Modern-day nomads, like tortoises we carry everything on our backs. Experts at packing. Good at making do. There is nothing like the excitement of a new place, when everything is unknown and unfamiliar. We feel as if we're on the threshold of adventure; for in the first few days, small events can take on epic proportions, and everyday chores are challenges to overcome. Our new temporary home is Sucre, 'the white city', the official capital of Bolivia. We live high up on a hill overlooking the Andes and the red tiled roofs of the town below - great for the soul, not so good for the lungs. We're at an altitude of almost 3,000 m and walking back from the plaza, we wheeze as if we've smoked 20 a day since the age of five. We ... read more

Feeling lazy, I lounged on the settee. BBC Breakfast News was on a roll. Endless items of bad news. Same old. Same old. But then something different. A woman talking about living rent-free in London. I roused myself. Pricked up my ears. And that's how I heard about TrustedHousesitters.com. It seemed tailor-made for us and our nomadic lifestyle. We had to give it a go. It's a great thing to be trusted. It feels like a gift. All it took was an e-mail and a phone call - 'I just wanted to hear your voice' - and we'd got our first assignment. The tiny village of Flitton, in Bedfordshire was far from any bright lights, but we wanted to see hidden corners of England, live for a short while in tucked away places, and meld in ... read more

Highgate Cemetery. Fairyland with an edge. The padlocked wrought-iron gates barred our way. In the inner courtyard, a flock of twenty-something pigeons took flight as one, filling the silence with a flutter of wings, and the emptiness with a scratch of charcoal grey. In the eastern cemetery a skinny fox sauntered amongst the tombstones, turning to look back at us, tongue lolling from the corner of his mouth, before he disappeared from sight into the depths with the dead ones. Highgate is high theatre, a feat of excessive Victoriana - a feast for the dead and the living alike. A custodian arrived; setting his shoulder to the gates, leaning his body into them, he pushed them open. Silence. Once hearses filled with flowers, pulled by black horses adorned with feather plumes, waited here. The cemetery lies ... read more

Apple pie goes back a long way. The first Dutch recipes appeared in the late 1400's. That's way before Rembrandt van Rijn and all those old masters. In Amsterdam, Dam Square and the Singel existed, but none of the other main canals had even been thought of. Apple pie beat them all to it. Of course it was a little different then. The case or 'coffyn' as it was charmingly was no more than a casing – a container of whatever was within; a way of carrying it around. Because there were no baking pans, the crust was probably – well, crusty and horrible. It's said that baking time was measured by the number of prayers a person had to say until a pie was ready. But gradually, with changes to cooking methods and ingredients, pastry ... read more

The Western Desert is vast, stretching from the Nile and the Mediterranean to the Sudanese and Libyan borders. The Great undulating Sand Sea contains some of the largest dunes on earth. The strange rock formations of the White Desert litter the sandscape like meringues gone mad; and the charred dark peaks of the Black Desert exude an other-worldly feel. It's an isolated, desolate, sometimes eerie landscape. Out on a limb, away from the desert circuit road, lies Siwa, a tiny, tranquil, still largely traditional oasis, surrounded by ruins, springs and date palms. But Siwa is changing. Mahdi Hweiti has lived in Siwa all of his life. 'For every person it's different. I cannot be away from my village for more than a week'. When Mahdi was a boy there was no road at all - not ... read more