Brazil Having mission friends from around the world leads to some rather special wedding invites, so when our dearest friends Thomas and Camilla invited us to join them in Brazil for their big day, we couldn’t possibly say no! Of course, a wedding is usually just one day, or perhaps a weekend, but our friends curated a ten-day tour of Sao Paulo, Rio De Janeiro (RDJ) and Foz Do Iguaçu (FDI) on the Brazil-Paraguay-Argentina border for those who were able to stay on afterwards.

Czech Republic During one summer driving home, we were heading north through Czechia to Berlin. There was a terrible crash on the motorway and we were diverted off up into the hills on an alternative route approaching the German/Czech border near Dresden. We were blindly following the satnav assuming it knew where it was taking us but at the cost of almost running out of fuel. The services we had planned to stop at were unreachable due to the crash so we were running on fumes

Slovakia 1,757 kilometres or thereabouts plus the North Sea. That’s the driving distance from Kosovo to our home in Scotland. But why on earth would anyone want to drive that? Well, firstly, it was a challenge and the longest distance we may ever drive in one go. And secondly, because we could fill the car with food from home to take back to Kosovo with us. Arriving back in mission with a car full of lorne sausage and tattie scones made you incredibly popular with the Scottis

South Africa Following on from Uganda, we joined family in South Africa for ten days of safari and some pool time. The contrast with Uganda was evident as soon as we arrived in the hustle and bustle of Johannesburg Airport before taking a short flight to Mpumulanga where we spent three nights in The Rissington Inn, owned by Chris Harvie, a fascinating travel writer and host. We spent the days visiting Gods Window, Blyde River Canyon, lunching in the village of Graskop at Harr

Uganda Now, this country might not be at the top of everyone’s lists of holiday destinations, but when you watch enough David Attenborough and learn about the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, we decided it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience something completely different. We were jabbed to the hilt: yellow fever, cholera, you name it, we got it. We had no idea what to expect other than a list of guest houses and day trips on our week-long tour of Lake Victoria, Lak

Denmark We’ve previously mentioned Ali’s adopted status as mission mother and many of her charges were from the wonderful country of Denmark, where compulsory national service at the age of 18 lends itself to the Danes arriving in mission as security personnel and bodyguards. We know them well enough and kindly enough to observe that the Danes (and their Scandinavian neighbours) have a certain mentality that makes for the most amazing friendships and some pr-e-t-t-t-y wild so

Austria Another birthday celebration overseas and another surprise trip to a mystery destination! One of Ali’s musical icons is the Californian singer Josh Groban and when Bob learned that he was performing at the Vienna Konzerthaus Vienna, tickets were purchased and flights were booked. Like most of our travels, we take the opportunity to tie food in with the experience and Vienna was no exception. Restaurant Steirereck, located in the Stadtpark was one of only two locatio

Istanbul One of the main hub airports with direct flights from Pristina was Istanbul via Turkish Airlines. Thanks to our nights in the Hyatt Thessaloniki, we earned enough loyalty points for free nights and decided that spending some of them in the Hyatt Istanbul would be an exciting adventure. We did some research before we arrived and booked a food tour with a local lady, Selina, who organised cookery classes and tours of the local fresh food markets for tourists and studen

Greece Neither of us had been to Greece on holiday before arriving in Kosovo, so to discover that it was just a five-hour drive south from Pristina was quite the revelation. Both of us grew up with relatives in the south of England, so longer car journeys were not unusual, but it would also involve driving through two land borders; something else to experience for the first time. Over the years, Thessaloniki and Khalkidhiki in Northern Greece became our weekend escape and we

The Departure Returning from London freshly engaged, you might think that thoughts would turn to planning an engagement party and the wedding itself. Alas no. A few weeks after getting the ring, Ali left the country.. Mutterings of “this isn’t going to last” and “she’s running away” were understandable but somehow, we knew that we were doing the right thing. Ali had been offered a job as Chief of Procurement with the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and found herself

The Engagement September 2004 and Bob whisked Ali away to London for a surprise weekend to celebrate her 30th birthday. A meticulously planned itinerary of foodie delights: it was Ali’s idea of heaven. Lunch at the River Café was a definite highlight followed by a visit to a wine “museum” experience called Vinopolis on the south bank of the Thames that is sadly no longer open. For the (quite frankly) absurd price of £20 we travelled around the world indoors sampling sixteen w

Bosnia, Croatia, North Macedonia Perhaps, the best stories actually start with going backwards. Before Ali met Bob, she spent half a decade in the glorious employ of the National Audit Office. Part of her year was spent overseas, auditing the United Nations’ Department of Peacekeeping Operations (UNDPKO) in the Former Yugoslavia and the other part was spent auditing Scottish Government departments such as the Scottish Prison Service. Pretty gritty stuff but the whole experien

In The Beginning When we first met on the 21st of September 2002, we were both almost three decades into our lives and food had sustained us in varying shapes and forms – albeit in starkly contrasting ways. Ali had a complicated relationship with food that fluctuated between consuming only milk and toast for an entire summer, the cabbage soup diet, becoming a taekwondo champion and downing a full 16 inches in Pizza Paradise at 4am in Edinburgh. Bob on the other hand successfu