; HELL no, it’s so that myself and daughter can sample the culinary masterpieces of our in-house chef (aka shoulder-to-cry-on/daddy). When he’s not designing something cool, Neil (@typographic) can almost certainly be found at the stove, throwing together some delicious street food-inspired dish. Whether it’s energy, food or packaging; the kitchen is where our family uses the most and where we can definitely be doing more to reduce wast...

Quite by chance I recently found myself residing in the Oud-West district of Amsterdam in a wonderful Airbnb, owned by a Dutch writer with a penchant for colour-coded bookshelves. Pitched as a quiet residential area, in an area known as De Baarsjes, I had low expectations yet little did I know that Amsterdam West is having a bit of a moment.   Once dubbed an industrial badland, the area is now thriving with students and young professional attracted to the area’s cheap rents; you only have to walk along the streets of Jan Pieter Heijestraat and Admiraal the Ruijterweg to find an interesting mix of independent stores and foodie hotspots housed in stunning examples of Amsterdam School architecture.  Perhaps one of the most diverse neighbourhoods in Amsterdam, organic delis and trendy concept stores fraternise with Turkish mini-marts and Surinamese takeaways. It’s got a community-orientated laid-back vibe that’s hard to beat. There’s plenty a terrace to sit out on a...

Admit it – room service is for wimps. We’ve all been there – straight off the red-eye with a rumbling belly yet too jet-lagged to speak in proper English let alone the local dialect – we reach for the room service menu and hit 3. Really what we should be doing is hot footing it to the nearest street food stall for your first taste of paradise.  Squatted on a tiny plastic stool on a random street corner slurping steaming noodles; there’s no better way to immerse yourself in local life and get to the heart of a country’s cuisine. Quite often it’s the food I recall most vividly from a trip, and an experience I search out time and again. From Thai moo ping to Mexican elote, whichever itinerant cook you visit, what you are guaranteed is simple, authentic food cooked to perfection right in front of you. And as they are cooking it day after day, for hours on end, they know what they are doing. But for the wary or uninitiated traveller, knowing where to go and what to ...