recent Lifestyle blogs
the waterslide outside our front door…

the waterslide outside our front door…

There are certain things you expect to find outside your front door in an Andalusian village. A neighbour stopping for a chat. A delivery van attempting the seemingly impossible task of squeezing along a narrow street. Perhaps a procession, a horse or two, or the...

the little box of crunch i’ll be buying again…

the little box of crunch i’ll be buying again…

Some ingredients don't look particularly exciting sitting on the supermarket shelf. Then you bring them home, start experimenting, and suddenly wonder why they haven't always had a place in your kitchen. Aldi's Asia Green Garden Panko Breadcrumbs are one of those...

swordfish steaks : garlic, fresh ginger & lemon butter

swordfish steaks : garlic, fresh ginger & lemon butter

Every now and then you cook something that quietly takes you by surprise. Not because it's complicated or particularly clever, but because every mouthful makes you pause for a second before reaching for the next. This swordfish dish was one of those meals. I'd found a...

the french butter crock

the french butter crock

Have to admit, until fairly recently, we'd never heard of the butter crock. We just did what I suppose most people do - keep the butter in fridge, where it's always too hard and cold. Or, leave it out in a butter dish and return to a swimming pool of buttery oil in...

the renovation : where have we been?

the renovation : where have we been?

If you've been wondering why the renovation updates suddenly stopped, you're certainly not alone. When we bought our Andalusian townhouse, I had every intention of documenting the journey as it happened. I imagined regular posts showing each stage of the...

*why*?

*why*?

Now that the dust is settling - quite literally - on our renovation project, I've started to reflect on the mad journey we have been on since July 2024, when we finally left Istria. In fact before then, because the journey started for real, when we finished the...

reducing the plastic : hello ecofiltro

reducing the plastic : hello ecofiltro

Over the years we've been finding that, especially over the summer, our use of plastic water bottles increases significantly. We always recycle plastics, but we were creating our own small mountain of bottles and often our plastics bin (which was only collected every...

zoco home

zoco home

I've followed Zoco Home on Instagram for a while now, always drooling over their Andalucian/Ibizan/Mallorcan inspired furnishings and accessories. I've never really clocked where they are physically, until recently, and realised that they have two stores, very close...

when the bread recipes just get easier…

when the bread recipes just get easier…

It's been a while since we've made our favourite Irish soda bread - https://wearelifestyles.com/cheesy-irish-soda-bread/ - because we've not had our own oven for so long. But, we wanted to get back into making bread - and bread which we knew contained only good stuff....