If we were having coffee, I’d very much hope it was on my hotel balcony, overlooking the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The sun would be shining, there would be a local band playing over the other side of the river and the only plans we’d have would be to do another Pinxtos crawl later today. That’s a bit specific, sorry…
What else happened this month?
If we were having coffee, at this point it would probably be a home-brewed cup, flavoured heavily with vanilla.
I’ve been home a lot this month – working away busily on a few future plans, getting ready to launch something a little special (keep reading for a sneak peek), planning some extensive garden works that will pay handsome dividends in summer, keeping an eye on our poorly cat (who seems to be getting a little bit better), slipping in a blog post here and there & getting very obsessed with the Syfy series The Magicians.
Well, to be honest, November was equal turns surprising and amazing. So, I think I’d be having a rum punch in lieu of a coffee (or maybe a Jamaica Coffee – dark rum, coffee liqueur, coffee, heavy cream and coffee beans. But, I digress.)
It was rather destined to be lovely – Mr Kiwi and I had a holiday to Dubrovnik booked, missing all of their summer crowds, so we spent nearly a week exploring the ancient Croatian city. I guess you could ‘do’ Dubrovnik in a couple of days, but we wanted to really relax and explore.
Well, summer has descended with the promise of overnight thunderstorms and humid temperatures, so if we were having coffee I would actually be drinking Lemon, Lime & Bitters already – a favourite Australasian summer drink of lemonade (fizzy just to clarify for the Americans), lime cordial or juice and bitters that just hits the spot on a hot old day.
If we were having coffee, I’d be telling you all about my recent adventures – a foray over to the Netherlands primarily by train – where I got to catch up with two blinkin’ lovely friends. (I also got to gambol briefly in Amsterdam for the afternoon – these are my favourite things to do in Amsterdam when I’ve got longer in the city and less wine to sip canalside.)
Choosing where to stay in Cappadocia was a tough decision. I’m not being hyper dramatic when I say that I probably spent more time choosing this hotel than I did when I was choosing a wedding dress – and in the end, I made a decision via the less than scientific method of asking Mr Kiwi for two favourites, and flipping a coin. (The hotel, not the dress.)
I love staying in quirky hotels – but they have to carefully tiptoe the line between bland and kitsch, and suit our travelling style. I adore the hotels that have a keen sense of place (it’s also a bonus when they come with animal custodians like our stay with Jasper at the Scarlet Hotel in Cornwall or the Pygmy goat neighbours in Austin, Texas) and are lovely to come back to at the end of the day.