An Ode To Afternoon Tea for #AfternoonTeaWeek (in collaboration with Buyagift)

As a meal, afternoon tea doesn't make a great deal of sense. Delicate slivers of sandwiches, scones slathered with cream (not to mention jam depending on partiality) and a top tier of jewel-like cakes twinkling from a slender stand.

This is even before the champagne menu is presented, and a bouquet of tea flavours is spread before the beautifully manicured guests. Meanwhile, a harpist gently strums in the background and fellow enthusiasts murmur over the gentle tinkle of tea-cups. Oh, and then you get bloke-orientated teas with sliders, hot scotch eggs and a tumbler of ale.

A few musings on Barcelona (in conjunction with Thomson Cruises)

5 years ago we visited Barcelona.

We spent a long weekend exploring the undulating architecture of Gaudi, nibbling pintxos and soaking in the sunshine. Hours were spent admiring the incredible Sagrada Familia arches, we meandered along the city beaches and rode the furnicular up into the misty peaks of Montserrat.

Thomson Cruises contacted me recently about sharing a new video series that Larry Lamb has filmed, where he meets a host of 'cruise mates' sharing their home cities of Barcelona, Ibiza and Palma. They have genuinely inspired in me one of the most wonderful problems of travel blogging; to return, or not to return.

Kiwifruit Moscow Mules Recipe (in conjunction with thebar.com)

Te Puke, Eastern Bay Of Plenty, New Zealand.

Population: 8,000, Orchards: 70+, International Bragging Rights: 1, Traffic Lights: 0, Family Members: 9, Town Name Mispronounciations: approx. 15 an hour.

When thebar.com got in touch about putting a twist into one of my favourite cocktail recipes, I knew exactly what I had to do. And flying nearly 12,000 miles (11,703.583 to be exact) to do it didn't seem like too much of a stretch at all.

Taking a punt at becoming a Pizza Chef.

Pizza isn't just carbs and cheese, it is a universal language and the food equivalent of a family hug. Find me a person who doesn't like some iteration of pizza (from cheesy garlic bread to folded Calzone) and I will willingly eat a hat shaped slice of pie. (That doesn't include someone who doesn't fancy it at that very moment, just for the record -that is called temporary insanity in my house.)

Disclaimer: We were invited guests of Pizza Express to put their pizza-making party to the test but my (lack of) pizza dough twirling skills are entirely my own and though this post is in collaboration with them, all thoughts are mine and mine alone.

For me, our love affair began with a panicked answer to "what is your favourite food?" Most people treasure one dish above any other and can answer with ease, but I simply blurted the first possible thing that came to mind.

Pizza.

My 2017 New Year's Resolutions

The start of the year. The gyms are rammed with bunnies, stores are heaped with leafy vegetables, counters are stuffed with elixirs promising to make everyone skinny and half of the smoking population are walking around with grimaces whilst subtly getting a whiff of the hard stuff. Inspiring masterclasses are being staged to help you emerge into 2017 like a zen butterfly casting off all the bad habits of a lifetime, the shops are trying to convince you that you need to by half priced Christmas gift sets and the office biscuit tin is suspiciously empty - especially considering no-one will go near it.

No, I'm only kidding - there isn't anything wrong with starting the year with a fresh face and a positive 'tude to make this year the best ever. It's why we love our travel linkup to begin with dreams & wish lists for the year ahead - not only are we inspired by some amazing destinations but love discovering a few of the stories we may have missed.

Unfortunately I definitely broke several, if not all of my 2016 resolutions (so much for being publicly culpable) including the very domestic thou shalt not use the laundry hamper lid as a shelf - though I'm proud of lasting at least the month of January with that one. The team at CheapFlights commissioned me, wanting to suggest a few exotic destinations to break my New Year's resolutions in (they clearly know me too well).

But first, to set a few resolutions.

10 destinations that Instagram has made me dream about

WARNING: POST CONTAINS WANDERLUST FUEL, TURQUOISE OCEANS AND SOME PRETTY AMAZING INSTAGRAMMERS

We've literally just got back from an incredible 2 weeks under azure skies that were alive with the sound of music, but already as the plane wheels are hitting tarmac (far before we've worked out the jetlag kinks) my mind is already wandering to our next destination.

I partially blame instagram.

It not only provides another addiction to the shoal of social media habits I've found myself with, but it also provides my wanderlust with fuel. Will our next crazy adventure be in the UK (if my husband has anything to do with it) or will it be shores farther afield (if I get my own way...) for more exotic mischief?

I also blame the travel team at traveloka who commissioned this bevy of travel jewels post as they wanted to share some of their good hotel deals in a few of the beautiful South East Asian nations they feature - somewhere we haven't really travelled extensively. Yet.

Halloween Cocktails (in conjunction with thebar.com)

In the wilds of Northern England lives a purple-haired, upstate New Yorker. She is ensconced in a beautiful home that came with two chicanerous cats and the boy who stole her heart before taking her wanderlusting around the world.

We met over the interwebs, thanks to a series of blog posts she wrote about their year in New Zealand, and after an initial IRL dinner with our 3rd musketeer Amanda, we keep finding ourselves sat around a table with ribs sore from laughing over the same expat woes.

So, it was only natural when thebar.com contacted me to try and make a few of their Halloween cocktails that I began perusing Dannielle’s glass collection and we arranged a weekend tete a tete, States-style, in her Doncaster home found in the middle of Yorkshire.

Nine travel essentials that I won't leave home without...

Having zipped around the globe as much as I humanly could fit into annual leave for the last 10 years (HOW HAS IT BEEN THIS LONG ALREADY?) including 3 flights last year to my own Kiwi home - aka almost as far away as you can get from England without cozying up to Antarctic Penguins - it's safe to say that I think I've almost got this travel packing thing down to an art. (I'll have you know that it was my husband who left all of my bathroom kit behind in England on a recent trip - thankfully it was only Belfast and I could buy almost everything I needed in any case.)

In the vain hope of wrangling yet another trip on our way home from the last one, I always leave a little bag of essentials tucked into my drawer. I like to think of them as emergency travel ninja supplies that I could pick up at a moments notice - and it's the first stash of things that go into my suitcase.

Well, actually, this was going to be 10 travel essentials list, because as a spectacle wearer since the age of 11 - long before fashion made wearing spectacles respectable, even cool - I would always have to tuck my glasses case and a large stash of contact lenses for special occasions and emergencies into our suitcases. However, Vision Direct approached me to share their international contact lens delivery service (taking only 2-3 days delivery to most parts of Europe) that is going to be a game changer for our holidays. We will be much less stressed about accidentally knocking our glasses off the bedside table and having to wander around beautiful places squinting in annoyance because everything is blurry...

My carry-on essentials that I can't enjoy travelling without are:

How to travel cheaply OUT of London (aka shoehorn more adventures into a London budget)

Living in London and travelling is expensive. It’s sadly a fact that we can’t get away from, but over the years I have learnt a few creative tips and tricks that allow for a few extra quid in my pocket (usually then wasted on takeaway coffee and local delicacies if I’m being honest) and as many adventures as we can fit into a bulging calendar.

A pound saved is a pound that can be spent on champagne later, amiright? I’ve always been of the opinion that the less I pay to enormous conglomerate companies, the more I can spend whilst enjoying our destination. A nicer hotel, a beautiful meal, an extra experience that we stumble upon. You know the drill...

TSB contacted me about working together again to spill a few more of our favourite savings secrets that enable us to gallivant around the globe, but this time they asked for a gathering of tricks we use in order to budget and save money travelling and living in an expensive city (None of the mentioned travel links are sponsored in any way, I’m simply sharing them as I love them and recommend them often…)

How to save for your next big holiday

Let's be a little frank here, I'm not ever always the sensible person in my marriage. I'm usually the ideas generator, enthusiastic booker and excited-fun-planning person. Hot air balloon rides over the Pyrenees? Amazing! In winter? Well... Suffering vertigo? Oh, wait. Luckily, my better half has taught me many forms of British-ness restraint over the years, and probably the best of all are a few skills for saving towards bigger, better adventures.

And with our third trip to New Zealand in 12 months all planned and tickets booked for Christmas (featuring sandy beaches, a wedding and a cheeky bit of sightseeing at the end) it was perfect timing when TSB contacted me about working together again to spill a few more of our favourite savings secrets. I can't pretend to be a finance whiz, couponing addict or high-flying investor (or for that matter English) but we have a few time honored strategies that have worked for us. In between trips of course.

Let's face it, saving isn't sexy. It's not.

 
But, traveling on credit would suck all the fun out of the perfect sunset, picnics in front of monuments and early morning coffees a la bistro, knowing that when we got home there would be a whole swathe of charges just awaiting the opening of our next bank statement. Sometimes a little quality spreadsheet time can go a long way...

Are we currently in the Golden Age of Holidays: Then or Now

Travel in the past seems like it would be a sepia tinted oasis of calm. I imagine lazy sunshine days on the Amalfi coast with a 60s retro glamour (no instagram filters necessary), exploring unspoiled market squares in Marrakesh. Zipping away to three New Year Countdowns in a single international day on Concord, hiking through the Scottish Highlands enjoying the gift of farmhouse hospitality and the refined luxury of 1950s flights attended by dashing air hostesses.

There wouldn't be selfie-stick wielding Tourists periscoping around historic icons, tears due to relying on patchy internet connections for navigation along unfamiliar foreign roads, incorrectly booked hotels (a problem with dates that I somehow seem to wrestle with) or pavement tussles between phone-focussed addicts. There would be less missed connections due to delayed baggage claim time, travel discoveries were truly unique and not trampled by inconsiderate Twitter addicts in pursuit of 'that' photo and there was probably no such thing as souvenir tat. I had honestly never considered it before Expedia posed the question to me in their 'The Golden Age of Holidays: Then or Now' musings.

But think about it I did. Without modern developments, flights wouldn't ever had been as cost-effective and affordable to this minimum-wage pub-working Kiwi when I first got to English shores and it would have been impossible to board a train to Paris just for lunch, returning for a proper British dinner. My parents wouldn't have been as reassured when I moved to the other side of the world without regular video proof that I was whole and hearty, facebook would be missing at least 1,500 photos that my family claim to love seeing, we wouldn't have access to on-the-minute weather updates that would assure us the below mist...

Communication and the redefinition of home to expats

I blearily cracked open an eyelid, my proper first view of a London morning framed by the bright red struts of a dorm room bunkbed. Blinking, I peeped out the window over the sleepily setting up Borough High Street. The sky was overcast with the promise of rain, but I was simply too excited to care as the realisation dawned that it was my first full day on the other side of the world. 28 hours of flying (broken with a long stopover in Singapore) had taken me away from my family, but headlong into the biggest, scarily amazing adventure I could imagine.

Rolling over, I realised that my dorm mates were beginning to stir as well. Heads began to pop up from blue duvets and limbs began to stretch as I rubbed my eyes in utter disbelief. Here I was 11,659 miles from home, and across the room from me were 3 girls I had sat exams with in a small Auckland town; we had shared a few house parties and High School common room gossip, but over the ensuing years lethargy meant we had lost touch. Once the shock had worn off, we celebrated over cornflakes and mugs of coffee before we parted once again. They were off to Scotland on a week long bus tour, but I set about establishing a life here in the capital. 

 

What is with all of these musings? It's coming up to my 9th anniversary of stepping onto London Tarmac, and when serendipitiously Lebara contacted me about working together on a post about the joys of expat communication, it seemed like a nice excuse to look back with a few musings on my first few months in a strange country.

What not to do whilst travelling (and a few hard-learned safety tips)

I was barely 20 years old, living on the other side of the globe to my family, knew maybe 6 people in London and had no real experience of the wider world. So when traveling solo to Prague, my first experience of 'European' Europe really seemed like a great idea, I somehow found myself on a plane flying towards a country I knew almost nothing about (bar living with two lovely, crazy Czech architecture students) for an 8-day holiday.

If I met my younger self now, I would sit her down explain a plethora of things. I would point her towards the timeworn tips of a solo traveller blogger, tell her to patch together a Pinterest board and Tweet out the lessons learned - but back in the day we didn't quite have the same easy wealth of information at our fingertips (or social media addictions). Luckily, many years on I've learned a thing or two, so when TSB contacted me about working together to spill a few of the best safety tricks I've learned (many the hard way), I put fingers to keyboard.

Don't: Throw open a map picking a city simply based on how cheap the flights are and the beer varieties on offer (hey, I was young).
Do: Research how safe you'll generally be (especially solo women), know what acceptable local customs are such as how to dress and ensure that there is the possibility of central accommodation that doesn't have you walking around on your own late at night - then book the flights.

Parents-in-law: introducing my Northern out-laws

Surviving childhoods living in the war torn town of Grimsby during World War Two, making sure my trawler-brawler husband and his brother safely weathered thousands of childhood fracas and laughing through marriage for more than 50 years, my mother and father-in-law are the wonders of my British world. When the team at Work the World asked me who my unsung heroes are (and deserved to be sent a Fortnum & Mason hamper on our behalf), it had to be my British whanau.

They would kill me if they knew I took this, but this is my favorite photo of them, walking hand-in-hand into the wind.

As an expat, you have a slightly different relationship with your better-half's family. Instead of the usual Mother/Daughter-in-law relationship, my Mother-in-law found herself adopting a quirky, foreign, extra daughter with an eye rolling whilst nagging her husband habit. Not a nice British girl who understands local flavour palates, sunny holidays to Spain and English etiquette (something I've still to grasp, but luckily they allow me a lot of slack), but a crazy Kiwi wanderluster whose idea of a wonderful trip is shivering in an Arctic Circle field watching the Northern Lights shimmer across the skies, cooks pumpkin and sweet potato like it's going out of fashion and delights in Northern English bakeries like 'The Bun Shop' (the "u" has to be pronounced to rhyme with pull).

10 top tips for saving money AND travelling the world

Sadly I'm not Angelina Jolie. I'm not married to Brad Pitt, blessed with gorgeous cheekbones, sashaying from from glamourous A-list party to A-list party or flying to the world's most exotic travel destinations as part of my every day life. But, as a regular adventuring Kiwi I've still managed to cross a fair share of red carpets, enjoy sipping the Brandgelina rosé, and - best of all - lucky enough to visit many breathtakingly exotic destinations with my own (Northern) Blonde husband.

We don't have any secret get rich quick schemes, but over the years have managed to glean a few (rather un-glamourous) ways to gather pennies (cents, rubles - whichever) together for cross-globe adventures, so when TSB contacted me about working together to spill a few of our favourite savings secrets, I couldn't really say no.

1. Budget and have a separate savings account for travel.
Know how much you can affordably save after essential bills, and pop it into a separate bank account to (hopefully) gather a little interest over the weeks between glamourous roadtrips around the countryside. I've even nicknamed my account 'travel' in order to discourage mischievous fingers from chipping away at the squirrelled away cash.