Photography is my passion, and after years it has become a part of me, of my life, and an inseparable scope of seeing things through my lens that I can’t be without and like to share with others, too. Being commended and shortlisted in the renowned Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year multiple times and World Food Photography Awards 2025 (see below) has filled me with a great sense of achievement and content, as well as a sense of recognition.

The natural connection between gardens, kitchen gardens and what one can grow, not only to please the eye but to provide to nurture, as a matter of course broadened my photography interest. So to my food I am adding a newer journal, that is the garden, where, whilst trying my hand at the growing itself, I document it, too, as always, following the seasons, and finding not only the substantial pleasure & joy but also the calm in the ever – changing and demanding nowadays.

While this is mainly a photographic journal, I enjoy writing captions to all the photo logs.

In the garden journal you may enjoy short excerpts from my favourite poems – as a reflection to my love of literature, poetry, former teaching job perhaps. I simply love how the authors’ words can so perfectly express and mirror the atmosphere and the spirit of the seasons. I always state the poems’ titles and their authors’ names.

In the food journal, along those logs picturing food as beautiful as I enjoy it capturing, you’ll find logs where I add recipes. I prefer dishes that are simple to make, always tested and always something that a busy person can easily make without much fuss but a lot of taste.

I draw a lot of inspiration in my Slovak heritage – I am immensely proud to come from a family with past roots of farmers – growers and livestock keepers, who valued the land and all it offered dearly, to live lives of hardship but thrive.

All the fundamental good that I find in my heart, in my roots, comes from the same land and these people who nurtured this love and bond. It will always be there, no matter where I move or settle.

To express this appreciation and to weave the strands of this bond and understanding into my sons’ hearts, my food journal also holds ideas of what habits, ingredients and cooking I knew back then, growing up in western Slovakia; what I enjoyed years before and whenever I return to this special place – where the never-ending fields of golden wheat and sunflowers glisten with every rising and setting sun as far as the eyes can reach, far over to the wavy horizons where the sloping, sustaining foothills of the Little Carpathians are covered with vineyards, beech forests and valleys studded with quaint villages.

And at last, why Cottage In The Weald?

Well, Weald is a word coming from the Old English “wald” meaning “forest” or “wood” and it is indeed that pretty woodland area of South Eastern England where we live in our little old farm cottage, snuggled up among the fields and many hedgerows.

In fact, The High Weald is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty running across West Sussex, East Sussex and Kent where along its meadows & woodlands, you can also see a great many of tended gardens and these have always been what attracted me to this place.

I’m feeling very fortunate to be living literally just a stone’s throw from Sissinghurst, as well as near Great Dixter, or Pashley Manor that are all my dear places to explore and observe in any season, whenever I can.

I absolutely enjoy visiting them – and take inspiration either to grow or photograph beautiful flowers in my own little backyard.

So, a heartfelt welcome again, to the pages of my Food & Garden Journals – my own happy place in the immense online world, where I hope you will find some inspiration for your kitchen and perhaps a bit of escapism through my garden images.

Step in and join me,