There’s something both scary and liberating about seeing your life in 99 boxes 📦📦📦 This is our 11th international move and it doesn’t get easier (I only had 12 boxes for my first posting) but now we can go on holiday while we wait for our belongings to make their way home 😎🏖️

We escaped to beautiful Rhodes to decompress and now we’re really saying goodbye to #Helsinki. Sad to leave #Finland and all our wonderful friends, but we enjoyed a lovely autumnal walk and a final Carusel Sunday treat and we’re excited to be going home. Retirement starts here!

My first full week of retirement has gone swimmingly! Lots to do in the house, time with our wee grandchild, enjoying our new car, and a fantastic evening at #Hamilton. I’m doing more steps every day than I did in a week at work and loving it all (even the 🇬🇧 weather ☔️)

Now I understand the phrase “everything but the kitchen sink”…

I wonder if everyone on my street is getting these or if they are just for us elderly retired folk? 3 arriving at once feels like someone is trying to tell me something 😂

Two of these ambassadors are better known than the other two… Great to catch up with my friend and former colleague the 🇳🇱 Ambassador to 🇫🇮 in London today. The #vanGogh exhibition (and the whole National Gallery) is stunning

The benefits of retirement: endless time to have pub lunches with my Mum, now 91 and still going strong!

I’ve been officially retired for a month! Building works continue and our boxes are still in transit, but… we’ve seen our parents, our daughters and grandchild; plus a musical, a concert, a ballet and an exhibition (and won a quiz); plus reading, walking, sleeping… All is well!

Decorating is a struggle at the best of times, but it’s taking ages because I have to keep stopping to look out of the window 🍁🍂

Watching #LordMayorsShow and delighted to see a familiar Finnish face 😉 Moi Joulupukki 👋 🇫🇮🎅🏽

Stocking our new kitchen cabinets is very satisfying. But do I stick with alphabetical order or go with the song?

Month 2 of retirement has been busy. A family gathering in Somerset, spa day with my daughters (and an engagement!), the end - at last - of the works on the house and the delivery - at last - of our 99 boxes. We need a bigger house! Fortunately we had a little helper ❤️

We saw Jacob Collier in #Helsinki in July and met him after the show and it was the best thing ever! Tonight we’re in the O2 to see him with our daughter and my niece Katie who is a super-fan. The seats aren’t quite as good as in the Musiikitalo but the atmosphere is great!

Wow! Jacob Collier was fantastic last night on the last show of his global tour. He was joined by a host of amazing musicians, including one of the greatest - Chris Martin @Coldplay. We saw both of them in #Helsinki in the summer. Seeing them on stage together was very special 🤩

I can’t imagine a more important, useful or fun job than being Granny to this little person, who is a whole year old today and who has brought us so much happiness 😍

Merry Christmas to all my friends in 🇭🇺🇪🇪🇫🇮 who celebrate today. We’re celebrating Christmas Eve in grey London with tea, mince pies and King’s College carols on the radio (always remembering my dad, who is no doubt humming along “on another shore and in a greater light”) #9LC 🎶

I haven’t posted much recently (too busy getting in with all the joys of retirement), but here’s a brief moment of excitement: 3 years ago I visited Kempower, a Finnish manufacturer of EV batteries. Today my car is using one of their chargers in Cheltenham UK ⚡️

It might have been a few years since we first met these beautiful ladies in Johannesburg 🇿🇦 but it’s always lovely to see them together and to celebrate their shared birthday 🎂 Many happy returns Katharine Bubbear Natalie Bubbear 🩷🩷

You can take the girl out of Finland, but Moomins are forever! Museum of Gloucester in Gloucester has a fabulous Moomin exhibition this year - highly recommended for children of all ages!

It was a great honour to be part of the visit of #PopeFrancis to #Estonia in 2018. At a small gathering at the President’s palace there was a lovely informal moment when his skull cap blew away in a strong wind. He smiled and carried on. May he rest in peace