How many reasons are there for NOT taking a career break? Too old? Too poor? Children at school? Enough with the excuses already! See eight of the most common reasons for putting off the big move de-bunked, including “I’ve got a mortgage”.

I was delighted and surprised to receive the message from Wanderlust’s editorial team that I had just made it into their most important, useful and entertaining blogs…
Do you want to meet like-minded people on the net to practise and talk about the art of travel writing? Pop over to the ITINERANT WRITERS CLUB forum to see what we’re up to.

Cochin has the highest density of Christians in India, and is dotted with cathedrals and churches. In a parody of our high streets back home, the roads are rammed with fevered shoppers, their faces consumed with the business of Christmas. The crowd scoops me up and funnels me into an alley, where I bash my ankles on rough wooden nativity scenes strewn along the ground.

Over the past year, the clean-up operation in Fort Cochin has been at fever pitch. Walls covered in peeling posters of political candidates, good only for goats to chew on, have been revitalised; mould has been scrubbed away and been replaced by murals, artist graffiti and bold colours.
The result of all this activity? An enormous, blank(ish) canvas across the city for Indian and international artists to exhibit their work and create site-specific installations. It is crazy, unexpected, colourful and electric: don’t miss it.

Next up was the second bottle on offer, a Shiraz. I like Shiraz. The waiter re-appeared with more glasses, this time the right shape and size. The colour was deep and purple, there was a watery rim and the swirl produced legs. But by now I was rinsing and gargling with it and no longer cared.

Newfoundland is spectacular in winter, but I’ll go in summer, when the days are longer, the weather calmer and the icebergs pour in from the north. I’ll fly direct from London to St John’s: from urban ennui to wide open optimism in under six hours.

Yachts are small things where space is at a premium; libraries take up a lot of room, so I have to swap and donate as I travel. This novel has been the hardest to give up. I’ve lent it and recommended it to anyone who wants to talk books or India. I’ve written about it, reviewed it and referenced it.
A Fine Balance has left the boat. But it will always be with me.

I am thrilled to announce that my story, Nazar 72, has been published in Foreign Encounters, the third anthology from Writers Abroad, an online group of ex-pat writers.

Writers Abroad received 231 submissions of which they selected 95 for the anthology. And five of those contributions came from our very own Itinerant Writers Club. Well done to HelenM, HelenW, Bex and Jean for having their pieces published in the anthology too.

Known as “the Queen of Hills”, Darjeeling is one of India’s most beautiful destinations. But you don’t have to spend a king’s ransom to stay here, there is plenty to offer travellers on a shoe string too.

“To swim, perchance to drown, is an undeniable human right. The Port of London Authority should take a running jump into the Thames – only they’ve just made it illegal,” wrote Boris Johnson in the Telegraph. Calm down, dear, there are still plenty of places to enjoy all the fun of the water in our capital city.

We’ve only had a few days of sunny weather, but be brave and be positive my friends, London has so much to offer the enthusiastic water lover even if the weather isn’t always clement: swimming, sailing, rowing or fishing, it’s all there. There’s also plenty of waterside sun-bathing and drinking available to the enthusiastic hedonist.

Remember this: everywhere in India it is your duty to try to get off, get on, get out, get in, go up or come down first. And it is the norm to stand so close to the person in front of you that you touch them with every bit of your body. This innocent frottaging happens in queues for tickets, queues in shops, queues for the lift (getting in and out), queues in the airport, queues for taxis, queues for the ferry … you get my drift. I must add that I use the term ‘queue’ loosely.