IN these long months of lockdown with foreign travel still a dream, those of us who love to explore, whether it’s rural France, the American West or the Amazon jungle, have had to make do with films, newspaper articles and travel books. Di Murrell has lived and worked on waterways in this country for most…
A NEW virtual film festival is being launched this month, created by the people who run the popular and successful Banff Mountain Film Festival. The Feel Good Film Festival celebrates positivity and the art of happiness, and continues until 7th May. The programme features a collection of hilarious and heart-warming short films guaranteed to put…
WE can’t travel to our favourite places, thanks to Covid-19, but we can still dream. Take a virtual tour of some of Europe’s most beautiful areas and finest vineyards, courtesy of Property Guides online, which has drawn up a list of ten top locations for wine. Stunning landscapes and fascinating history often go hand-in-hand with…
MAN’s best friend has been living up to his (and her) name during this awful pandemic and lockdown year, so what better time to enjoy the virtual edition of the Top Dog Film Festival. Founded in Australia, and brought to the UK by the people who run the Banff Mountain Film Festival, the Top Dog…
THE autumn edition of the Ocean Film Festival World Tour is a virtual event, with a series of dramatic, beautiful, lyrical and exciting new short films being shown online on 17th to 19th November. The films, as always, are stories of seafaring adventure, carefree characters and fascinating marine life, often with a particular conservation, ecological…
THE Dorset-based Guild of Fine Food will be heading for Spain for this year’s World Cheese Awards, which will be held in the principality of Asturias, as part of the International Cheese Festival in Oviedo. The awards, now in their 33rd year and one of the world’s most important cheese competitions, will be judged on…
THE Great West Way, running from London to Bristol, roughly along the line of the A4 trunk road, is the world’s first multi-modal touring route, with road, rail and water links between the two cities, a direct distance of 125 miles. If you include the off-the-beaten walking and bike trails and other detours, there are…
IF you were born with the name Codd, raised by a loving, close-knit circle of family and friends, grew up by the sea on the Dorset coast and swam like a mermaid, the last thing you would expect is to develop an all-consuming fear of the creatures that live in the ocean. What are the…
DON McCullin, one of the all-time great war photographers and more recently a documenter of rural landscapes, has an important exhibition at Hauser & Wirth, Bruton, running to 4th May. Don McCullin. The Stillness of Life features more than 60 landscape photographs, mapping his intimate relationship with the local landscape of Somerset and continued passion…
WE went up to Edinburgh for a concert at the festival (John Eliot Gardiner conducting West Side Story, if you are interested, and it was brilliant) and stayed somewhere new to us – Portobello. On the Forth coast, between Leith and Musselburgh, Portobello is a slightly faded 19th century seaside resort that has not been…