Looking back affectionately at 2014…

2014 has been the most amazing year for us. It was the year that my husband Trav and I decided that we didn’t need a permanent home anymore - we just needed a phone and a suitcase in order to live out our dream of travelling the world while at the same time still being able to be in contact with our loved ones. This was the year that we sold up, packed up, and took the leap to achieve our dreams.

This time last year, Trav and I had just enjoyed our last Christmas and New Year in our cottage on a Scottish hillside where we had lived for the past 25 years. We originally bought the place as a derelict shepherd’s bothy and it had taken us a full 25 years to renovate it to the condition it was in when we sold it in January 2014!

Over the years, among the renovating, rebuilding, plastering, extending and painting, our three sons grew up in something of a rural ideal. There were no visible neighbours in our remote part of the world but, typical of our Scottish lifestyle, we were still part of a strong village community and so we made lots of lovely friends and there was a good social life to be had. There was the village hall for harvest festivals, SWRI meetings and the like and, just six miles away from our tiny village is a slightly larger one, with a good school and some shops and a pub or two. Our boys spent their young lives with dogs and hens. Sledging down snowy slopes in the winter and playing freely in the countryside in the summer holidays, pitching tents and camping out in the forest opposite our cottage in true swallows and amazons style.

Our country cottage on the hillside

The kitchen - before and after the 25 year long renovations..!

With our boys all grown up and leaving home, there seemed little point in Trav and I staying in a family size nest. It was of course an emotional time for us when we put the cottage up for sale, as there were so many wonderful memories over so many years connected to the place, but we had a longing to travel and explore the world. Trav and I have always prioritised our one or two week holidays and mini-adventures over the years - which was probably why it took us 25 years to renovate the cottage - but this year we have made a real start on our traveling ambitions and by being careful with our budget and by planning our time, we've been fortunate to travel far and wide in 2014.

January: We packed up and moved out of our cottage and handed the keys over to the lovely couple who had bought it. Staying in Scotland, we moved downhill to a rented lodge house by the side of the river. It was an equally beautiful place to live and I love the sound of the river rushing by and taking walks along the riverbank.

Views from our new place down by the river...

February: We grabbed a late-deal bargain Caribbean cruise and left for Barbados almost immediately. We flew on an airplane called a Dreamliner and the ship that we sailed the Caribbean on was called The Dream. It was all very dreamy and I had to pinch myself to find out if it was all real. Trav and I visited Barbados, Antigua, St Barths, Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, Grenada, St Vincent, the ABC islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao. We spent my birthday in the lush tropical rain forests of Dominica. As we sailed away to our next port of call at sunset, I was treated to a birthday dinner celebration with Trav and the lovely new friends we'd met on-board, whom I hope will remain our friends for years to come.

It was while we were sailing off Tortola in the British Virgin Islands that I decided to set my next novel there and had the idea for ‘Castaway in the Caribbean’ which is to be published in March 2015.

March and April: Back in Scotland the weather had improved considerably and Spring flowers were blooming. We had family and friends to visit us and we enjoyed lots of lovely walks along the riverbank with our wee West Highland Terrier, Polly.

May: We grabbed another online bargain holiday and back to the Caribbean we went - this time to the Dominican Republic – a place we have been once before and we really love. While we were there I had my hair braided. What do you think? Boho-chic or Medusa...?

Fun in the sun on the Caribbean island of Dominican Republic

June: No sooner were we back from the Dom Rep than we were packing our suitcases again in order to visit our Son #2 in South Korea. This was a very exciting trip and a very long journey. We flew with Emirate Airlines from Glasgow to Seoul via Dubai. You can read more about this fabulous country and our amazing adventures there in my blog post here.

Our flight path to South Korea

South Korea - where our son lives and works as an English teacher

July: August: September: For three whole months in the summer of 2014, Trav and I took our most exciting trip ever. We flew from Glasgow to London and to Miami on our way to the Caribbean Island of Utila – the smaller of the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras, South America. We went there for the scuba diving, as Trav has always wanted to swim with whale sharks. This was something he was able to do during our fabulous time on Utila, together with achieving his Dive Master qualification. Along the way, we had the most fun ever and we met some lovely new friends. You can read more about our adventures on Utila here and in the following three blog posts too.

Utila, Honduras - a paradise found!

Also in September we heard the surprise news that our son in South Korea was getting married – on that very day. This is the official wedding photo of the happy couple. As you can see, they didn't stand on tradition as the groom wore his Cure t-shirt and the bride carried a lollipop. Young love!!

The newly married Mr and Mrs Horton

October: We were home again to Scotland to see our family and catch up with friends. Son #3 picked us up from the airport as he had passed his driving test while we were away. He had decorated our bed at home and bought us presents to welcome us back. I think we were missed!

A wonderful welcome home!

November: Off to visit friends who live in the Kingdom of Bahrain. We traveled with Emirate Airlines again from Glasgow via Dubai. This was a fabulous and rather exotic trip. We got to catch up with our dear friends Sue and Pete and to go sightseeing and to live the life of ex-pats – if only for a short while! I've written a 'Snap Gap' feature on Bahrain for Loveahappyending Lifestyle Magazine and also a detailed blog post on the places we visited both in the city and the desert, which you can read here.

The sights and experiences of the Kingdom of Bahrain

  

December: What better than a winter break in Tenerife in the Canary Islands? But this trip was all about work as well as pleasure as Trav was there to complete a dive instructor course and I was going to work on the edits for ‘Castaway in the Caribbean’. We did have lots of fun in the sun too of course and we also managed to catch up with friends we hadn't seen in a while.

The Christmas decorations were up but the sun was shining in Tenerife as I managed to fit in work and catching up with friends. I had drinks with my friend Cami while Trav spent his days with Mary and Neil at Amarilla Divers.

And the year to come?  Well, I expect it will be even better than 2014…!

You might be wondering how I can possibly say that when we have just had the most amazing year in 2014 – but you see in February 2015 our first grandson will be born in South Korea. Aaron Thomas Horton is due at the very end of February - probably while we are travelling in the opposite direction - as Trav and I are booked on a flight to America on the baby’s due date. However, we do plan to visit South Korea again in the summer of 2015 to get to see our son and his lovely wife and their new baby son.

And that’s how I know that 2015 is going to be a fabulously fantastic year!

I hope that your year is both fabulous and fantastic too and that all your dreams come true. Please do follow my blog and pop back from time to time as I post from around the world. I love to read your comments and I promise to reply as soon as I get an internet connection. You can always catch me on Facebook and Twitter too, in the meantime.

Happy New Year everyone!

Love Janice xx

'Snap Gapping' our way to the end of 2014...

I’m sooooo late catching up on November's post because I've been ‘snap gapping’ again – this time to the Kingdom of Bahrain in the Arabian Gulf.

Glasgow to Bahrain via Dubai

Trav and I went to Bahrain to visit and stay with a couple of dear friends who live and work over there, so we were in fact, tourists by default. Bahrain is a country that hadn’t actually been on our radar as a holiday destination but it really is a well worth a visit if you have a penchant for fascinating, cosmopolitan, and multi-cultural locations that are as rich in heritage as they are in fun and excitement. It has to be noted there has been and still is some political unrest on the island but at no time did we feel unsafe. On the contrary, we felt at ease everywhere we went by day or by night, as the Bahraini people are so friendly and welcoming.

Our lovely friends Sue and Pete took us out and about for the ten days we were there and what a privilege that was for us – the country is vibrant and booming. Some days we ventured far into the hot white sands of the desert. On other days, we immersed ourselves in the Bahraini café culture and drank Arabian coffee and ate succulent dates (never in equal numbers – you can have one or three, for example, but never two or four). In the evenings, we ventured into the city and to hotels like The Soffitel or The Ritz Carlton for decadent sundowner cocktail and a delicious dinner.

Sundowners over The Persian Gulf

We traveled from Glasgow International to Bahrain via Dubai with Emirate Airlines. You can sign up for an Emirates air miles loyalty card and news of flash sale prices on the Emirates website. As you can see there were heavy grey skies over Glasgow as we left!

Grey skies over Glasgow!

Highlights of our Bahrain Trip: Top of the list! Catching up with our lovely friends Sue and Pete!

Visiting The Tree of Life - in the shimmering white sand of the Bahraini desert stands an isolated and very old mesquite tree. Its girth is broad and its branches are wide and dipped with the effort of holding up its green foliage. Some of the branches are now artificially supported to prevent them snapping. Local lore dates the tree in millenniums but a study was conduced in 1986 in conjunction with by the Smithsonian Natural History Museum of Washington DC, USA, and it was then concluded that the tree had been planted in c1583 AD during the Late Islamic Stage. But the really interesting thing about this tree - is that to this day its source of water remains a mystery. Some believe the tree gets water from an underground spring but that doesn’t explain the complete lack of any other trees or green vegetation in the vicinity. I loved the journey out into the desert, passing working oil rigs and desert settlements and I particularly loved the sight of this lonely old tree on its unique hillside desert setting.

In the desert to see The Tree of Life and count oil wells!

Amwaj – the floating city. The Amwaj Islands project is an artificial island development in Muharraq, Bahrain. Known as The Floating City - it is still partly under construction but has a shopping mall, restaurants, hotels, waterfront villas and chalets and apartments - all intertwined with a series of canals, enabling residents to park their boats by their own back garden. There is also a white sand beach where we paddled while also admiring the skyline of Manama in the distance. The island project is beautiful, ambitious and totally incredible.

Amwaj - the floating city

Here I am at the marina in Amwaj Bahrain

Bridging the International Gap. The King Fahad Causeway links Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and is one of the world’s longest bridges between two countries. You need a visa to enter Saudi Arabia but you can drive to the midpoint on the causeway and enjoying the glorious view across both countries.

The road to Saudi Arabia

Grand Prix International Circuit: Bahrain is famous for its F1 venue. Tens of thousands of visitors attend each April. Here I am standing in the vast sand car park outside the stadium!

At the F1 Grand Prix Circuit in Bahrain - the flags, the grand driveway and the hot sand car park! 

Shopping: There is a certain freedom that exists in Bahrain that attracts many shoppers from neighbouring Gulf States. We (mostly) window shopped in many of the air-conditioned malls which have lots of familiar western outlets like Marks and Spencer. In the Souks, we browsed in and out of exotic perfume shops amongst rich and heavenly fragrances with prices that made your eyes water.

Traditional Arabian clothes and Marks and Spencer!

Sue and I at The Mall

Nights Out! In the evenings, we either socialised with the ex-pat set at the Bahrain Football and Rugby Club or watched incredible sunsets while sipping cocktails on balmy terraces that overlooked the sea. It was fabulous and exotic.

Ladies night at The Ritz Carlton Bahrain

I’ve just written up a full ‘Snap Gap’ travel report on Bahrain for Loveahappyending Lifestyle Magazine which, if you’d like to read more about Bahrain as a travel destination and more of my recommended sights, you can read it by clicking HERE.

I’ve agreed to write several more of these types of travel reports for LLm throughout 2015 and it was while planning which locations to feature in the magazine that I came to realise that Trav and I have been fortunate to have visited 32 different countries over the years – and some on several occasions. These include: The United Kingdom, The United Arab Emirates, Antigua, Aruba, Barbados, Bahrain, St. Barths, Bonaire, St.Eustatius and Saba, Curacao, Cyprus, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Spain, France, Grenada, Greece, Honduras, Israel, Italy, South Korea, St. Lucia, Monaco, St. Martin, Martinique, Mauritius, Maldives, Turkey, United States, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, British Virgin Islands.

You can create your own world travel map using this website: http://matadornetwork.com/travel-map

December Update: During December we also ‘Snap Gapped’ from Glasgow Prestwick to Tenerife. We flew with Ryanair and rented an apartment for a week. While Trav was away on a diving course with AmarillaDivers I was working on the edits for ‘Castaway in the Caribbean’. It was wonderful- and at the same time rather strange – to go from 4 degrees C to 24 degrees C in just over four hours of the flight time. From these photos you can see that it wasn't all work! We are back in Scotland just now for Christmas and so I want to wish you a very happy Christmas and best wishes for the new year.

Tenerife in December - sunshine, writing, having fun and catching up with friends

I’ll be back before the year end with a round up of 2014 – the writing and the travelling - and to share with you our hopes and plans for 2015 and to hear about yours. See you then my lovely friends!

Love, Janice xx

Caribbean Island Update – our three months in paradise…

Apologies for going AWOL - some of you might have thought I’d got lost in the Bermuda Triangle or something - as I’ve been home from the Caribbean for almost three weeks and you’ve not yet heard a single ditty from me about our last month spent on the island.

My unusual lack of chatter (and it is unusual - just ask any of my friends) has been due to many factors - such as extended jet-lag, a nasty jet-caught virus, dentist appointments (for the awful reoccurring tooth abscess), important family events and looming magazine deadlines.

So yes, dear reader, it does indeed seem like real life was waiting for me the very moment I got off the plane in Glasgow!

A couple of months earlier when we first arrived on Utila, a tiny Caribbean island off mainland Honduras, it seemed as if we had endless days of summer stretching out in front of us. Indeed, during the first two months we spent on the island, we felt like we were in some kind of time-warp. Then suddenly September arrived and the month sped by particularly quickly.

A couple of months earlier we arrived on the island of Utila in a very small airplane - which certainly ranked as one of the most exciting journeys Trav and I had ever taken!

September on Utila was an incredibly hot, humid and calm. As I reiterated last month, Utila is known as the whale shark capital of the Caribbean and so swimming with the whale shark is the hottest topic of conversation on the island. These magnificent creatures swim so close to the island on the very calm late summer sea. Going out on the boat looking for whale sharks is the number one activity in September and spotting the characteristic ‘boil’ - an area of sea rolling with tuna and other fish rising up as the whale shark feeds beneath the surface - is one of the most exciting things I’ve ever witnessed. Rather than using diving gear and air tanks, you simply use a mask, snorkel and fins to swim with these magnificent creatures - but as they come so close to the surface to feed - that is all the equipment you'll need to fulfill your dreams of swimming with the biggest fish in the sea.

This photo, taken by ace underwater photographer Dave Thatcher, is of my husband Trav,
swimming with a whale shark off Utila in September 2014

Other September Highlights:

Our days on Utila began the moment the sun blazed through the windows of our Little Yellow House at 6am and they were filled with an equal measure of work and play. Except on a Thursday, which from our very first week on the island, was the day that Trav and I had reserved to catch up with each other and relax completely. During September, lots of our lovely island friends managed to join us for a few hours at the beach on ‘date day’, making Thursday’s a real highlight of our week. The fun we had was in no short measure (he-he, see what I did there?) down to the lovely bar staff at Neptunes at Coral Beach – especially Brooke and Jen - who make us feel so welcome and kept the shots lined up!

Thursday 'date day' fun at Coral Beach and Neptunes Bar

So, except for Thursdays and our exciting days out on the Caribbean Sea looking for whale sharks, while Trav was working as a Dive Master at Eco-Marine Dive Centre,I was busy working on my new novel. I’m excited to tell you that ‘Castaway in the Caribbean’ is now almost finished. The writing part is all done but I still have a bit of work to do on editing my chapters and polishing my prose, in order to make this book the very best it can be before it goes off to be professionally edited and formatted for publication. Over the past three months, I have had so much fun and inspiration writing this fast paced romantic adventure novel, which makes this a story very close to my heart, and so I do hope that you will enjoy reading it when it is published.

So what else did we get up to in September on Utila…?

Mid Month Trav and I went along to a rock music gig on Bandu Beach to support our lovely friend Dave and The Barefoot Band who headlined in the Utila Live Music Festival. They were fabulous and we rocked out all night under the stars and had the most amazing time!

Rocking out under the stars with friends to The Barefoot Band

Utila Independence Day just happened to be on our ‘Thursday Date Day’. So we met up with our friends and had lots of fun on the beach, swimming in the sea and then sipping cocktails at the bar, all before hitching a lift back to the dock at Eco-Marine on the dive boat (hence why it looked so crowded) while singing our heads off and having a great time. As the dock at Eco had just had an enormous rope swing installed - that also became the source of lots more crazy fun, enthusiastic gymnastics - and wrenched arm muscles!

Crazy Utila independence day fun... yep, that's Trav on the swing!

The Biggest Surprise of the Month was getting news that our son James, who is an English teacher and lives over in South Korea, was getting married to his lovely girlfriend Sujeong - on that very day!  We had been aware they were planning to get married, as they had recently applied for a marriage license, but as it came through much faster than anticipated they just decided to ‘pop over’ to the registrars office and ‘do it’ straight away.

The official wedding photo of the newly married Mr and Mrs Horton

As you can see, James and Sujeong didn’t bother with wedding tradition, favouring the casual and unconventional. The groom wore his Cure t-shirt and the bride carried a lollipop. Although Trav and I were sad that we couldn’t attend this very special occasion in person, once the power came back on, we did manage to be online during the registration of their marriage and so felt like we were there ‘virtually’. Then we raised our glasses to the happy couple to wish them every happiness in their future married life together.

The Biggest Pain of the Month other than constant power outages that made keeping our over-heated bodies cool and charging my laptop practically impossible – was me getting an awful tropical tummy bug. I was really sick for a week before I eventually went to the pharmacy for something to help, only to find that the cure also knocked me for six with nasty side effects. I must admit to feeling pretty sorry for myself for a good couple of weeks during our last month on the island and so, once I felt I was on the mend again, I wanted to make the most of our last few days there by taking some time out to join Trav and the crew on the boat searching for whale sharks.

I'm out on the boat with the Eco-crew looking for whale sharks with Dive Master Dave

Utila in retrospect: what is it about this small island that makes it feel so unique? Trav and I have been lucky enough to have visited over a dozen islands in the Caribbean and yet I still cannot quite put my finger on what makes Utila so special. On the website Utila Guide.com the island is described as ‘the Caribbean as it used to be’ and ‘a Key West of 20 years ago’ and I feel this must be true as it certainly has a ‘trapped in time’ appeal. It feels retro. Timeless. I fear that one day the rest of the world will discover Utila or Utila will catch up with modern commercialism and it will be spoiled. There are already cruise ships visiting the neighbouring bay island of Roatan so it really is only a matter of time.

For us, on our first night here, it was undoubtedly the orange-fire sunset on the sea that made it so special. The next day it was the blue sky and sunshine and white sand beaches. Then it was Trav discovering Eco-Marine Dive Shop at Sandy Bay, run by lovely Tara and Steve (Daddio) and meeting the wonderful and generous ‘family’ of people who work and dive there. Then it was going out on the boat to dive and snorkel on the most amazing coral reef in the world in water that is as warm as bath water.

Visiting the Cay’s – tiny tropical white sand palm tree filled islands off the coat of Utila for lazy Sunday picnics was pretty special too and so was spending our evenings in fun company at some fabulous bars for drinks and dancing. The food on the island is really good too and the fish and seafood is undoubtedly the best I’ve ever tasted. All so very very special.

Utila is unique, quaint and unspoiled, some may call it basic, with no chain stores or fast food businesses. There are reportedly less than twenty cars on the island (I only ever saw one or two) and people get around on foot (bare or flip-flopped) or on a scooter or golf cart. The infrastructure on the island, electric and internet, is patchy at best and fresh water is a precious commodity. We bought our drinking water every other day in five gallon drums. Fruit and vegetables are brought to the island by boat from the mainland (Honduras) on a Tuesday and a Friday and shops sell out quickly so the advice is to buy a good-looking vegetable as soon as you see it or it will be gone in the blink of an eye. There are limited health care facilities on the island; there is a clinic and a pharmacy but anyone needing hospital is taken to the mainland by boat or plane. There is opportunistic crime here, just like anywhere else, so you have to be aware of it without letting it make you edgy. The one small bank on Utila is visibly guarded by armed police both inside and out but half of the time, just like the electric supply, the banking systems are down and you can’t use your plastic to withdraw money.

Things happen. Things don’t happen. It’s all part of island life. One thing, of which I am sure, is that there is nowhere in the whole world quite like this beautiful crazy laid-back piece of paradise and it is so very very addictive. It is said (see the crazy ‘Come to Utila’ song on UTube!) that once you have experienced life on Utila you may not ever want to leave. We had to leave after our visa expired after ninety days, but Trav and I are already making plans to return as soon as we can, but next time we’ll get a visa extension or we’ll plan to do a quick visa run to Mexico or the Caymans and back again  (lots of residents who don’t actually have a residents visa do this) so that we can stay on Utila for longer. I plan to write another book and to submit my regular magazine features via the internet but I’ll plan to take my time next time around. I totally underestimated how much there is to do on Utila so I’ll be sure to leave more room in my days for the time-consuming task of sun worshiping, swimming in the sea, yoga (which I discovered for the first time on Utila) and generally chilling out – if chilling out is at all possible in 38 degrees C?

So is it the simple lifestyle that makes Utila special? No modern day stresses? Sure, there are nuisances, like sand flies and electric outages, but none of them can ever compare to the bliss of truly living in the moment, of waking up to sunshine every day and not having to wear many clothes or worry about fashion or hair styles (the latter two items could just be me..?)

Our final week on the island was an emotional one because Trav and I have met some truly lovely people on the island whom we hope will remain our lifelong friends. Utila is an amazing place, but actually, it really is the people we met who made it feel so special and so much fun.

So our final few days were about saying goodbye and promising to stay in touch or saying ‘see you next year’ to those who remain on the island or have promised to return, too.

On our last night on Utila, our host for the evening was the enigmatic ‘Papa’ who travels to Utila from Germany to dive with Eco-Marine every year for several months. He generously invited Trav and I and the whole Eco ‘crew’ to join him as guests at his home where he cooked his special garlic shrimp recipe for us all. It was a fabulous evening of wonderful food, drinks, enthusiastic conversation and laughter. And although Trav and I knew that we were saying a fond farewell to our lovely friends, we also knew that just like Papa, we had a reunion to look forward to in 2015.

Early in the next morning, we were given a lift in our landlady’s golf cart to the air strip on Utila, where we waited for just forty minutes before boarding a small aircraft to mainland Honduras. During that time we were eaten alive by mosquitoes and I sincerely wished I’d chosen a good squirt of Deet over my Coco Chanel perfume that morning. What on earth was I thinking?

For two nights we stayed at a hotel in San Pedro Sula. The city is reported to be the most dangerous city in the world (outside a warzone) and it has been so for the past two years running. Consequentially, we stayed inside our hotel’s luxurious walls for the entire time we were there, taking advantage of the room service, the sumptuous bathroom, the hot water and air con, before we traveled back to the airport to head for London Heathrow via Miami USA.

We then flew from London up to Glasgow. It was a bit of a shock for us to go from 38 degrees C to whatever it is was in Scotland that day and then there was the seven hour time difference to adjust to - but we were home and my thoughts were full of seeing our lovely sons and our friends in Scotland and cuddling my little dog, who may or may not have missed me as much as I missed her!

BUT A NEW ‘Snap Gap’ adventure begins very soon…!

During the first week in November - Trav and I are heading off on another exciting ‘snap gap’ adventure and to a very different part of the world this time. We are travelling to the Persian Gulf and visiting the Kingdom of Bahrain. We will be flying with Emirate Airlines from Glasgow to Bahrain via Dubai and Trav will be celebrating his birthday during our time away. We are incredibly excited to be seeing our lovely friends Sue and Pete once again!

Between now and then I will continue to work on editing and polishing my new novel ‘Castaway in the Caribbean’ as well as putting together my exciting new monthly ‘Bookshelf’ features and ‘Snap Gap’ travel features for Loveahappyending Lifestyle Magazine. I’ll also be updating this blog with any other news about my writerly progress, the ups and downs of our life back in Scotland, and what I might be thinking of packing in my suitcase for our next trip. So please come back soon and do feel free to leave a comment - as I do love to read them all and I promise to reply.

Love, Janice xx