The final instalment of the Iron Route Journey. East, West, Good, Bad, Win, Lose, Draw.

Another look at 1989.

You don’t need me to tell you that football’s popular around the world. But as Poland gears up for Euro 2012, here’s why I’m laying my ghosts to rest…

Sometimes things go wrong in life. The printer at the car hire company breaks, the sat nav doesn’t work, the journey is longer than you’ve been told and you turn up very late.

Sometimes other things go wrong

I stand in the queue, a man turns me back.

I stand in another queue. Alone, in silence. Paperwork in one hand, a heap of clothing in the other, limp yet heavy like the body of a sleeping child. It’s cold outside.

I wait.

I queue.

I hand over my camera…

The older I get, the more I enjoy cooking classes. With an opening statement like that, I’m in danger of whirling around in a cartoon swirl and remerging as an immaculately groomed housewife from the 1950s: hair set, rosy-cheeked smile, skirt that sticks out like a snipped triangle and the scent of freshly baked cookies following me around like a caricature cloud…

Cold War. Iron Curtain.

Four words, two phrases, several meanings.

When I went to school, a third of the world lived under “communist” rule. Travel was restricted…

Dust rose from the ground as the horse thundered past and the sun began its ablutions. It painted pinks and pomegranates, amber, pistachio, charcoal and soft apricot rust across the walls of Petra before calling it a day and turning in for an early night…

Italian food. There was a time when I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about, but I can barely remember that now. The moment my train slowed to a stop in Trieste (and, if I’m honest, quite a while before that) my daydreams wandered…

Trieste, Italy Behind me, I know that sapphire lights stud their way across the stone. Right now, though, I’m watching darkness. Behind me, flames from an occasional car streak across the empty velvet sky, backlit by the brilliance of a long forgotten empire. Ahead I see nothing. Black, dark, empty, silent. Just the sound of [...]

Whenever I feel the cold breath of winter on my neck as autumn runs out of time, my tastebuds turn to octopus, the signature dish at…