New Year. We’ve had more than our share of New Year rip-offs in the past so this time we are going to the Isle of Wight. There’s something innocently comforting about the Isle of Wight – we know all will be well at New Year there, so that’s where we are heading. We are also…

What an unexpected delight to be invited on someone else’s honeymoon at our age! Amanda and Terry, fresh from their Eastbourne nuptials and family partying, and now here with us and the rest of the Anzere gang at the swish Suffolk resort of Corton (on-sea). But I’m jumping ahead. Arriving by train at Lowestoft, the…

The lovely Nagi (Nikki to her Western friends) greets us on arrival at the ryokan – the traditional Japanese inn – in Kiso Fukoshima. Nagi takes us straight out again on a tour of the village. Up to the old Samurai checkpoint where travellers were searched for weapons (you couldn’t be too careful who you…

From our room on the 32nd floor of the Mandarin Oriental in Tokyo we can make out mount Fuji in the distance – 124km away. The zoom photo doesn’t do justice to this sacred and iconic mountain, but our hopes of a more impressive shot from the bullet train a few days later – this…