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Travel

SFMOMA

A flying visit to San Francisco on my way to Monterey on business – and SFMOMA was top of my list of places to visit. It didn’t disappoint.

I took myself off on Saturday morning, while it was still relatively quiet – and on the advice of a friend, covered the whole gallery from top to bottom. It’s almost impossible to pull out everything I loved, but here are some highlights.

Jenny Holzer, 1983: Truisms

Artwork showing yellow triangle and black block

Ellsworth Kelly, 1993: Yellow Relief with Black

Ellsworth Kelly, 1953: Spectrum 1

Artwork of four squares with squares nested inside

Josef Albers, 1954: Homage to the Square

Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love

Installation of yellow and black abstract pumpkins

Yayoi Kusama: Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart

For Yayoi Kusama, pumpkins have been a lifelong source of fascination. She was first drawn to them in childhood, citing their “generous unpretentiousness” and “spiritual balance,” and has explored them continually in her painting, sculpture, installation art, and poetry.

Artwork called 256 Colours by Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, 1974: 256 Farben.

And lastly, this amazing immersive glass tunnel…I didn’t note the artist, but I loved it!

There were so many, many more pieces I loved. This is just a selection of the great work on display.

10th October 2024

Play, Travel

Top 10 Cosmo’s of 2018…so far

Anyone who knows me knows that the Cosmopolitan is unashamedly my favourite cocktail. As we’re coming to the halfway point of the year, I’ve rounded up the best Cosmo’s from 2018 – so far. Conveniently, it makes a nice neat list of 10 – though these are in no particular order, they’re all great 🙂

Forever linked with the 90’s and Sex and the City, the Cosmo dates back much further, with its roots in a 1930’s confection featuring gin, instead of vodka. There are mentions of it in the 1970’s in America, before it was popularised by SJP and the gang. The International Bartenders Association quotes the recipe as:

4 cl Citron Vodka
1.5 cl Cointreau
3 cl Cranberry juice
1.5 cl Fresh lime juice

Shake all ingredients in cocktail shaker filled with ice. Strain into a large cocktail glass, garnish with lime slice…and voila. They also very sensibly catagorise it as an ‘All Day Cocktail‘. I’m not arguing with that!

Hakkasan, London W1

The Cosmopolitan at Hakkasan was stop-you-in-your-tracks-knock-your-socks-off-good. More than good, it was the best Cosmo I’ve had in years. A stand-out cocktail and a lovely bar to drink it at. Followed by some Michelin Starred Chinese nibbles.

Trocadero Playa, Marbella

Cocktail on the beach at sunset, perfect. Nicely balanced and a good size. Usual routine is to drop the bags off and head out for one of these on arrival.

Artesian Bar, the Langham Hotel, London W1

Well earned cocktail after a busy days shopping in London. Lovely unusual glasses. Quite red in colour but perfectly balanced.

Purobeach, Marbella

Beach club perfection – and huge too! Perfect to sip while listening to some Balearic beats and chilling out. Look at that for a holiday cocktail 🙂

Chilli Pickle, Brighton

Ordered off-menu and this wonderful restaurant made me my favourite cocktail. Lovely as a pre-curser to an Indian feast.

Charlotte St Hotel, London W1

One of London’s classic hotel bars, as expected they do an excellent Cosmo (and a great Old Fashioned too).

Mayfair Hotel, London W1

Again, excellent hotel cocktail bar – great place for meeting friends. In fact, I was having so much fun that I forgot to take a picture, so here’s one I obviously took from their website!

Nobu, London W1

These slip down incredibly well with a selection of Japanese food. Had a few more in the bar downstairs after too.

Malmaison, LondonEC1

Much better in the upstairs bar than the downstairs one, but still a good shout for a cocktail in EC1.

Iberica, London EC1

Cocktails and tapas…yum.

Any must-drink Cosmo recommendations for me?

14th May 2018

Travel

48 hours in Marbella

We go to Marbella quite often – at least a couple of times a year, and we’ve found some pretty lovely places to eat and drink and hang out there. Only 2.5 hours from Gatwick, it’s the perfect weekend destination if you want to get some good food and some sunshine. We keep mostly away from the very touristy times of year and any really touristy hang-outs, and we’ve got to know some great places to go.

Malaga to Marbella

We used to hire a car, but realised that it spent most of its time parked up in the hotel car park, so since last year we now always get the bus from the airport straight to the bus terminal at Marbella. A bargain at around €6 each way (a taxi is about €100), the bus departs from right outside the arrivals hall and runs regularly. The ‘directo’ bus uses the toll road, rather than the slower coastal road and takes about 40 minutes. You can either walk into town from the bus station or grab a cab from the rank to where you are staying. Buy your ticket online or at the ticket office in the arrival hall. There’s often a queue, so we found buying it in advance online the best option.

Accommodation

There are tons of hotels, villas and Airbnb places to stay, as you would expect. If you’re looking for reasonable priced without too many frills then the NH Marbella is a good shout. They have a small pool with a bar that’s open in high-season and an excellent buffet breakfast for the price. It’s also a good location, within strolling distance of Central Marbella and a nice longer walk along the beach to Puerto Banús (about 5km). It’s also handy for the beach and local buses along the coast.

Bars

My favourite stretch of beach is Copacabana – and the Trocadero Playa is a great bar for a cocktail at sunset or to while away an afternoon. It’s a bit pricier than other bars, but it has a perfect location so sometimes you have to pay a little extra for that!

My hidden gem is a sports bar called Boca Seca. It’s on the side of the road between the NH Hotel and the Puente Romano hotel and it’s a real locals place. The food is good, cheap and plentiful, they play the MotoGP race on a Sunday and are open late. It gets busy, but it’s worth waiting for a spot outside. The ensalada rusa, jamon croquettas and the pig cheek are all highly recommended!

Food

Wow – where to start? Well, my all time favourite is a Dani Garcia restaurant called Lobito Del Mar. A beautiful Hamptons Coastal inspired decor with a fantastic bar and a fantastic bar menu to go with it. I recommend sitting at the bar, chatting with the excellent bar staff and sampling a range of fishy delights over a long and lingering lunch. The martini’s are huge, and the clams are delicious.

There’s a newly-ish open organic restaurant opposite the Marbella Club Hotel called the Organic Market and Food and it serves amazing fresh ingredients, lots of veggie and vegan dishes, with a fresh modern decor and some outside seating. The food is excellent, but I have always (3 trips) found the service lacking. It’s worth going for the food, but don’t expect the service to be particularly friendly.

If you’re looking for tasty snacks in a busy buzzy environment then LeKune Bar de Pinxos in Marbella is the perfect place. Pinxo‘s are small snacks, usually served on bread with a drink. It gets packed, which all adds to the atmosphere and it’s a great place to pop into to fill up on tasty morsels. It’s quieter at breakfast time and it’s lovely to sit outside with a cafe con leche and a glass of fresh orange and watch the world go by on a Saturday or Sunday morning.

Plus ++

A trip out of Marbella about 30 mins along the coast by bus to Laguna Village has two benefits – firstly the gorgeous Purobeach Beach Club. My idea of a perfect heavenly day is to arrive there at 11 and stay all day, hanging out, listening to great music and drinking cocktails. I’ve never had a bad time there. But a few doors down from PuroBeach is Camuri, where we always go for lunch if we are there. A Mediterranean-Asian fusion restaurant serving fresh quality ingredients. Ask for a table down the side of the restaurant. The service is better there and the view is ace.

There are tons more places to go, this list only scratches the surface, but if you’re looking for more ideas:

Italian food and people watching in Puerto Banús. Go at lunchtime when it’s not full of partying youngsters. They do a mean escalope milanese (ask for it with spaghetti pomadoro).
Drinks at the bar by the pool at the Marbella Club Hotel.
Sunday morning coffee in Plaza de los Naranjos in Marbella. Go to the cathedral and watch the well-dressed locals arrive for mass then get coffee in the square.
Hire a bike at the Marbella Bike Club and have an early morning cycle.
Dress up for lunch on the terrace at the Villa Padierna hotel.
Take a trip out of town, up into the hills of Ronda.
If you have all-day Sunday then a trip out to The Beach House is worth the journey for good food and daytime entertainment

Basically, 48 hours isn’t long enough, but that’s why we keep going back 🙂

13th May 2018

Travel

Purobeach Marbella Birthday

We got to spend my Birthday week in Marbella again, which is one of my favourite things to do. And we got to spend my actual Birthday at Purobeach. It was an ace day.

In fact, the whole week was ace. We spent time lying down, eating, drinking and generally relaxing. So many highlights, including disovering a new-ish restaurant from local chef Dani Garcia. Lobito de Mar was a fanstastic discovery – fresh seafood, little nibbles, HUGE martini’s and all set in a stylish, Hamptons-vibe restaurant. Of course, we opted to sit at the bar, which is always first choice for me.

We stayed at the NH just outside Marbella, which is cost-effective and really good value. They’ve got a nice pool and you can easily get around the local area. The local bus stops practically outside, the cabs are not too expensive and it’s a lovely stroll along the beach in either direction to Marbella or Puerto Banus. We’ve been there so many times before the Wifi picked up my phone both at the hotel and the neighbouring bar, Boca Seca.

This time, as well as Lobito de Mar, we ate at a few different places. We found excellent Pinxos in Marbella called Le Kune, we had great cocktails at Trocadero Playa and we travelled the other side of Marbella to go to The Beach House. A bit of a trek, but the food and Cosmo’s made up for it. We also lunched at La Milla and ate (excellent) ‘experimental’ tapas by streelight in Marbella old town at Garnacha.

I can’t wait to go back.

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15th September 2017

Travel

Ferrocaril de Soller

Too soon our stay in Palma was at an end, and it was time to up sticks to Soller, a town about 40 mins away by car. But we’d decided not to go by car, instead taking the wooden narrow guage 105 year old train through the countryside to our destination. The Ferrocaril is a train that leaves from the Plaza de Espana Station in Palma, and heads to Soller with a few stops along the way.

We arrived and were able to buy tickets on the day, although it was very busy. We had a drink at the lovely little cafe, because, as usual we had arrived really early and then we went onto the platform to get the train.

It was pretty chaotic, with a bit of a bunfight to get on the train once it had arrived. It was impossible to know if everyone who was waiting would get on, and there was a bit of pushing and shoving – bit like getting on the Central Line in rush hour.

We managed to get on, but there were no seats left so we stood in the gap between the carriages. It turned out to be quite nice, I suspect we might have had the nicest view through the countryside and into the mountainous Tramuntana region – though it was a bit weird going through the 13 tunnels close enough to touch them.

The scenery is lovely and there is a stop off point for people to get out and take pictures. Definitely not the quickest way to do the journey but certainly an experience. There’s more about the history of the trainline on The Other Mallorca site.

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28th April 2017

Travel

Palm-a Sunday

I hadn’t really twigged that we were in Palma the weekend before Easter, and that meant that our decision to get up early and take a walk to the cathedral was extra special, as there were lots of Palm Sunday activities going on. We were treated to the wonderful sight and sound of the cathedral choir warming up, of all the women buying elaborately tied palms outside the cathedral, of a procession of children and adults in green, shops with wonderful chocolate displays and everywhere we looked were gorgeous buildings and people holding palms – all bathing in the wonderful Spring sunlight.

: Women buying palms

: Ready for the procession

: Palms everywhere

: Cakes

: Man resting with palms

: Girl laughing with plams

: Cholcoalte Easter chicks

: Palma street

: Outside the cathedral

23rd April 2017

Travel

Perfect Palma Saturday

We flew into Palma on Saturday, arriving about lunchtime. After all the stress of the week and Mum’s operation, it was great to be able to relax with a holiday and we didn’t waste any time once we got there – grabbing a cab from the airport to the Hotel Costa Azul, on the seafront. We’ve been to Palma before but about 10 years ago, and on a family trip – so this time, although we were not there long we were determined to get a good look around. The Costa Azul is a nice, modern, not expensive hotel. It wasn’t really hot enough to try out any of the pool or sunbathing facilities, but the room was good – large enough and perfect for our weekend in Palma.

After dumping off our bags and changing into shorts to suit the nice weather, we headed out. I was desparate for my first Aperol Spritz of the year, so we stopped off at a cafe a few blocks up from the hotel. ‘Cappuccino‘ turned out to be a bit pricey for a couple of drinks, but boy they tasted good. How is it when you get somewhere the first place you go in is always expensive?

Anyway, suitably fortified we headed off into town, walking along the seafront towards the cathedral. We spent a good couple of hours wandering around, intermittently browsing in the shops and stopping for drinks. Perfect Saturday afternoon shopping. I was particularly taken with the C&A, as we haven’t had one of those in the UK for years. It was like a trip down memory lane, and I got a really nice denim jacket 🙂

We stumbled across a cute looking restaurant, called Restaurante El Pilòn. It was a lovely looking small place, and it served a nice varitey of dishes. Everything seemed homemade and the service was very attentive. We had some traditional tapas and everything tasted good. The house white wine was a bit sharp, but the hospitality was top-notch and the bill very reasonable.

After an obligatory siesta, we headed back out, grabbing a cab into town and straight to the bar at the Puro Hotel for excellent cocktails, followed by stunning tapas at El Cuerno, which is just around the corner. The food there was fantastic – the best Pulpo A La Gallega I’ve ever tasted, and a welcoming homemade herbal alcoholic shot. The food, staff, drinks and ambience were all great – would recommend and definitely go back if I was in Palma again, and it wasn’t too expensive.

An excellent first day in Mallorca.

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18th April 2017

Travel

Poland

Not long back from Hong Kong and I had to fly to Poland, for work.

I’ve wanted to go to Poland for a long time, not least because my Nan was born there and there are probably some Polish family somewhere. But this was a work trip, so all no time to sightsee.

The sky as as we flew into Warsaw was stunning. This shot is so dreamy!

There was time for some nice vodka on the second evening, when we were taken for dinner. I bought a bottle of this to bring back too, it’s lovely.

Needless to say, there was snow everywhere. We were lucky, it had warmed up to only -10. A few days before it had been as low as -25.

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15th January 2017

Travel

Old friends, new memories

While we were on holiday we arranged to meet up with some old friends we hadn’t seen for a while. We all worked together at Rufus Leonard in the late 90’s/early ’00’s and have kept in touch – either on Facebook or occasionally bumping into eachother. Amazingly we all happened to be in Hong Kong at the same time, so a great night was had – cocktails in the Skybar and dinner at Ce La Vie in the California Tower (amazing views), followed by nightcaps at the members-only Foreign Correspondents Club.

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5th January 2017

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