Several places around Kent in South East England are joining in the Charles Dickens bicentenary celebrations this year – the area featured in many of the Victorian author’s books, and he wrote several of them while taking the sea air in Broadstairs. But what if you are a Kent tourist attraction with no Dickens connection. Luckily for Sandwich, it’s also 250 .

A friend bought an 3-type Jaguar on eBay and had it shipped all the way from Florida to Barcelona. He now explores Spain in style: I must say, I get quite jealous. So I was attracted to a package being offered by Headlam Hall, an award-winning country house hotel and spa in the north of England – a two-night Classic .

Seafood. There’s nothing like it. And that’s the reason, we will be driving to Rye on the East Sussex coast next month -- the picturesque medieval town is staging the 2012 Rye Bay Scallops event from February 25 to March 4. I’m told this year’s festival will have more places selling scallops this year than ever before – so it will .

With all the talk about London’s 2012 Summer Olympic Games, another important sporting even in England is not getting the publicity it deserves – the annual World Snail Racing Championships. They are held on the cricket pitch in the small, sedate Norfolk village of Congham, about fifty-five kilometres west of Norwich Crowds gather from afar (mostly from the next couple of villages) .

St. Eimhin, a sixth century Irish saint is causing a lot of problems for people living in a small town that is named after him in the Ballyhoura Hills, which separate County Limerick from County Cork. The problem is the pronunciation of the town’s name. You can say Limerick, Ireland or Cork, Ireland without raising an eyebrow or causing a .