Family lunch

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Everyone says there have only been four good summer days this year in the south east and we are enjoying two back-to-back when an impromptu gathering of family occurs for a big outside Sunday lunch by the pool. There’s mum, her significant other, Anthony who is today's star chef (for that many thanks!); my brother Drew his wife Kate and their one year old Jago; Kate’s sister Hattie and her daughter, Izzy; my two girls and me. It’s sunny, no one’s at work and there’s just enough food to be turned into a feast that covers the trestle tables and some good wine.

I take some snaps of the six adults and four children around the table and reckon it’s as close to a magazine’s dream Mediterranean dining scene as I’ve ever been in, almost Tuscan even (though the nearest I’ve ever got to this area of the map before is Islington’s Upper Street and the infamous Granita restaurant where Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did that deal). The conversation is lively, there are no tantrums and we eat in the recommended slow food manner – lots of chat and fork tines tinging as we chase tasty morsels around the plates.