Free food, nap rooms, wellness walks, unlimited vacation days: such are the workaday perks of a job in tech. These perks, along with the six- and sometimes seven-figure salaries that accompany them, are, we’ve long been told, well-deserved. Not only are tech workers portrayed as feverishly hardworking, they are the epitome of innovation and productivity.
Last September, Catherine Heymans, one of the world’s leading cosmologists, was supposed to board a ferry for the northernmost island in the Orkney archipelago. The island, North Ronaldsay, is among the darkest inhabited places on earth. On a clear winter’s night, it is easy to be awed by the thousands upon thousands of stars visible to the naked eye, which spill their unpolluted light upon the Earth. Heymans, who is the first woman appointed astronomer royal for Scotland, was planning to explain to the island’s 60 or so residents that those stars, and the rest of the perceptible universe, represent a mere fraction of the stuff that makes up our cosmos. What she studies is everything we cannot see: the darkness.
A COUPLE OF weeks ago, told you about a natural wine bar that opened in the old hi-fi shop on Haddington (near Leith Walk) a little over three years ago. We stopped in late one rainy Tuesday night a few weeks ago, after P told me at the hotel that he’d made reservations.
TWO WEEKS AGO, when we were in Edinburgh meeting up with P's brother, I got terrible blisters on my feet wearing the new espadrilles I'd ordered a few days earlier. I was really surprised (and a little confused) because I've had many pairs of espadrilles before and none of them ever gave me any trouble. I thought that maybe I should have broken them in more before the trip, but then I read recently about how many people have been having similar foot trouble getting back into regular shoes again after three years of wearing slippers, trainers, and other comfortable footwear during lockdown ...
THESE LINKS COME to you late, as the short trip we made to Edinburgh to visit family ended up spiralling into chaos due to the heat wave over these past three days. We left for the city on Sunday morning and were only supposed to stay one night, but the temperature rose on Monday and created mayhem⏤schools were closed, shops were shut, people stayed home from work, and trains, tubes, and subways were cancelled.
ON AN ESPECIALLY grim day around here, there will always be someone who mutters well you don't live in Britain for the weather. And while that may be true, it's definitely cosy when you're sitting in someone's home for tea where it's bright and warm.
IF YOU'VE NEVER dreamed of running away to Italy to open a B&B with your husband, Valdirose will change your mind. A family-run Bed & Breakfast situated among the hills of Lastra a Signa, not far from the centre of Florence this beautiful place to stay is situated in a 19th-century building 14 km from the 15th-century Basilica of Santa Maria Novella and Boboli Gardens ...
TIG NEWSLETTER subscribers always love Weekend Links best—in fact, it's also one of the most popular regular features on the site and I've often wondered what it is that readers like so much. This weekend was one of those cosy homebody types of weekends: a fire, some drinks, and P made Aubergine & Cauliflower Korma, a vegetarian dish with toasted cumin and coriander seeds, ginger, desiccated coconut and flaked almonds. It was delicious!
Thyme is a restored historic Southrop Manor Estate dating from Roman times in Gloucestershire, a county in South West England that comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean
WE CAME ACROSS the work of interior photographer and stylist Aimée Mazzenga from the beautiful images she created of other people's homes, but only recently came across her own home in Chicago's Gold Coast Historic District.
P IS READING an article to me about how the pandemic has most likely changed NYC forever. People have moved away to second and third tier cities; favourite restaurants have closed for good, and buildings where 8,000 people once worked now have only 100 who are not working virtually and still come in everyday.
Designer, writer and creative consultant, Nicolas Fairford, is one of our favourite recent Instagram finds. Not only will you find idyllic English countryside scenes―manicured gardens, climbing roses and spring lambs―but you'll also catch glimpses ...
BECAUSE WE SOMETIMES post photos of our life lately, Instagram's algorithm has thrown many such similar images across our path, which is sometimes annoying and sometimes wonderful if it leads to the discovery of accounts such as @irenemylife.
There are snowdrops everywhere now, along garden paths and forest trails, and late winter blossoms on the trees; even though it is still chilly, these things are giving us the hope of spring.
As I am dreaming endlessly of holidays, cannot wait to visit some areas around Avignon this August. Driving around the south of France, seeing the beautiful the villages in Provence will be a dream come true.
