Short cuts

London Review of Books | 9 Oct 2014

As we stepped off the ferry onto the Aegean island of Symi in late August, our thoughts were on sunbathing and sailing. But the first thing we saw was a group of what we soon discovered were Syrians carrying small backpacks holding those few possessions they hadn’t lost during the crossing from Turkey. A week later, the number of frightened, hungry and exhausted refugees had grown substantially; when we arrived there were about fifty, now there were around two hundred. An old man with gashes on his face sat bleeding in 30° heat for ten hours waiting for a doctor. He slumped forward, seemingly drunk from dehydration. He’d hit his face against the rocks when the Greek port police fired a shot in the air. Symi is the island closest to the Turkish mainland; the same thing is happening on many other outlying islands.

• Current Affairs

Sun, sea, sand and a spell of humanitarian intervention

The Sunday Times | 7 Sep 2014

As we stepped off the Dodekanisos Pride ferry onto the Greek island of Symi for our late August beach holiday, our thoughts were on sunbathing and sailing. But our first sight was of 48 dispossessed Syrians carrying backpacks containing their worldly possessions. Within a week their numbers had grown to more than 200 and we could ignore their misery no longer.

Spending our last four days among them, we came across a septuagenarian with facial gashes who sat bleeding in 30C heat waiting for a doctor, as he had for 10 hours. He had hit his face against rocks when the Greek port police fired a shot in the air.

• Current Affairs

The Potting Shed

Our Man on the Ground | 18 Aug 2014

The Royal Triangle is like a sort of reverse Bermuda Triangle – so instead of aircraft and ships disappearing under suspicious circumstances, tasteful Highgrove daisy grubbers, maple-handled planting trowels, traditional Sussex trugs in which to collect your earthy organic carrots and wooden apple crates simply appear. Just like that. And everything is painted that sautéed sage colour. It’s like living in the brain of Lady Bamford of Daylesford fame, the high priestess of this sort of aesthetic.

• Food

The Restaurant at Cowley Manor

Our Man on the Ground | 18 Jul 2014

The Elder Daughter and I arrive an hour late – after driving into several hedges. The satnav doesn’t like the idea of going there and keeps ordering us imperiously to “perform a U-turn when possible” on roads the size of my little finger. When we get mobile reception – which isn’t often – we call to say we’re running late. Which might be as good a way as any to alert the staff to our table reservation. Wrong.

• Food

The Experts… Advice

Condé Nast Traveller | 1 Jul 2014

I’d like to go on a fitness holiday, but I’m not really into gyms and I find boot camps terrifying. I’d also like some pampering spa treatments. Do you have any ideas?

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

Dial H for Healers

Tatler | 18 Jun 2014

Mornings were worst. I would wake with lead in my veins, a jackboot pressing on my chest and my body rigid, as if set in formaldehyde. I’d be beset by a terrible inner loneliness and desolation, paralysed with foreboding. I became destructive, self-sabotaging and impulsive, forgetting that I’m a successful, loved woman with a good life and an exciting future.

This is depression. A crippling depression that has been with me all my life. So who would have thought that the best help would come in the form of a spa therapist?

• Health, Beauty & Spa

Every picture tells a colourful story

Evening Standard | 11 Jun 2014

You get a good idea about freelance stylist Mary Fellowes just by looking at her walls. There’s a frmed obituary of her uncle – Hugh van Cutsem, erstwhile confidant of the Prince of Wales – and, nearby, there is another about her grandmother, Lady Margaret Fortescue, who inherited one of Britain’s largest land-holdings. There is also a Polaroid selfie of Fellowes with Paris Hilton – signed by the hotels heiress.

• Homes, Interiors & Property

Kensal Rise has risen

Evening Standard | 4 Jun 2014

Welcome to Brent — once called the drive-by-shooting capital of the UK. Before that it was the People’s Republic of Brent, ravaged by poverty and famed from the late Eighties for outspoken local MP “Red” Ken Livingstone, London’s first elected mayor.

When I moved to Kensal Rise in Brent, the place was derided. But “The Rise” has now risen, earning a reputation as a celebrity haunt-meets-Nappy Valley. Last year Brent experienced Britain’s fastest-rising house prices, outpacing even the oligarch hotspots of Kensington and Knightsbridge.

• Homes, Interiors & Property

Tiny, mellow Monteverdi makes a grand break

Daily Mail | 23 Apr 2014

A skinny fellow with a ‘man bob’ and his attractive female companion are sipping prosecco and gazing at an extinct volcano in a valley that has scarcely changed in a century. Nearby, a woman from Cincinnati surveys a medieval building that is being turned into a tiny spa, while an impecunious musician eats a meal made by a chef who worked at one of Giorgio Locatelli’s restaurants.

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

The world’s best family hotels – Anassa, Cyprus

Condé Nast Traveller | 22 Apr 2014

Cyprus is gloriously hot at Easter and autumn half-term, but its trump card for those travelling with under fours is that it’s less than five hours on a plane from London, saving you the hell of long-haul. And luckily, the nannies from Scott Dunn (English-speaking, young, smiley) are on hand to absolve you of a moment’s guilt about disentangling yourself for a few hours (or 9.30am-5.30pm, if you prefer)

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

Some like it hot!

Daily Mail | 9 Apr 2014

Coronado Island in Southern California is the island Disney would have made, had he created one. There’s something unreal in its perfection. It’s palm-fringed, between bay and ocean. And its streets are clean enough to eat off – there are $1,000 fines for littering.

• Travel: Americas

A secret Greek island

The Week | 22 Feb 2014

It has been attracting attention from the rich and famous lately, but the lush and beautiful Greek island of Meganisi is still “firmly off the tourist radar”, says Caroline Phillips in The Times. Part of the Ionian archipelago, just off the country’s west coast, it feels lost in time, with patchy mobile reception and a population of just 1200, none of whom locks their house or car.

• Travel: Europe/ Africa