Welcome to Issue #12 of The Wanderlust, my monthly zine where I share what I’m up to, encourage you to dance, wander and explore and discover amazing new creative talent. I delve into my photo archives, share snippets from my travel journals and drop in the odd freebie. So if you know someone who you think might like this, feel free to share it with them.
End of April through to all of May is always busy for us. It’s our birthday’s, our anniversary and we usually plan in a good few trips. The weather this year has been incredible which has added that extra feel good factor.
We started with an afternoon at Branklyn Garden with lunch. The rhododendrons were in full swing and even some of the Himalayan blue poppies were out.
Next was a day trip up to Oban with coffee at Hinba before making the lovely drive down to Ardmaddy Castle Estate for a wander around the gardens and the bluebell woodland. The castle is situated in a beautiful spot overlooking the water to some of the Inner Hebrides and we had the whole area to ourselves.
If you’ve been subscribed for a while you might remember that I mentioned Tahuna Bothies back in Issue #4. We had a brilliant stay up there with beautiful views over the sand dunes to the sea at Newburgh Beach. We’d highly recommend it! Our trip to the area wouldn’t have been complete without heading into Aberdeen for coffee and brunch at Figment, which we’d also recommend. Fantastic food, amazing customer service and the best coffee. We stumbled upon a lovely little park called Johnston Gardens just a stones throw away before heading into town for a stroll around Old Aberdeen and historic Footdee (Fittie to the locals) with it’s pretty fisherman’s cottages and unique outbuildings. We finished our day off with some street food from one of the trucks along the Esplanade. We were even lucky enough to see dolphins at the harbour. A perfect weekend in the sunshine.
We’re only half way through the month and still have more fun to look forward to next week.
Time to read: 4 mins
Time to dance: 5 mins 5 secs
We love a city break, visiting Newcastle, Oxford and Bath last year and Manchester the year before. This year, it’s Liverpool and my list is growing by the day.
Baltic Triangle is a collection of repurposed warehouses, spread out around Jamaica Street in a former industrial area and now home to a creative arts scene, cafe’s, bars, street food, vintage finds and events. It looks like the perfect place to spend the day exploring with coffee at 92 Degrees, lunch at Yonder, some shopping at Red Brick Market and ending the day at Camp and Furnace or Baltic Market.
I love Georgian architecture so the Georgian Quarter is high on the list for a stroll as well as a visit to Liverpool Cathedral (the largest in Britain) for a panoramic view of the city from the tower and, I hear that it also serves the best Scouse (a type of stew) in the city at it’s bistro, The Welsford.
Open Eye is a photography gallery with a suite of exhibitions, projects, publications and festivals across the year that I’d really like to check out. It’s also one of the venues for this year’s Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art.
After all the busyness of the city, ending the break with a stop out at Crosby Beach to see Another Place by Antony Gormley will be the perfect calm.
Carrying on with the Liverpudlian theme I’m going to be in search of some indie shops in the city that sell local artists, makers and designers work. I’ve spied these to check out so far…
The Nest at The Albert Dock.
Florence and Fox up by Crosby Beach.
Bluecoat Display Centre in the city centre.
Northern Lights Gallery at Baltic Triangle.
I’ve been adding all the places I’m finding for my Liverpool City Break to a Google Map to make planning a bit easier, so I thought I’d share it with you, so that you can plan a visit too. Just click on the map to start exploring.
A band I got right into a couple of years ago and then forgot about, until now. Nation of Language.
Don’t fancy a boogie? Then chill to this from The Black Seeds. It’s from their Into the Dojo album which is still one of my favourite summer albums and it feels like summer where I am right now.
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