A Travelling Lens

St-Dunstan-in-the-East is an old, Church of England church situated halfway between London Bridge and the Tower of London. It was destroyed in the blitz of WWII and its ruins have been converted into a public garden. The church started out in the 12th Century, but was then damaged alongside the rest of the city in 1666 in the Great Fire of London. After several renovations including a new steeple designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the church was destroyed in 1941 during the Blitz of WWII. The beautiful remains of the church have now been turned into equally a beautiful garden. The greenery wonderfully juxtaposes with the gothic architecture producing a feel of The Secret Garden; which is what it effectively is as a garden tucked behind modern skyscrapers. A gem of London and well worth the visit.

Choux pastry is famous for being hard to get right but don't let this put you off trying. The key to success is weighing out all your ingredients in advance and make sure they are all ready before you start, because timing is crucial (this includes sifting the flour before you start). Once you've made your pastry you're not restricted to buns you can use a piping bag to make éclairs or profiteroles. Although I personally think that buns are the easiest to make. If peanuts aren't your thing or you want a more traditional choux bun, you can whip double cream until it forms peaks or is at a thick consistency and fill your buns with it. Makes 10-12 buns.  Ingredients: For the choux pastry: 25g butter or margarine 125ml milk or water 1/4 tsp sugar 1/8 tsp salt 75g strong plain white flour (sifted before you start) A few drops of vanilla essence 2 eggs (beaten) For the peanut butter cream: 140ml double cream 2 tbsp peanut butter 2 tbsp brown sug...

I've spent the last week in Tanzania's Selous Game Reserve and Ruaha National Park, I managed to take over a thousand photos on safari. I have since sorted through them and these are some of the highlights:

For the Easter bank holiday weekend (yes that was a while ago) I travelled to the capital of Sweden: Stockholm. I went not knowing anything at all about the city, but I think this gave me more of an open mind to discover that it was different to other places I've been to. Although it was cold, the wintry sunsets gave beautiful reflections over the waters. I loved just wandering around the streets with my camera hung around my neck and enjoying the sights. Speaking of sights: on my first full day, I liked going on the hop on and off bus around the city. It stopped really near to where I was staying and the bus drivers were all really friendly. It was cold so I didn't do much hopping off, but listening (in a language I understand) to the history of the city was a great way to get a feel for it. On the next day I went to The Vasa Museum,  let's just say that I wasn't expecting much from a museum dedicated to an old ship... However it was very interesting. Th...