Life-Style


Favourite Books 2025

Never one to live moderately, I now belong to 3 book groups. I’m reading more than ever and I’m reading books and exploring authors that I never before knew about. Recently, we were asked to share a list of all-time favourite books. This is my list in no particular order……

13 November 2025 | Life-Style

Travel: Dylan Thomas Country

” Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”  A mantra for older age. A Funeral eulogy favourite. Dylan Thomas’s famous poem suddenly came to life  last October when  I visited his…

8 January 2024 | Life-Style

Travel: Marooned in the Inner Hebrides

Someone once said ” There are 2 seasons in Scotland- June and winter!” I should have heard this before I set off to the UK in September/ October this year! I had grand plans. For my 74th birthday I would spend a week in my favourite town in Scotland, Oban….

21 November 2023 | Life-Style

Interior Design: A Cottage Retreat

Whether it’s by the sea or in the countryside many Viva 70 readers dream of owning a little place with a garden in a small community as a weekend escape from the city or a permanent residence. You know the dream where life is simple and the cottage is comfortable…

27 February 2023 | Life-Style

Travel: Over the Sea to Skye…..

” Perch where the wind comes at you full-force. Let it blow you apart till your feathers fly and you look like hell. Then abandon yourself. The wind is not your enemy, Nothing in life is. Go where the wind takes you- backwards- higher, lower. The wind to carry you…

9 June 2022 | Life-Style

Gordon Ramsay Rocks!

Let me set the scene. Lesley and I returned from a L_O_N_G  5 – day trip through the Scottish Highlands late last night. The days started early and the schedule was strenuous, so we agreed to have a couple of days to ourselves before leaving for Inverness. And it’s raining…..

17 May 2022 | Life-Style

Travel: Wandering in Yorkshire

” What will my ventures entail, as I begin on this unknown trail, even through the rain and clouds, nature’s beauty still shines proud. The vivid greens and ice-cold streams is what true beauty means.”  (The Yorkshire Dales by Gemma Alexander) My obsession with TV programs like All Creatures Great…

6 May 2022 | Life-Style

Travel:A Weekend In London

” Great things never come from comfort zones.” is one of those quotes that drop out of the air when I want to justify spending a lot of money or doing something wild! Well in London, solo travelling at the age of 72, the wild may have toned down a…

28 April 2022 | Life-Style

Architecture: Bosco Verticale: A High- Rise City Forest Development

A what? What’s a forest apartment? Inner City? How do you grow forests on a building? You mean climbing plants, not forests? The mind boggles and being a person always attracted to creative, boggling minds I had to check this one out. I came across the Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest)…

19 November 2021 | Life-Style