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Style is timeless. The key to looking great isn’t about following all of the latest fashion trends. It’s about finding your style, developing a sense of self and always staying true to your own aesthetic. My personal style went through a fair number of questionable phases. This is the story of how I lost my groove before embarking on a journey to rediscover my true sense of self.

I remember standing in the school playground when I was ten years old watching a solar eclipse with my classmates under the supervision of our teacher. The world didn’t go particularly dark but that’s because it was only a partial eclipse. I’d never seen one since, until I watched one in totality in the clearContinue reading “The Diamond Ring”

My maternal grandfather held a high ranking position in a number of British overseas naval dockyards, and my mother grew up in countries such as Gibraltar, Bermuda, and the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta where she lived as a teenager from 1930 until 1932. In 1956, my mother returned to Malta with her own family.Continue reading “Finding Alhambra… in Malta”

The train was crowded, but not, surprisingly, with other Inter-Railers. Every one of the small compartments had been taken over by Moroccan families; plastic carrier bags and cardboard boxes blocked the luggage racks. They had hung their clothes over the doors and windows; we were far too intimidated to enter. We moved up to theContinue reading “Crossing the Border”

With Mum now living with Terry and embarking on a new life, I took one look at this picture and decided, “I don’t think so”. Mum had already given us up once to my alcoholic father who could barely take care of us, but he always paid our school fees and holidays abroad with theContinue reading “The Frying Pan”

When I told my friends I had booked a package holiday to Greece with a company specialising in holidays for single people aged between 30 and 49, they laughed at me. “You’re going on a singles holiday, hahaha. It will be full of sad desperate people looking for love and marriage.” My flight ticket arrivedContinue reading “The Singles’ Holiday Club”

One October morning, Jebeh Nyoman Yanti walked along Sanur Beach, as she did every morning with her friends, looking for customers to bring back to the market stalls. Little did this 20-year-old Balinese beach-seller know that this would be the day that would change her life forever. We live in Holland, and on that wonderfullyContinue reading “From Bali to Holland… With Love”

Our timing was perfect. We found ourselves in Lisbon at the height of the ‘Festas de Lisboa’, an annual festival of music and dance, which takes over the entire city every year throughout June. The merry atmosphere is akin to a party; a full-blown fiesta of colourful floats, dazzling fireworks, raucous street parties, music, danceContinue reading “Festive Fun and Toenail Trauma”

When Daniel was about two-and-a-half years old, I took him to a cake shop. He was motivated by sugar as most children are; he never got given it in my house but when he went to his dad’s he did, and all the good work I’d done during the week would be undone in aContinue reading “The Cake Shop”

“You are about to change your life completely,” declared the fortune teller, a kindly grey-haired gentleman who appeared to be receiving messages from the ‘other side’. “You will be moving east.” I didn’t believe in all that clairvoyant mumbo jumbo, I had only agreed to see the man because he had scheduled a day ofContinue reading “A Fortune Teller Told Me”

Our final destination was a gorgeous white sand beach and blue lagoon known as Oludeniz. We had been enticed by postcards of the place and had decided to relax there on the last day of our holiday. After several hours of swimming and snorkelling and lying in the sun, my boyfriend decided to have aContinue reading “Stuffed in Turkey”

It seemed as though the timeshare company had kindly given me a few days to settle in and get over the jetlag, when in reality I had just missed the start of one training course and was having to wait six days before the beginning of the next one. Nevertheless, I was keen to startContinue reading “A Career in Timeshare… Really?”