The curse of the travel bug is sometimes, well, more travel. We had an excellent deal on accommodation and figured we could keep our selves busy in Dubrovnik for 10 days... but the lure of a couple of countries right next door seduced us. Today we headed off in a small group of 6 to visit Montenegro (literally 'Black Mountain'), beginning with a scenic drive around the Bay of Kotor and with stops in the walled city of Kotor, a quick look at the island of Sveti S...

We're not sure how any of them afford it but it seems in Summer Dubrovnik is infested with tourists - and in Winter it's alive with cats. It's lucky we're cat-people - much more so than people-people to be honest. We are finding it hard to comprehend how this tiny jewelbox of a walled city can even begin to cope when 10,000 people descend off cruise ships in one day (and it happens day after day after day!) It's comfortably busy at the moment by our standards - t...

For us southern hemisphere types the lure of a wintry, sparkling Christmas time can be irresistable - and so, with a couple of weeks spare between Ireland and Italy we figured 'why not' - Croatia here we come! Zagreb is really rolling out the Christmas carpet having won the award for Best Christmas Markets in Europe 2 years running - they are very keen to win again this year and the effort they've put in is incredible. We read somewhere that if you can't get in...

When we are 'travelling', sometimes it seems we see/do/experience 100 things in a day. When we are 'living' as we have been the last couple of weeks, there is a restful and charming peace to our existence - walks by the lake ('the odd couple" is today's picture - mother & child near Glendalough), the first snow of the season (brrrrr!), playing with the cats, and, of course, binging on Netflix (admission of the problem is the first stage of recovery - we survi...

First off let's deal with the blindingly obvious. Just recently it was Melbourne Cup Day in, not surprisingly, Melbourne, Australia. Now we do like a flutter... lotto, house raffles and of course an annual and very small contribution to the horsey upkeep fund. Also known as a bet on the Melbourne Cup - the race that stops a nation. Despite it being run at about 5 am Irish time, we did have a dollar each on respectively Marmelo (James) and Wicklow Brave (me - ob...