Reconnecting with family and friends in the UK

Sadly, in the last week of April 2017, after Trav and I had been living and working in Bucharest Romania for a month, we heard news from family in the UK that Trav’s dad had become gravely ill. It had been less than three months since the death of his mum.

Trav immediately returned to the UK to be with his dad during his last days.

Just a few days later, after his dad had passed away peacefully, Trav returned to Bucharest and together we packed our bags to leave Bucharest and travel back to the UK to be with family and to prepare for the funeral.

First, we flew into Scotland to meet with our son Iain who lives in Glasgow and our son Ben who lives in Edinburgh.

The silver lining in the dark cloud of our bereavement was that for the second time this year, and in a short space of just three months, we would get to spend more time with our sons, with my own mum, and our much-missed family in the UK.

Blue skies over Glasgow

Our son Iain and his lovely girlfriend Alice

During our few days in Scotland, I also took the opportunity to attend a Romantic Novelist’s Association lunch in Edinburgh. It had been several years since I’d met up with my friends in the RNA Scottish Chapter. When I saw on our group Facebook page that a lunch meeting was being arranged for the morning I arrived back, I jumped at the chance to go along. I took the train from Glasgow and it was wonderful to see blues skies over Edinburgh and all my Scottish writer friends again face to face.

Edinburgh Castle in the sunshine

Blue skies over Princes Street Edinburgh

With Rosemary Gemmell in Edinburgh

With Eileen Ramsay - chair of the Romantic Novelist's Association 

It was wonderful to catch up with my Scottish writer friends in Edinburgh

Also, while we were in Edinburgh, we got together with our son Ben and his lovely girlfriend Hayley and all her family.

Trav and I with Hayley and Ben at the bowling club

Hayley is a ladies champion bowls player and there was a match being played that day at the local bowling club. It was a fun day and a welcome chance to spend quality time with Ben and Hayley especially when in just a few day’s time – the day after his grandad’s funeral – they were looking forward to their three-week holiday in Orlando Florida.

Hayley in action

Hayley's mum Andrea and Graham

Fun at the bowling club with Ben and Hayley and her family

Trav and I travelled down to England by train and were once again so grateful to our best friend Dina, who had generously offered to share her home with us again while we were in the UK.

Hanging out with my best friend Dina

In the days before the funeral, we managed to have some fun times with Dina in our old home town of Widnes and we also got to spend a great day out in Liverpool - exploring all the tourist sites like the Albert Dock and the Caven Club.

The day of the funeral was an emotional one for all the Horton family. For Trav and his brothers, Rob and Stuart, to lose both parent’s in such a short time was heart-breaking. As it was for all eight grandchildren to lose their grandparents. Their legacy of course will live on in them all and also in their one great-grandchild, Aaron, who lives in South Korea and whom they sadly had never met.

A short time after the funeral, on a solemn grey and rainy day in May, Jimmy and Dot’s ashes were buried together in the same Runcorn cemetery where their parent’s had been laid to rest. A small and intimate service was held with just their three son’s and wives present. Trav, being the eldest of the brothers, said a few words over his parent’s grave while we all held hands and said our last goodbyes.

For mid-May, initially from Bucharest, I had booked flights to London in order to attend the Romantic Novelist’s Association Summer Party. This writer’s networking event is a great opportunity for writers to get together with publishers and agents and other writing professionals. As I had been out of the country off and on for almost four years, I also saw this event as a great opportunity, not only for me to meet up with my writer friends, but to put my finger back on the pulse of the writing industry and to see what had changed over the past few years.

I had hastily re-organised my travel arrangements and I was very excited to be accompanied to the event and staying with my lovely writer friend Linn B Halton, who lives outside London. Linn and I hadn’t seen each other face to face (if you don’t count Skype) since the Festival of Romance several years before so you can imagine how much we had to talk about!

Ready for the RNA Summer Party -with my lovely friend Linn B Halton

Linn and I travelled to London together by train, had a fabulous lunch in an Italian restaurant in Piccadilly, and then caught up with other Romantic Novelist’s for pre-party drinks. It was so great to see everyone again. Below are a few photos with my lovely writer chums!

With Linn having lunch in London

Pre-party cocktails with lovely writer friends

With Mandy Baggot

With Talli Roland who also writes as Leah Mercer

With lovely Liz Harris

Soon, Trav and I felt ready to move on again. As we don’t have a home of our own in the UK anymore and, as we still have wanderlust to travel, we were keen to take up our nomadic adventures again and there is nothing like losing people to remind us of the fragility of life and how quickly time passes.

Our flight from London to KL via Singapore

Trav and I want to travel the world together while we can, while we still have our health, and before we get too old to do so. Of course, we love and miss our family and friends, but we appreciate they have busy lives too and being close geographically to them is no guarantee we would see them often as we'd like anyway. So I'm so grateful to the times in which we live; when we can keep in touch with our loved ones whenever we like on the internet and, thanks to affordable air travel, no place and no one in the world is much more than 12 hours away from us.

A farewell meal with my family before leaving for SE Asia

So we left the UK to fly back to Asia. We took a flight back to Kuala Lumpur and, while in a taxi to our hotel in KL, we had some wonderful news from Orlando Florida, where our son Ben was on holiday with his girlfriend Hayley. He had proposed and Hayley had became his fiancée.

The newly engaged Ben and Hayley in Orlando Florida

We were thrilled and so excited to see their proposal on video and to see how happy they are together. Our driver must have wondered what was going on when he heard me squealing and tearful on the back seat of his taxi!

After a good night’s sleep in KL, the next morning, we headed straight for the Perhentian Islands off the east coast of peninsula Malaysia. We flew with Air Asia from KLIA2 to Kuta Bharu - a 45 min flight and then took a bus and a boat over the Perhentian Besar (the larger of these islands). It’s a place that has been on our radar for a couple of years now but we have never been in Malaysia during these island’s short season - between May and September – after which all boats stop going there and all accommodations close down.

What is special about the Perhentian Islands you may ask?

Well, for one they are incredibly beautiful - the beaches are white sand beaches and said to be some of the best in the world - and the diving and snorkelling too is said to be amazing. But there is one other very special reason that we headed out to the Perhentians at this time and that is to do with my current Work In Progress. I needed to go to these islands for research purposes.

In my next book, I have a heroine who is establishing a turtle conservation sanctuary on an island– and so for a week I was going to be staying at a turtle conservation center to learn all about sea turtles and turtle hatcheries and baby turtles while Trav went diving.

If I was really lucky, I hoped that on Perhentian Island I would get to see baby turtles hatching and then help to release them to the sea. If I was really really lucky I would get to see a nesting turtle returning to the beach that she had been born on at least thirty years before, to lay her eggs under the light on the moon, before making her way back into the sea.

Please do join me here on the blog next time to find out more about the beautiful Perhentian Islands and to find out exactly how very lucky I was!

Love, Janice xx

Trains, planes, taxis - and rapid machine gun fire!

Scotland to London Heathrow

Our long journey to Honduras began at our local village of Sanquhar train station where we caught a train to Glasgow. From Glasgow we flew with British Airways on the hottest day Scotland had seen so far this year. It was lovely to see Scotland from the air, bathed in sunshine, as we left for our three month long venture to the small Caribbean island of Utila.

Waiting for the train to Glasgow at our local train station

BA flights are always good in my opinion mainly because the flight attendants are attentive and the in-flight bar service is complimentary. Trav and I celebrated the start of our much anticipated trip with a Jack and Coke and a Gin and Tonic while on our way down to London Heathrow.

We stayed overnight at an airport hotel at Heathrow and the next morning took a bus to terminal three to catch our flight to Miami with American Airlines. I had read on travel review forums that some say AA stands for Awful Airlines, with old aircraft, surly inattentive flight attendants, expensive drinks and inedible food. Well, I have to tell you that Trav and I had open minds and a hopeful hearts as we boarded our AA flight - but I have to report that it was in fact as awful as we feared except on one count – the aircraft was fairly new!

At London Heathrow

Heathrow to Miami

Trav and I have been to Florida on a few occasions, flying into either Orlando or to Sanford, so transferring through Miami, the biggest and busiest airport in the world, seemed very exciting to us. As it turned out, it was a bit of an ordeal, with long queues at passport control and incredibly strict security procedures. It was the third of July, the day before American Independence Day, so we had expected it to be busy. What we hadn’t expected was having to collect and lug our luggage through the airport and re-check it through security again and then once again for our departure - even through our tickets clearly stated we were simply transferring to another flight. We were then subjected to a rigorous interview by a US Customs official (as was everyone else). We were asked the most probing of questions and by the time we reached the departure lounge where we could wait a couple of hours for our flight to Honduras, we needed a stiff drink. I told Trav to make it a double!

Double rum and coke at Miami International

Miami to San Pedro Sula, Honduras

To be honest with you, our arrival at San Pedro Sula Honduras was always the most concerning part of the trip to me, but I’m a level-headed person and so had prepared well. San Pedro Sula is reputedly ‘the most dangerous place in the world’ (outside a war zone) and is associated with drug wars, gang warfare and murder. The British Government advises visitors to exercise extreme caution. So, you may wonder why on earth we would travel to such a place or decide to spend the night there? Firstly, I don’t think I would have actually chosen to go there if we hadn’t needed to in order to reach our destination of Utila. You see, our AA flight landed after dark and flights don’t leave for Utila at night - as there are no lights on the airstrip on the island. Secondly, we could have traveled via Mexico or Belize or the larger Bay Island of Roatan, but this route turned out to be the most cost effective when we looked at a combination of flight schedules and journey plans. Thirdly, Trav and I do want to travel and meet people from different countries, cultures and backgrounds, and we believe that the danger has to be kept in perspective. After all, there are good people and bad people everywhere.

That said, the notoriety of San Pedro Sula could not be ignored or underestimated and so I did pre-book a hotel that I’d fully researched and I had emailed them in advance of our arrival asking for them to send a taxi to meet with us at the airport. This worked perfectly and a lovely smiling and enthusiastic driver was there holding up a sign with our name on it when we emerged from baggage collection. I had also made sure Trav and I had our cash and plastic safely tucked away in our ‘traveler's companion underwear’ – knickers and boxer briefs with cleverly hidden pockets in them!

Our AA flight to San Pedro Sula Honduras

As it was completely dark, we didn’t really see much of San Pedro Sula as we sped in our taxi towards our hotel for the night. Although, from our blacked out windows, it looked to me just like any other inner city. Our hotel was comfortable and secure and we were grateful for a refreshing shower after all our travelling. As we’d eaten on the plane, we just went straight off to sleep and planned to have a good breakfast in the morning, before starting what would be the final leg of the journey.

I woke after a good night's sleep and before I could properly come to full consciousness, I thought I heard the sound of woodpeckers being competitive in the trees outside our window. I mentioned this to Trav and he pointed out that there were no trees outside and probably no woodpeckers as after all we were in San Pedro Sula. It was, we heard, the sound of rapid machine gun fire coming from down the street. Gulp! After a good breakfast of orange juice, coffee, cereal and toast, we headed back to the airport in a taxi while rubber-necking every street corner that we passed!

In my next post, we fly from the mainland of Honduras to the Bay Island of Utila and I’ll have some fab photos to show you as the excitement really hots up…!

All packed and ready to go…!

Last week, when I started to think about what to pack for our three month long trip to Utila, I was thinking minimal and feeling smug. Today, I will admit it was a bit of a struggle to come in under the 23Kg luggage allowance for American Airlines. And, despite my best intentions, by the time I had stuffed in all the last minute ‘essentials’ my suitcase was overweight and I had to start unpacking and making decisions about what I really needed to take and what I should leave behind.

 

All the scuba diving gear is essential of course and I decided that I could not part with any of my toiletries, as it was going to be impossible to get three months supply of shampoo, creams, sun lotions, potions etc, except perhaps at really steep prices - so they all had to stay. Ditto the bug sprays, the torches, the tea bags. I soon realised had to start economising on clothes. Booooo-hoooo…!

Oh well, now that we are teetering just under our luggage allowance, our lovely neighbour is taking us to the village station. From there we will travel to Glasgow by train and then onto the airport by bus. From Glasgow we will fly to London – where we are staying overnight before flying to Miami. From Miami we will connect to a flight to mainland Honduras. We are staying overnight in the notorious town of San Pedro Sula and then catching a small plane over to the island of Utila the next day.

Where is Utila you may ask…? Well, Utila is the smaller of what is known as The Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras. It is located on the mesoamerica coral reef – reputedly the second best coral reef in the world after the Great Barrier Reef off Australia. It is a truly unique island destination and a scuba divers paradise. It is also a hub for whale shark viewing, which as a diver, is what most appeals to Trav. It appeals to me because it is said to be ‘the Caribbean as it used to be’. It has a quaint central town that is said to be ‘the Key West of twenty years ago’ and I like the sound of all that laid back unspoilt charm. You can find out more about Utila at: http://utilaguide.com/

Trav and I have rented a beach apartment and from there he will go out diving each day while I write. The first of my works-in-progress ‘Castaway in the Caribbean’ is planned for release in November this year and is a romantic adventure novel. Where better to be inspired than on a tiny and remote Caribbean island..?

So that’s all for now my lovely peeps.

My next update will be from the Caribbean island of Utila!