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...

It's not that we're in the market for fleas... or for that matter, car boots, but the sun was shining, the birds were singing and the sky was blue - so we had to go somewhere! We started out locally, just 20 minutes away in Blessington. We figure it's rude and thoughtless not to buy anything when people have gone to the trouble to get up at the crack of dawn in freezing temperatures and cart their stuff to a freezing car park - so ended up with a sparkly pair o...