Hello readers, followers, friends, family all scattered across the globe. I am currently writing this from the wonderfully understated harbour city of Toulon, tucked away on France's Mediterranean coast in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Being here was both entirely planned and completely unplanned at the same time. The short version is that I was hired, an accidental double-casting situation arose, Zachary moved on from his Rossiniana preparation and less than twenty hours before they were due...

Hello lovely family, friends and followers! I’m currently in London, co-looking after a friend’s family’s lovely spaniel called Maddie — floof pictured below. At the moment I’m sitting in their kitchen having just iced my Grandma’s chocolate cake recipe, which I whipped up last night on a whim. Maddie - the aforementioned 'floof' The recipe comes from a little book I’ve carried with me since I left New Zealand in 2013. It’s filled with my family’s handwritten recipes — notes in margins,...

(FYI: Internet a bit sketchy on the train so pictures to be updated later!) Dear friends, family, and anyone who has accidentally found themselves here, Merry Christmas from seat 260 on the upper deck of coach number 2 of a OuiGo train hurtling south out of Paris. I am currently wedged somewhere between Bordeaux and Agen, watching suprisingly un-wintery farmland blur past at speed, drinking mediocre coffee, and contemplating the strange reality that Christmas Day now often arrives for me in...