Notes from a Nomad

Remarkable People, Memorable Events and Fascinating Destinations from Around the World.


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105. An Art Deco Showcase: Potts Point and Elizabeth Bay, Sydney, NSW, Australia. December 2 2025

I first discovered an interest in Art Deco in my late 30s and this has grown into a love of this genre which incorporates both Art and Design. And unlike other periods that have been defined by an artistic or architectural style, Art Deco is both short and easily identifiable as being very much defined and delineated by the period between the two World Wars 1918 to 1939, and in particular from the mid 1920s.

I started buying small pieces of Art Deco sculpture at auction in 1990 and even attended Antique Fairs as a seller with our eldest daughter Sarah, then 7 or 8, accompanying me as my assistant! I guess that could have been a formative influence as she now owns a successful Vintage and Collectibles store in Vancouver Canada (see here).

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104: A unique 50 year reunion – Sydney, NSW, Australia – November 27 2025

I was in Switzerland when I received an email in early September 2026 advising me that there was going to be a dinner three months later to celebrate 50 years of Football (Soccer) at Sydney Grammar School and I wryly commented

‘That’s a long way to go for a dinner’. Continue reading →


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96 – Where on earth is Sangkhla Buri? Thailand, January 4 -13 2025

Hands up if you know where Sangkhla Buri is located!

Not very many I suspect, and the answer is very close to the Thai Myanmar border about 210 miles or 375km northwest of Bangkok, and far from any of the well known destinations in Thailand that attract the bulk of the 30+ million international tourists who visit Thailand annually.

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90 – Slowing Down in Mürren: August 12 – September 21 2024

I arrived in the Swiss mountain village of Mürren on August 11 2024 after spending almost 3 months in the UK which was my longest continual period in the country since 2009!

I had spent the time in the UK with and visiting family, competing in Backgammon tournaments and exploring Wales, the West Country and London with my Filipina friend who was visiting the UK to select a university to continue her postgraduate studies.

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89 – ‘When a Man is tired of London………’: July 27 – August 2024 + June & July 2025

………… he is tired of life! The immortal and perennially repeated words of Samuel Johnson.

I have always had a love-hate relationship with London – I studied there as a university student from 1967 to 1971, taking first a Bachelor’s Degree in Geography at University College London, and then a Master’s Degree in Soviet Foreign Policy at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, now also part of University College.

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88 – A Return to Wessex: June 20 – 23 2024

Hands up all those who know where Wessex is located!

It is a fictional region in the South West of England and the term was popularised, if not created, by the famous English author Thomas Hardy who used it as the setting for all his novels. (‘Far from the Madding Crowd’, ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’, ‘Jude the Obscure’ etc).

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87 – Wales and its Castles: July 15 – 18 2024

Of the three Celtic Nations that make up the British Isles – Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, it is by far Wales that is the least well known to overseas visitors.

Scotland with its Lochs, Mountains, Whisky, Golf courses and one of Europe’s most beautiful cities in Edinburgh, is a major international tourist destination whilst Ulster and Ireland attract many visitors seeking to discover their family roots after a significant percentage of the Irish population emigrated to the New World to escape poverty, search for wealth and pursue a new life.

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80 – Sydney – Back to my Roots and looking back 50 years on! Sydney, NSW, Australia. March 2 – 4 2023

In January 1973, I arrived in Sydney, NSW, Australia, the culmination of an 11-month journey overland through Asia with my girlfriend Heather and friend Richard. We had crossed Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan by rail and bus, and then travelled through the legendary Khyber Pass into Pakistan, and spent a month exploring Northern India and I made the first of what was to become  a total of 14 visits to Nepal.

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79 – A voyage to the Ross Sea, one of the most isolated locations on the planet – Antarctica & the Sub-Antarctic Islands: Feb 2 – March 1 2023

It is not a coincidence that the first article I wrote for this website 12 years ago (see here) was inspired by my first visit to the Antarctic; and between 2012 and 2017, my wife, Sharron, and myself joined five more expeditions to the polar regions including another visit to Antarctica in 2014. A planned 3-week expedition to the Russian Arctic in 2020 was twice postponed because of Covid and so in late 2021, we instead decided to cancel our Russian plans, claim a refund, and instead planned a third visit to Antarctica, in my opinion the most spectacular destination on the planet.

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