A few weeks ago I was still revelling in the cradle of civilisation - well one of them, Damascus, which claims to be the longest continuously inhabited city in the world. A few thousands years old, a mere cough down the echoing tunnel of time. It’s a city that draws you in, easy-going people, easy to find your way around, easy on the eye. Completely seductive in fact.

I’m back at base after an extraordinary whirl through the Middle East, from the citadel and souks of Aleppo, to the fabulous desert ruins of Palmyra, to the Ummayad mosque and caravanserais of Damascus, to Jerusalem with its manic religious intensity and finally the West Bank, that bleeding wound at the heart of the region. So much to say, so little time. For a peaceful starter, here is the interior of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem

Mea culpa. I haven’t exactly been churning out the blogs recently - there’s just been too much going on plus a lot of work. Big trips nada, but lots of short ones round these isles that I know so little of. And plenty of London’s usual gourmet culture - from Juliette Binoche dancing rather brilliantly with Akram Khan, Kenneth Branagh returning to the stage in Chekhov’s Ivanov, Francis Bacon at Tate Britain, Rothko at Tate Modern to last night’s session of Mark Thomas‘ hilarious but no less forceful attack on the mighty Coca Cola giant - with some extraordinary, humbling stories of the Samson & Goliath variety.

All that stuff about credit crunch (but let’s call a spade a spade, it’s a recession) has meant that the UK travel supplements have recently orgied on the joys of British holidays, above all seaside ones. Dripping nostalgia, there is much talk of Nivea- and ozone-perfumed streets, fish ‘n chips, chintzy sofas and of course that grey sea that encircles our isles, fringed by even greyer shingle. It’s amazing what a touch of poetry can do to such an experience. So last week I set off with my partner for a reality check.

This is our friends’ idyllic garden cottage where we stayed, down Snape-way. I remember watching it being built 20 years ago, and as it’s soon to be demolished to make way for an extension to the main house, this will be my ode. At least it will live on in cyber-space. Bon voyage little house, you treated this guest well over the years.

With too much to write for work, the easiest way to capture some highlights of this trip to Australia is by lazily posting a few snapshots. To kick off, here’s a slice of paradise up on the north coast overlooking the Timor Sea, at Faraway Bay.

A pretty eccentric, very hands-on set-up, divine food, superlative views and a mixed bag of Aussie guests - plus a barefoot bushman who took us way out into the bush to some extraordinary rock art sites. Then came a boat-trip along the spectacular King George’s Gorge, one of those red sandstone marvels of the Kimberley region, rich in minerals like silica, manganese, potassium and iron ore, and about 350 million years old. That’s peanuts for Oz.

Don’t worry - that’s not the new museum below. Patience. The first time I went to Athens I remember selling my blood. Those were my 1970s student days of drifting across Europe and running out of money - pre-credit-card, pre-email. All very footloose and fancyfree but it does make me sound like a dinosaur. However what everyone savvy knew at the time was in Athens you recouped your finances by selling a litre or so of haemoglobin, which we did on the way out and the way back. Very naughty. The other budget ploy was to sleep on a hotel rooftop for a few drachmas. I can’t remember how or where that was, but it was comfortable enough to give us a couple of days seeing Athens’ sights before we hit Piraeus, the ferries and the sybaritic islands.

I’ve just spent a foodie afternoon in the middle of Regent’s Park which, in a quick floral aside, I’d like to note is looking stunning. Colour-coded flower-beds no less and zingy green lawns. Thank you rain. But back to affairs of the palate, Taste of London (an annual food fest) has certainly gone into overdrive with a line-up of over 40 top restaurants beside an army of food and drink producers. All these have escaped from their usual settings to man swish little stands under huge tents. One stand even housed repro Chesterfield sofas, maybe a sop for the exorbitant £25 entrance fee.

As usual, London seems to go into over-drive before putting on the brakes for the long, inevitably cool English summer. I’ve had an inspiring past week, from seeing Akram Khan’s Bahok, with dancers from the National Ballet of China, to the brutally moving documentary on torture in Afghanistan, Alex Gibney’s Taxi to the Darkside. In between there was the opening of the brilliant Cy Twombly retrospective at the Tate Modern (that reminds me of a successful Italian gallerist I met the other day who seemed to think retrospectives are only for dead artists - “shame on you” to borrow la Clinton’s words) and the extraordinary play, The Pitmen Painters, at the National. And here’s the sleek Tate Modern exit just to whet your appetite…

Like a rocket, Viva la Revolucion! is now out there, not exactly in outer space or the ether, though it is on a few websites, but certainly in the public eye. Last night, on a balmy summer’s evening, the launch party kicked off at the Mexican Ambassador’s residence, a consummately chic mansion on Belgrave Square. It was an exhilirating send-off, nourished by trays and trays of delicious Mexican morsels and flowing margaritas. (Now I’m going to cheat a bit for this post & insert pics from Mexico itself - as you can imagine, I had no time to snap last night. This one is of a divine chilli and prawn ceviche)

So where in the world are we? This snap taken a couple of days ago should qualify as one of those quiz pics. Answers on a postcard please. There’s something of the Wild West about it - the light, the pines, the distant bare ridges. And the answer is… Morecambe Bay, more precisely Arnside, in Lancashire. Trains regularly cross the estuary at low tide, eventually head west to Barrow then turn right to trundle north to Carlisle. OK, that’s enough for the train-spotting chapter.

Arnside itself is a low-key seaside village boasting one pub with views and one great landmark - the Knott. Not a knot of nets, but a rather large knoll scattered with wild scrub and wind-swept trees. At the summit, fabulous views sweep across the vast bay down to Morecambe, site of the tragedy a few years ago when 21 Chinese cockle-pickers died, caught unawares by the treacherous tides. So the view has a bitter-sweet taste to it.