July 2025

Still shopping for presents with only three days to Christmas left?! Looking for something a bit different for your book loving friend, Uncle, Sister etc… ? then check out these fabulous biographies written about some of our truly fantastic military and security veterans. I have read them all and can vouch they’re all riveting easy […]

Well, this wasn’t the picture I’d originally planned to post on for today’s photographic diary, but in my haste and fussiness I ended up with it hoping to catch the few seconds left of January 2nd; unsuccessfully.   So as on some other days, I may end up posting twice today, now & again later on. […]

I have wanted to visit Sicily for years, ever since I heard that Sicilian lemons were so sweet, the locals ate them like oranges, and since I saw the breathtaking photography for the opening credits for the Sicilian crime drama Inspector Montebalno. So in February, me and my husband finally went and spent a week […]

I’m cheating a bit today for this blog and using a review I wrote about five years ago for a friend of mine, who also happens to be an astonishingly fabulous cook and food writer. I met Vanessa in 2013 at a food photography workshop she was running at her home in Northampton.  I had […]

Accustomed as I am becoming, to living more frequently in a log cabin, I am musing on the kind of ovens and stoves that would dwell harmoniously therein. I’m particularly curious about this beautiful beast I spotted in the security cabin in the Arctic in Sweden where I visited in March last year. I’m going […]

It’s been such a stunning day today with glorious skies and fluffy white clouds and beautiful snow and ice crystals glistening in the sunlight. And a gorgeous beautiful lunar halo this evening too! 

View all posts by Alison Allmand-Smith

Just a turquoise gate or to be precise a Portmeirion Blue/Green gate, but what a beautiful gate it is. If you also should wish to gaze upon it, it can be found in Plas Brondanw garden, part of the Portmeirion Estate, in North Wales. I love how that splash of yellow sets off the aqua […]

I love gooseberries. For me, summer just wouldn’t be summer without them & it always saddens me when people tell me that they don’t like gooseberries, or worse, haven’t tried them. They can…. be a bit off putting, as they have a sharp flavour, are green and hairy and because you generally don’t see people […]

I’m on a roll now with these. I think my collection of illustrated and decorative vintage books might be getting slightly out of control! I think I should maybe stop collecting them, said no art loving book worm ever! I just love them  so much! Especially books that have inscriptions in them from the giver […]

This is great stuff I’ve started taking recently. The flavour is very palatable and I definitely feel calmer when I’ve had some. One of my best friends introduced me to the Floradix Iron liquid formula many years ago when I was pregnant and I’d found it really beneficial, so when I saw they did a […]

Did you know that pasta shapes are named after the most fun & interesting things?! Well here are some examples I sampled in Sicily. The very large Mexican hat shaped ones are named Sombreroni as in Sombrero and the bow shaped ones are named Farfalle meaning butterflies. The ones similar to Fusilli but having a […]

Ever since my Arctic trip in March last year I’ve been on the hunt for some really good books on cooking outdoors. It’s long been an ambition of mine to learn how to cook in the wild or even the garden, but I wasn’t sure where to start. I bought my first book of that […]

I know that this blog post is going to seem a little random, but I have so many things that I want to blog properly and right now, I just don’t have the time. I can also get twitchy about getting all my details correct and I’m always concerned I’m going to miss something or […]