Endless Abstract Land

Endless Abstract Land is my interpretation of the Serengeti and is painted using ink and acrylics. Serengeti comes from the Maasai Maa word Serengit and means endless plain and this vast area of grassland spans northern Tanzania and southern Kenya and covers approximately 12,000 sq miles. As I travelled through these immense plains, which are…

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Moja, Mbili, Tatu… Jump. 

There is nothing more fun than jumping into a swimming pool with your friends – and this is the moment nearly 30 boys jumped into the water together.   The photo was taken during the last Saturday School session of the year at the school I have worked for the last couple of years in…

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Early morning bargains at Kivukoni Fish Market

These shots were taken on an early morning visit to the hustling bustling Kivukoni Fish Market on Ocean Road in the heart of Dar Es Salaam. It’s a great snippet of Tanzanian life with fishermen and house dadas haggling at full volume over an unbelievable selection of fish and crustaceans. We brought two very large, very snappy…

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The Reveries of a Solitary Walker

Because I’ve lived in so many different places, I don’t have one specific place to go to when I need to recharge my batteries. Instead I have a routine or a ritual which usually makes me feel a bit better. This involves an early morning experience – a walk, cycle, run, or just a prolonged…

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The floating markets in Bangkok.

I am currently working on a painting, inspired by the floating markets of Bangkok.  Here are some early sketches, in watercolour and in paint, which I will be using as inspiration for my final piece of work.

Snow Falling Soundlessly

Last week, when I thought winter in Sweden had long gone, there was an unexpected fall of snow. It came heavily and suddenly one night, submerging the yellow and purple crocus flowers which had already started to grow in the lawns and gardens. It really was rather magical. As inches of snow fell late into…

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International Women’s Day – the battle for equality is far from over.

It’s been nearly a hundred years since the first women’s day was held – back then women did not have the vote and most women did not have the opportunity of an education or a career. Nowadays, however, some people question the need for International Women’s Day, as women in many countries are perceived as being…

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In religion, India is the only millionaire.

India is the land of dreams and romance, the land of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty. This photograph of a sadhu was taken in the Holy City of Varanasi, a city once experienced is never forgotten. Varanasi, is one of world’s oldest living cities, and is rightly called the religious capital of India. Also known…

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London – home of the brash, outrageous and free.

Passing though Oxford Circus in London at the weekend, on a brief visit home to celebrate my 40th birthday with family and friends I met Greg, the London Underground employee. I asked him if I could take his photo and he said, in his most polite cock-er-ney accent; “How do you want me, straight on…

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A room with a view

A room with a view is the pièce de résistance of any accommodation. Whether the view looks down to the city below, across the sea, out onto a busy street or over empty countryside, the view is something which can really enhance your experience of being in a room. During my travels, I have been fortunate…

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Finding my sketchbooks and travel journals

I am over the moon with excitement… A few weeks ago I drove, with my family, across Sweden and Denmark, sailed the North Sea, and then travelled through pretty much every county in England, with the aim of collecting some of my old travel journals, sketchbooks and photographs (and visiting friends and family too). It…

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Smoking shisha at Jabri House in Damascus, Syria.

Tucked away in a maze of narrow alleyways in the Al-Qaymariya area of Damascus’s Old City, is my favourite restaurant in the whole world, Jabri House.  Jabri House (or Beit Jabri) is situated in the courtyard of an old Damascene house. People come here to have dinner, drink a cup of coffee, smoke narghile or to play…

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Feed your Head – An Alice Inspired Afternoon Tea

If you ever feel like disappearing down a rabbit hole on a busy Saturday afternoon in central London, then I know the place to escape to – where waiting for you, you’ll find afternoon tea, a glass of champagne and a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. The Alice in Wonderland themed afternoon tea, held at the…

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My Pen and Ink City Panoramas

A few years ago when I was going through a minimalist phase I did lots of simple pen and ink sketches, trying to capture faces, places and buildings in just a few black lines, by reducing everything back to its basic elements. Part of this project included a series of panoramic sketches I did of…

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Checking out our local neighbourhood

When there are more power cuts than power, you don’t tend to tick very much off your to do lists. And here in Kigamboni, the “rural” neighbour to Dar Es Salaam, over the last few weeks we have had power cuts lasting days and nights and days again. Putting up blog posts is down at…

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Dadas at the fish market

I’ve been painting this picture in my head for months now. The Kivukoni Fish Market in Dar Es Salaam is always busy. Both inside and outside the market walls there are scores of people; inside fishermen and traders huddle together around the many different catches of the day, outside house dadas dressed in brightly printed…

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“How do you avoid the tourists in Stone Town?” said the tourist.

In the blistering heat of the sub-Saharan sun lies a labyrinth of narrow alleys lined with tall once whitewashed, now crumbling buildings. A walk through Stone Town’s higgledy piggledy streets, most of which are too narrow for cars, is like stepping back in time, providing you can ignore the high-tech gadget carrying tourists. The town,…

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Regressing to my teenage gothic self at Whitby Abbey

One hundred and ninety nine steps up from a harbour town stands the imposing Gothic remains of a 13th Century abbey. On a clear day you can see for miles around, out to the North Sea on one side and across the Yorkshire moors on the other. And on days when the weather is rainy…

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Swedish Summertime – and the living is easy

One of the things I learnt about Swedish people in the three years that I lived there, is that they really know how to celebrate and enjoy the summertime. In a country that is cold and dark for muc… Source: Swedish Summertime – and the living is easy

Matemwe Beach – Far Away in Time

At 31 degrees centigrade and with a hotch potch of people who frequent it, Matemwe Beach is a melting-pot in every sense of the word. Between sunrise and sunset the beach, situated on the northeast coastline of Zanzibar, becomes a hive of activity with scores of Zanzibari women wearing bright coloured kangas wading into shallow…

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The dead cities of Syria

Scattered across the northwest of Syria, between Aleppo and Hama, are more than 700 abandoned settlements known as the Dead Cities. I visited these curious Roman and Byzantium ruins fourteen years ago, while I was living and working in Damascus. Little did I know at the time that Aleppo, the stylish and classical city where I was…

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Buying and Selling Bananas in Kenya

This is my latest painting, a watercolour of a group of women buying and selling bananas and mangoes at a street-side market in Kisii, a town in south-west Kenya. The painting was done from a quick sketch I did some months ago while travelling from Mwanza in Tanzania to Nairobi.

Hope over the Horizon – Sunrise on the edge of the Ngorogoro Crater

While camping on the edge of the Ngorogoro Crater in Tanzania I decided to wake up early to watch the sunrise. What I witnessed was nothing short of breathtaking. Snuggled up inside my hoodie and scarf, I sat alone, mesmerized by the changing horizon before me and watched as the African sky changed from an…

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