Janice Horton's Blog, page 24

Sharing our recent travel adventures...

It’s been a while since I updated this blog and I hope you didn’t think that I’d forgotten how to post on janicehorton.co.uk. It’s just that I’ve been so busy travelling over the past few months and updates were difficult to manage. Now that we’re settled down again and back on the island of Utila, the smaller of the Bay Islands, situated in the Caribbean Sea just off the coast of Honduras, I’m looking forward to sharing all our recent travel adventures with you.
In my last post, my husband Trav and I were enjoying being here on the island. It was late May – and we were approaching our wedding anniversary at the end of the month. Quite spontaneously, we decided to take a trip to properly celebrate our thirty-two years of marriage - and what a fun trip it turned out to be!


Our going-away party poster!
Even when it is a special occasion, it is important to us that we travel wisely, as although we have now sold almost everything we owned (except for the few things we carry in our suitcases) in order to travel the world, we still don’t have a huge pot of savings and we are very conscious of it needing to last a while. So we looked carefully at our budget and then spent some time online checking out our options.

We decided to fly to Miami, stay there for the weekend, then to rent a car and drive down to the Florida Keys. We hadn’t ever been to this part of Florida before and it felt like an exciting adventure to us.

The logistics of getting from Utila to Florida are quite complicated, so with less than a week to go before our anniversary, we took a small plane to La Ceiba on the Honduran mainland, where we caught a Cayman Air flight to Grand Cayman. There we did a quick change of planes and flew onto Miami, where we had booked a hotel in the ‘American Riviera’ on Miami Beach for two nights. We used Booking.com to find a moderately priced hotel, as splashing out on a high-end hotel was being reserved for our actual wedding anniversary.


We took a small plane from Utila to La Ceiba, Honduras
We expected Miami to be busy, but somehow, despite our research, we managed to completely miss the fact that it was Memorial Weekend – a major US holiday - and the city was packed with holiday-makers like us looking for sun and fun. Despite the crowds, we had a fantastic weekend of sight-seeing and people-watching as we strolled down Ocean Drive, which was closed to all traffic due to the holiday. All the smartest bars and restaurants had set up gazebos outside to shade the extra tables that now spilled out onto the street and had hired uniformed security to make sure those waiting in line for one of those tables remained orderly behind the roped off queuing area. We decided not to bother waiting and just bought bottled water of a vendor instead.

Memorial weekend on Ocean Drive Miami 
We were excited to visit the beautiful and iconic Art Deco district with its historic and colourful buildings and to walk on the famous South Beach, where the sun was blazing down on the hot sand and all the beautiful people. Our walk on the beach was a short one - a quick photo opportunity due to the intensity of the heat.

South Beach! Ocean Rescue - and my hero on South Beach!

Sight-seeing and people-watching on Ocean Drive

Iconic Art Deco Buildings on Ocean Drive
Our plan had been to drive out of Miami down to the Keys with the wind in our hair in a rented red Mustang convertible. However, once we saw all the traffic trying to get out of Miami on the Monday morning, we looked at other options and decided to take a bus instead. Not quite so glamorous? Well you’d be wrong! We planned to take a Greyhound Bus, the most iconic symbol of travel throughout the USA!

Go Greyhound!As a bonus, we saved a heap of money not renting a car, but what we didn’t know was quite how much fun it was going to be meeting lots of lovely people on the bus, with whom we chatted and with whom we shared our stories and snacks along the way. When the bus pulled over to allow for a comfort and lunch break at a road side Burger King, a couple of ladies also shared their clipped-out coupons, meaning everyone on the bus got a burger, fries, an ice cream and a coffee for just $4!
One friendly young guy we met on the bus was a musician from New Orleans, a city that sounded fascinating. He regaled us with amazing stories and jotted down the names of a few places that he recommended we should go if we were ever to get to visit the Big Easy.
It was a lovely trip and we were sad to say goodbye to everyone when the bus stopped at Key Largo, where Trav and I planned to spend the next three nights before travelling on to Key West.
At Key Largo we stayed at the Holiday Inn. It was a nice hotel with an outdoor pool which we appreciated in the tropical heat. Trav had planned to go diving with Horizon Divers during our stay while I had a magazine feature to write. 

One of the best things about being a writer is that you can work anywhere, as long as you find an internet connection now and again so that you can file your features. Trav enjoyed his diving and we got together later in the day to go and do a bit of shopping. I bought a new pair of flip-flops and Trav treated himself to a new set of fins from Divers Direct – a scuba divers superstore paradise!

Trav dived wth Horizon Divers at Key Largo
A diver's paradise!
While in Key Largo we found some great bars and restaurants and had cocktails while listening to some fabulous live music. On the marina, we found the original African Queen – the actual boat (now restored) that had been used in the 1951 film of the same name that famously starred Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn.

The original African Queen
We left Key Largo to head for Key West and once again we traveled on the Greyhound Bus. This time we had seats right at the front which gave us paramount views through the large windscreen of the road ahead. This was particularly thrilling as we were excited to be travelling across lots more of the famous Keys bridges, in particular, the Seven Mile Bridge, which had featured in one of our favourite movies ‘True Lies’.
The famous Seven Mile Bridge
Key West was just as I’d imagined it to be, Disneyesque pretty with lots of old historic buildings that were meticulously preserved. These buildings are now being used as a front for modern day bars, restaurants, shops and galleries: even the Walgreens supermarket was housed inside the original façade of a theatre. It was wonderful!


Me and Marilyn at The Tropic Key West
We checked into our ‘anniversary’ hotel (we stayed at The Lighthouse Court – just a short walk from all the action in Duval Street) and then went out to explore. To get our bearings and to make sure we saw all the town had to offer we took the ‘Original Conch Tour’ – an open carriage sight-seeing ‘train’ that takes you choo-chooing and tooting past quaint pastel-painted and picket-fenced houses until you reached the Point – the most southerly point in the United States of America.
On day two in Key West (our wedding anniversary) we again packed in as much sightseeing as possible. We went to the Ship Wreck Museum, the Key West Museum – where there was also a fabulous Hemingway exhibit. We had a fabulous lunch at Pincher's Crab Shack, where we sat on the outside upper balcony above Duval Street.  In the afternoon, we toured the Hemingway House – which was a much anticipated treat for me, as a writer. Later, we enjoyed several Margaritas in the original of Jimmy Buffet’s famous bar, Margaritaville. We finished off our special day by having a romantic meal and a bottle of wine in a very nice seafood restaurant on the boardwalk while the sun was setting over the marina. It was all absolutely perfect.


The original Jimmy Buffett's Margarita!
At the Hemingway House We loved exploring the Key West Museums
On our last day in Key West I had arranged to have two new tattoos done. I already have two tattoos, one on my shoulder and one on my leg. They were done many years ago and I am still very fond of them. Until recently, I was of the opinion that I might be getting too old to have more tattoos, but happily I have since changed my mind. Age is just a number after all and with all our travelling and the broader outlook I now have as a result it, I’m inclined to do what makes me happy. So I had a ‘yoga’ style tattoo put on the inside of each of my wrists – a lotus flower and an ‘Om’ symbol in the shape of a heart; which reflect my newly found love of yoga and meditation. Whenever I look at them, I will also be reminded of our wonderful time in Key West.

I had a ‘yoga’ style tattoo put on the inside of each wrist

I wrote a travel feature on the Florida Keys for LLm Lifestyle Magazine. It is published here if you’d like to click the link and read it.
On our last night in Key West, we knew that we had to check out of our hotel by 11am the next morning - but we didn’t know where we were going to go to next.

We hadn’t planned any further but we had almost a month ahead of us before we met our flight out of Houston, heading back to Edinburgh Scotland. So what would be do with ourselves for all that time? To have such freedom was a little daunting; should we head back to the Caribbean and Utila or travel on to somewhere new?
Over a few drinks that evening, we discussed lots of travel ideas. We had loved travelling by Greyhound bus but knew that we would be covering old ground by going back to Miami. We made use of the wi-fi in our room and perused the internet again and considered other options. Why not fly out of Key West airport directly and go somewhere else? What about the Gulf Coast of Florida – Naples, St. Petes, Clearwater Beach? Orlando? Or the Space Coast and up to Daytona? Or what about taking a three day cruise out of Fort Lauderdale? Tempted by some very cheap cruise deals we investigated a few – but  saw that they were all sailing to Key West!
In the end, we agreed that we should travel on to somewhere new: we’d been to Orlando and most of the Gulf Coast resorts years ago with the kids: ditto the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, where we’d been lucky enough to see several Space Shuttles launch before they were retired. We had to think of somewhere special: somewhere exciting: and as we were going to be dipping into our hard earned savings – it had to be a bucket list destination.
So we agreed on a fabulous new location and hardly slept that night. We were so excited about our new trip and also worried that we would sleep through both our alarms and not be ready for when the taxi arrived at 5am to take us to the airport.  We were going to fly with United Airlines via Fort Lauderdale to New Orleans!
We planned to stay for four nights in The Big Easy – a bucket list destination for sure – and we still had the list of recommended places to see that the nice guy on the Greyhound Bus had given to us. However, our excitement was a little dampened due to an engineering problem with our plane at Key West airport and by the subsequent three hour delay. Eventually, we were told that the flight was grounded and we were being flown to Miami instead and from there we would fly on to our destination.
This all worked out okay, until we discovered upon arrival that Trav’s luggage with all his diving gear in it, was missing. We filled in the forms with United Airlines to report the missing bag and we were assured that it would be found and delivered to our hotel as soon as possible. I’m sure you understand that it is stressful enough for anyone to lose a bag to an airline but especially one that has ALL your worldly belongings in it! Luckily, thanks to the hyper-levels of security at American airports, the bag was quickly located. Strangely, it was found in New York(!?) but as good as their word, Trav and his bag were reunited the very next day.
We were flying with United Airlines to New Orleans!

New Orleans is known as the home of Jazz, Mardi Gras, and Cajun cuisine. It is also a city with many names – The Crescent City, The Big Easy, NOLA, and my favourite of them all: 'N’Awlins'
We stayed in New Orleans for four nights in a gorgeous room in the Chateaux Hotel in Chartres Street, the oldest neighbourhood the French Quarter, and the center of all the action as far as we were concerned. We were just one street away from the infamous Bourbon Street, and as Trav (as all his friends know) is a bourbon drinker, what better reason to drop (my) luggage and immediately make our way to the #1 main tourist attraction… or so we thought.



It turns out that Rue Bourbon was named after the French royal family ‘The House of Bourbon’ in the 1700’s rather than after my husband’s favourite tipple and is nowadays is more famous for its tawdry strip clubs than for its music scene. We strolled the length of it, holding our nose most of the time against the stench of urine and vomit while averting our eyes from the scantily-clad ladies. We stopped off for a meal and a couple of drinks at a bar and while there we did witness a passing ‘jazz funeral’ but soon decided that the action, as far as we were concerned, was elsewhere.
Luckily, we discovered the delightfully picturesque Jackson Square, just a block way in the other direction, with its street jazz bands, its ragtag collection of colourful entertainers and tarot readers. At the Square’s crown are three 18th-century architectural glories: the Cabildo, a former city hall where the Louisiana Purchase was signed; St. Louis Cathedral; and the Presbytère. The onetime courthouse is now the flagship of the Louisiana State Museum and it was here that I came face to face with the original portrait of Marie Laveau – the so called Witch Queen of New Orleans – a painting that had been an important plot feature in my book ‘Voodoo Child’ – a book that I set in New Orleans and wrote a few years ago, sourcing information from the internet. It was rather surreal to re-live the footsteps of my fictional heroine and stand in front of the masterpiece myself!
 I came face to face with the original portrait of Marie Laveau – the so called Witch Queen of New Orleans
That same evening we found Frenchman’s Street, in the Faubourg Marigny, a historic neighbourhood a short walk from our hotel in the Quarter, and where the city’s music scene has now shifted. We had drinks in a bar listening to a traditional washboard blues band and then went on to the famous Snug Harbour jazz club and bistro, paying a small cover charge to see a fabulous and unforgettable jazz, blues, gospel and soul band.
We had been told by friends that our New Orleans experience would not be complete without attending a ‘Crawfish Boil’ so we took a taxi downtown to the Maple Leaf Bar. We were a little nervous, wondering if we’d found the right bar, as we couldn’t hear any music. It turned out that we were a little early, so we paid a small cover charge and bought a drink at the bar, while suspiciously eyeing the long narrow table along the middle of the long narrow room. Soon lots of people started to arrive, buying drinks and congregating along the table. Then the musicians arrived and climbed up on stage to do a tune up. In no time at all the place was packed and there was a commotion starting at the top of the table where a huge tin bath full of food – the Crawfish Boil – was being thrown onto the table. Several bathtubs later, the table was filled with crawfish, potatoes, corn cobs, and sausages and a feeding frenzy ensued. It was crazy – it was fun - and it was delicious. Especially after a kind fellow diner demonstrated the correct and quickest way to eat the crawfish, (which resembles a very small lobster). First you pull off the head and discard it (throw it back on the table!) suck on the headless body to extract the delicious juice/stock, then quickly peel the shell and pop the crawfish meat straight into your mouth. It is a messy business!

Crawfish boil - it was crazy – it was fun - and it was delicious! 

Classic Louisiana Bayou Crawfish Boil Recipe: Once the seasoned water comes to a boil in a large tin bath, add the potatoes, corn, garlic, and sausage. Cover and cook for 10 minutes. Add the crawfish, cover, and cook for 3 minutes. Turn off the heat and allow the pot to sit, covered, for 10 minutes. Serve to the hungry masses by tipping the meal onto a scrubbed clean wooden table. No cutlery necessary.

The next morning we took another walk through the streets of the Quarter, tipping back our heads to admire 19th Century mansions and floral balcony apartments. We strolled along the banks of the Mississippi River, admiring the river boats before stopping off for beignets (pronounced ‘Ben Yeah’) and coffee. Beignets are a New Orleans signature sweet pastry made from deep fried dough sprinkled with sugar. Later we stopped off for lunch at The French Market and ate baked oysters; after which we explored the famously haunted side of the city, where the notable above-the-ground graves in ancient cemeteries were decorated with flowers and candles and voodoo coins (in exchange for favours) particularly at the grave of Marie Laveau. Back on Frenchmen’s Street, feeling bewitched, we found spooky looking voodoo shops and felt compelled to buy spells and tarot cards.

Walking through the streets of the Quarter, tipping back our heads to admire 19th Century mansions and floral balconies  We strolled along the banks of the Mississippi River, admiring the river boats We stopped off for lunch at The French Market and ate baked oysters Feeling bewitched, we felt compelled to buy spells and tarot cards!


On our last night in New Orleans, Trav and I were faced with a now familiar problem: we still had over three weeks before we met our flight out of Houston to the UK: so what should we do next? Go back to Utila and have a few more weeks on ‘our’ Caribbean island or should we find somewhere new to experience? If we chose the latter, then we knew it had to be on a budget. No more staying in hotels, moderately priced or otherwise.
Again, over a few drinks that evening, we put our heads together to discuss our travel ideas. We had loved travelling by Greyhound bus. Trav suggested we might take a Greyhound north out of New Orleans to Memphis and then go on to Nashville. That would be different and exciting. Taking the bus wasn’t as expensive as flying, but within the USA, flying was a lot less expensive than we expected. However, with an eye on the money, our choices felt limited and I must admit to feeling rather exhausted. You can only be excited and exhilarated for so many days without feeling some kind of burn out. I thought that the ideal would be to find a small cottage or apartment to rent, somewhere warm and nice, near to a beach and a dive center, for just over three weeks, where we could relax and cook for ourselves and just laze around in a hammock if we felt the need, before flying straight to Houston to meet with our flight back to the UK.
Although our flight back to the UK didn’t actually start off in Houston – it started in Roatan, the larger of the Bay Islands, Honduras, we didn’t think the airline would be bothered to much if we simply skipped the first leg of the journey - as our main flight was Houston: Frankfurt: Edinburgh.
It was then, in that moment, that I suddenly remembered a conversation I’d had a while back with a lovely young lady backpacker on the dock at Eco-Marine dive center on Utila. She had said how she was full of admiration for Trav and I, travelling the world (at our age!) and told me how her parents were currently travelling the Pacific Highway together using ‘Airbnb’.
I’d never heard of ‘Airbnb’and she explained to me that it is an international website where anyone could advertise/find a place to rent/stay. It could be as simple as a room in someone’s home or as lavish as a whole apartment in San Francisco. Armed with this information, I Googled ‘Airbnb’ and immediately found the description given to be true. It seemed that all over the world people were advertising places to rent: city apartments, country cottages, house-boats, beach cottages… erm, yes, beach cottages.
We finished off our amazing stay in New Orleans by eating at Irene’s Place at 539 St. Philips Street: an Italian/French restaurant just a short walk from our hotel. Outside, Irene’s looks unpretentious, but don’t be fooled because inside the atmosphere is decadent, the food is delicious and the wine list fabulous. Highly recommended!

inside the atmosphere is decadent, the food is delicious and the wine list fabulous.
So where were we headed next? Well, I had found a lovely looking beach cottage for a reasonable rent on Saunders Beach, Bahamas, courtesy of Airbnb. It was available for the three weeks and it was being advertised by a guy called Stuart, a retired university professor, who had annexed off a porch area and the side of his traditional style clapper-board Bahamian home as a rental. There were photographs that looked very appealing and there were dozens of reference reviews by others who had stayed there – all saying wonderful things about the cottage, the location, and about Stuart himself. I sent an email to Stuart, apologising for the short notice and asking him if we could come and stay the very next day. He agreed and the deal was done!
The Bahamas here we come!
And in my next post, which I promise to post in the next few days - I'll tell you all about our fabulous three week plus adventures in Nassau, Bahamas: including the Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett concert that we managed to see at Atlantis on Paradise Island! So please pop back soon!
Love, Janice xx 

Caribbean island life...

I can hardly believe that we are half-way through our four month stay here on Utila, the smallest of the three Bay Islands situated in the Caribbean Sea just off the coast of Honduras, Central America. It feels nice to be at this point of our stay because we are now settled into the pace of island life yet we know that we still have lots of time ahead of us here to kick back, relax, and not have to think about returning to the UK just yet.
Just a week after we arrived, it was my birthday, and Trav organised a birthday party for me with our friends on the dock at EcoMarine. There was a BBQ, lots of drinks, music, dancing - and swimming.
A fun dip in the sea with lovely friends Tara and Christine
My birthday gift from Trav was a ‘princess’ piñata. A piñata is a celebration tradition in Spanish speaking countries but I've never had one before and so I was excited and delighted. Quite by coincidence, I happened to be wearing a purple coloured dress that evening and you can see that so was my piñata! A spooky likeness?
Of course, I gave my pinata a really good beating and everyone enjoyedthe haul of candies she had been generously stuffed with!


As soon as we arrived on the island this time around, Trav was again busy teaching scuba diving and I had lots to do in preparation for the online launch of my latest novel Castaway in the Caribbean, which was scheduled for release on the 26th March. 
This was the novel that I started writing here on Utila the previous summer. I had the ARCs (advance review copies) to send out to reviewers and guest posts and author interviews to write up for my tour hosts in preparation for my upcoming online book tours.
The book tours are organised by the PR peeps at Candlelit Author Services from April 20thto 1st May and by BrookCottage Books from 18th May to 29th May respectively. 



From the middle of March, for a full week before the official launch date, Castaway in the Caribbean was available for pre-order from Amazon for Kindle. This was a very exciting time for me, as on the strength of these pre-orders, I saw the book going straight into several Amazon bestseller charts and importantly, in its own genre of travel adventure fiction, sitting at #5. The next few days saw it at #4, at #3 and then at #2 where it stayed for two whole days until it finally and unbelievably hit the #1 spot!



Oh my goodness… I have never had a #1 bestseller before so you can imagine how totally thrilled I was. I’d had #2 with my last book Reaching for the Stars and so really thought that this time too the #1 would elude me. The morning that it happened (it was afternoon in the UK as here on the island we are seven hours behind) I was sitting in one of the classrooms at the dive center, hoping for an internet connection, when I checked the book’s Amazon ranking and screamed. Everyone came rushing to find out who and why and then there were celebratory drinks involved – except of course for those going out diving. I now have a lovely little gold ‘#1 Bestseller’ banner next to my book in the Amazon listings and I’m so very proud. A heartfelt thank you to all of those who made this possible!



March was a heady month in respect of my birthday and book launch but I did also get lots of opportunities to have fun and relax. On one weekend, some lovely friends invited us over to Water Cay, one of the tiny tropical islands just off the north coast of Utila. We went there on their boat, took a picnic and drinks, and had a lovely day. The following weekend, with the weather hotting up considerably, we went to Water Cay again. This time with the lovely peeps at EcoMarine. We took lots of food and drinks and on the way we stopped off to buy freshly caught fish for the BBQ. You can see how much fun we had from the photos!






April brought Semana Santa to the island – the Honduran Easter holiday celebrations - and the busiest time of year on Utila in terms of visitor numbers. Many families on mainland Honduras come to the Bay Islands for their vacation and Utila is a firm favourite. Personally, we found this week to be noisy and so busy that we wanted to keep a low profile, choosing to eat in rather than out, and avoiding the beaches until the island had quietened down again. During this time we were also preparing for our eldest son Ben and his lovely girlfriend Gill’s twelve-day visit with us. They were flying from Edinburgh Scotland via the same route we had done just six weeks before (see my previous post for the details) and we were really excited about seeing them and showing them the island we have grown to love so much.
Our eldest son Ben and his girlfriend Gill arrive on Utila
Ben and Gill are both divers. Ben is an Instructor and Gill has her Open Water certification and so we knew that diving in the clearest waters and on the best and second biggest coral reef in the world was going to be high on their agenda. But when they weren’t diving, we wanted to show them Utila and all our favourite places. We also planned to make a special trip over to one of the Cay islands. Little Cay is another of the tiny tropical islands off Utila, like Water Cay, except that this one is available to rent.
Gill and Ben are both qualified scuba divers
Trav diving - photo by Ben
Ben diving with his Dad
We’d discussed Little Cay with Ben and Gill and we decided that we would rent the island between us for the weekend during their stay. The island is private; it has a beautiful house and gorgeous white sand beaches with palm trees. It also has an amazing coral reef with the most stunningly colourful coral and sea life. At night, after our BBQ, with the sky black, clear and cloudless, the four of us walked onto the jetty and switched off our torches. Laying flat on our backs and looking up at the stars was an amazing and truly magical experience. One I will never forget. The island website is here.
Little Cay - a private Caribbean island that you can rent!


We had the most amazing time while Ben and Gill were with us on Utila. We had enthused to them so much about the island after our visit last year and we were thrilled when they said they wanted to spend their holiday time with us this year. Now I’m sure they can appreciate even more why we love this part of the world so much.



We had the most amazing time while Ben and Gill were here on Utila

Yoga Update: During the past couple of months, I've also been learning about and practicing yoga. I feel very lucky indeed to live very close to a yoga center here on Utila run by two amazing yogis who are both highly practiced and expertly knowledgeably. I started off in basic yoga class and found it, shall we say, challenging. My stiff bones and writer’s shoulders had almost become a handicap to me, but now, after just a couple of months in during which I've averaged three or four classes a week, I've made progress and I’m certainly feeling much more supple and definitely more flexible. I've upped my practice a little just recently by including Ashtanga Yoga to my routine and finding it even more challenging but equally rewarding. All proving that you are never too old or too stiff to discover the benefits of yoga and I hope to continue practicing even when we leave here. Have mat will travel!


As I write, the first of my book tours for Castaway in the Caribbean has just finished and the next one begins on 18th May. As with the previous tour, this one will feature interviews and guest posts and reviews and a tropical giveaway bundle of items that I picked up on my travels around the Caribbean. So please do check in with my hosts and enter the free prize draws. Previously, the prize bundle was a tropical island desk tidy, a tropical fish book mark and a shell necklace and I’m delighted to note that there were 485 entries. 
The May tour giveaway has some equally enticing prizes – one being a beautiful mermaid necklace. If you've already read Castaway in the Caribbean then you’d know that in the story our hero’s boat is called The Mermaid.



The May tour start on Monday the 18th May and each will give you the opportunity to enter the tropical giveaway. I’d be sharing posts from my own social media sites and would really appreciate any shares as I’m looking to offer Castaway in the Caribbean to readers as a summer holiday 2015 read.
With this quest in mind, if you have already read and enjoyed Castaway in the Caribbean perhaps you might consider telling your friends about it and also consider writing a review on Amazon. It doesn't have to be a long review but it would help me to reach more readers and also help readers to find my book. The paperback of Castaway in the Caribbean should be available to order mid-summer for those who prefer to hold a ‘real’ book.
Thank you and please do come back soon for more news of our Caribbean island antics and other writerly stuff. Feel free to leave a comment. I promise to reply!
Love, Janice xx

Return to paradise….

Early in the morning, on the last day of February, my husband Trav and I flew out of cold and icy Edinburgh heading back to our island paradise in the Caribbean Sea.
Utila is the smallest of the three Bay Islands situated just off the coast of Honduras, Central America. After spending three amazing months on the island last year, we were keen to escape from the Scottish winter and get back to tropical sunshine and the lovely friends we have on the island. Our plan this time is to stay for four months.

It’s a long haul journey from the UK to Utila as there is no direct route. Our flights this time were with Lufthansa and United Airlines, a much better experience than last year when we flew with American Airlines. I was particularly excited to fly into Newark International airport in New York. I’ve never been to this iconic city before and it was a thrill to see a close up aerial view of the Manhattan skyline and the Empire State building souring into the grey February skies. In the bay, the Statue of Liberty was clearly visible. As it was the end of NY fashion week, the airport was very busy and departing flights were being delayed due to the weather. It was even colder in NY than it had been in Scotland and heaps of snow lay all around the aircraft waiting at the gates. We hung around the airport, ate a burger (when in NY!) and had a couple of drinks and where shocked to be set back by the extortionate sum of $100! Seven hours later, we were glad to be able to board our flight to Houston Texas.
At George Bush Int Airport Houston Texas - headed for Roatan
Last year we flew from Glasgow to Miami then onto San Pedro Sula in Honduras, where we had an over night before catching two small planes to the island. This time we had an over night stop in Houston before flying on to Roatan early on the morning of the first day of March. Roatan is the larger of the Bay islands and we had planned a two night stop over here at a beach resort hotel. There are no such resorts on Utila, so it was a treat (I had a birthday just a few days away). After experiencing a Scottish winter, I had to pinch myself that I wasn't just dreaming of tropical sunshine and white sand beaches.
The Paradise Beach Hotel, Roatan. Tropical sunshine and white sand beaches...
Then on the third of March, refreshed and relaxed and with the sea calm and the sun shining down, we took a small boat from Roatan to Utila. The boat journey took around two hours and what a thrill it was to look out for and to spot the familiar shape of the island getting closer and closer.
We had arranged to rent a house in the Sand Bay area, very close to the dive centre and shops and bars and local amenities. Last year we stayed in a lovely but quite isolated little yellow painted house at The Point, which is a couple of miles out of town. It was a quieter spot but a bit of an inconvenience socially. So this time we are in a neighbourhood. Our house, which could be more accurately described as a shack, like all the others close around us, is a traditional Caribbean design. It is made of wood, elevated on stilts, and has an open balcony both at the front and the back. It has a tin roof which is watertight but very noisy when it rains and particularly so when a coconut falls onto it from one of the many towering palm trees outside - which often happens at night and wakes you up with a shock! The windows have wooden shutters and a mesh to stop the bugs flying in but there is no glass. This is to encourage a draft into the house. The downside is that you can hear everything that goes on around you by day and night – people shouting, children playing, babies screaming, dogs barking, cats howling, chickens and roosters calling, loud music blasting and motor bikes revving (there are no cars on the island and so motorbikes and scooters and quad bikes and tuk-tuk taxis the main ways to get about). Personally I’m a great fan of walking or cycling or taking a boat - the island is not that big and most of it is mangrove swamp! The upside of us living a little more inland is that, unlike last year when we were close to the beach, there are no sandflies around to torture us, which means that we can have the doors open and make full use of our balcony and outdoor space without being eaten alive. You win some and you lose some and compromise is king!
In the house, we have two bedrooms, a bathroom with a shower, an open plan sitting room and a fitted kitchen with a large fridge freezer and a gas cooker. It’s very nice. We have electric included in our rent and, although there’s no air conditioning, we have ceiling fans – which are a blessing when the heat and humidity is really high and they are whizzing around distributing the occasional waft of air coming through the mesh windows. It has taken us a few weeks to get used to living so close to other people and to cope with all the social noise – but that is entirely our issue not theirs due to us being used to living in a remote and almost silent part of the Scottish countryside for over 25 years. Now that we are getting used to it all - we love it. Okay, the place might look a little rustic and rough around the edges but that is part of its charm. It is the Caribbean as it should be and the people we live among here are always friendly, helpful and welcoming. I’m sure we are a bit of a novelty to them actually – the white skinned English speaking couple who live in the blue house under the trees - although Trav and I are working on the first two issues by getting our skins darkly tanned and practicing our Spanish!
Our casa - by night and by day - with a flowering banana tree just outside the front door...
Next time here on the blog I’ll be chatting about our first month spent on the island – about life in our Caribbean house and all the action happening down at the dive centre where Trav is working as an instructor. The local night life. Parties on the dock – including my fabulous birthday party - with photos! Weekend picnics at the Cays – tiny tropical islands just off Utila. And I’ll be charting progress on my own personal venture this time around on the island - which is to learn and practice Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga in order to remedy my poor aching writer’s shoulders, the repetitive keyboard strain in my wrists and fingers and strengthen my stiff and weak lower back – all caused by a long winter spent sitting down at the laptop.
Yoga Utila
Come back soon and please do feel free to leave a comment. I promise to reply!
Love, Janice xx

Castaway in the Caribbean - 99p/$1.48 this weekend only!

Thank you to everyone who has bought and downloaded a copy of Castaway in the Caribbean in the past 24 hrs and to those who have messaged and shared my launch day posts!
Castaway is currently sitting at #3 in the Amazon Bestseller Charts for Travel Adventure Fiction - and I'm thrilled. To celebrate this chart success and to hope for a #2 or even a #1 position - the book will remain at the launch price of 99p or $1.48 for this weekend only - so if you fancy a Caribbean adventure of your own - download soon and please tell your friends!
Love, Janice xx

Fancy a romantic Caribbean adventure?Launch price 99p or $1.48 this weekend only! #Amazon   #Kindle   #Bestseller  

Amazon Links:

UK:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Castaway-Caribbean-Janice-Horton-ebook/dp/B00UEY9UC6/ref=zg_bs_4542588031_3  


US:  http://www.amazon.com/Castaway-Caribbean-Janice-Horton-ebook/dp/B00UEY9UC6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426094210&sr=1-1

It's Sail Away Day for Castaway in the Caribbean...!

I'm excited to announce my new novel is now available worldwide on Amazon for Kindle!

Castaway in the Caribbean
Today is Launch Day - or as I prefer to call it - Sail Away Day!

The first book blogger review is in - you can read it at The Book Maven Book Blog

Loveahappyending.com has a launch feature page here

The Author's Cafe has a special launch feature here


Links:Browse Castaway in the Caribbean on Amazon UKBrowse Castaway in the Caribbean on Amazon Dotcom


Castaway in the Caribbean
Vacationing on the beautiful Caribbean island of Antigua, Janey Sinclair is persuaded by her magazine editor boss to do a quick island hop in order to supervise an impromptu photo-shoot for the front cover. With no flights immediately available, Janey is directed to the harbour.Captain Travis Mathews hates tourists, although he’s not above making a bit of money off a prissy and sharp tongued young British girl when she’s desperate to get to the neighbouring island of Tortola.After striking a deal, they set off together in Travis’s weather-beaten old boat. When the vessel comes to a sudden full stop in the sea, the mismatched pair end up as castaways on an uninhabited island.In this fast moving romantic adventure about a vacation that turns into a tropical nightmare there’s more fun than you’ll find in any travel brochure.



A message from Janice:
I was incredibly fortunate to spend most of last summer in the Caribbean, writing and researching my latest novel Castaway in the Caribbean. I found it challenging only in the respect of being continually distracted from the manuscript by the tropical sunshine, the white sand beaches, the warm aquamarine sea, rum cocktails, and the fabulous social scene on offer. Many of these distractions are well documented on my website, blog and Facebook page, if you are interested in reading the details and seeing the photos!For the purposes of proper research for Castaway in the Caribbean, I travelled to and explored many Caribbean islands and, despite my tendency for sea sickness, I also spent a lot of time in boats. I even got to sail around Tortola, the larger of the British Virgin Islands, in a restored schooner that had been used in the filming of the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie.The Virgin Islands inspired me with the modern day setting for this romantic adventure novel because, of this chain of around ninety small islands, islets, cays and rocks in the Caribbean Sea, many are uninhabited.I eventually settled down to write this romantic adventure story on the Caribbean island of Utila, the smaller of the Bay Islands, just off the coast of Honduras. Likened to the Key West of long ago, Utila is a quaint, unspoilt and laid-back little island. Sitting on the largest barrier reef in the western hemisphere, it is also a paradise for scuba diving, which is exactly what my husband was doing every day while I was busy writing this story. Research is a valuable tool for a writer, so I do hope all the fun and adventure I had in the Caribbean has found its way into the pages of Castaway in the Caribbean.
Janice xx

NEWS: Castaway in the Caribbean available for pre-order!

I'm really excited to announce that my new novel is now up on Amazon for pre-order!  Castaway in the Caribbean is available NOW as a Kindle ebook to pre-order from Amazon
It is currently at a special pre-order price of 99p or $1.48Launch day is 26th March 2015
Links:Browse Castaway in the Caribbean on Amazon UKBrowse Castaway in the Caribbean on Amazon Dotcom
Other Amazon sites are available

Castaway in the Caribbean
Vacationing on the beautiful Caribbean island of Antigua, Janey Sinclair is persuaded by her magazine editor boss to do a quick island hop in order to supervise an impromptu photo-shoot for the front cover. With no flights immediately available, Janey is directed to the harbour.Captain Travis Mathews hates tourists, although he’s not above making a bit of money off a prissy and sharp tongued young British girl when she’s desperate to get to the neighbouring island of Tortola.After striking a deal, they set off together in Travis’s weather-beaten old boat. When the vessel comes to a sudden full stop in the sea, the mismatched pair end up as castaways on an uninhabited island.In this fast moving romantic adventure about a vacation that turns into a tropical nightmare there’s more fun than you’ll find in any travel brochure.



A message from Janice:
I was incredibly fortunate to spend most of last summer in the Caribbean, writing and researching my latest novel Castaway in the Caribbean. I found it challenging only in the respect of being continually distracted from the manuscript by the tropical sunshine, the white sand beaches, the warm aquamarine sea, rum cocktails, and the fabulous social scene on offer. Many of these distractions are well documented on my website, blog and Facebook page, if you are interested in reading the details and seeing the photos!For the purposes of proper research for Castaway in the Caribbean, I travelled to and explored many Caribbean islands and, despite my tendency for sea sickness, I also spent a lot of time in boats. I even got to sail around Tortola, the larger of the British Virgin Islands, in a restored schooner that had been used in the filming of the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie.The Virgin Islands inspired me with the modern day setting for this romantic adventure novel because, of this chain of around ninety small islands, islets, cays and rocks in the Caribbean Sea, many are uninhabited. I eventually settled down to write this romantic adventure story on the Caribbean island of Utila, the smaller of the Bay Islands, just off the coast of Honduras. Likened to the Key West of long ago, Utila is a quaint, unspoilt and laid-back little island. Sitting on the largest barrier reef in the western hemisphere, it is also a paradise for scuba diving, which is exactly what my husband was doing every day while I was busy writing this story.Research is a valuable tool for a writer, so I do hope all the fun and adventure I had in the Caribbean has found its way into the pages of Castaway in the Caribbean.


The Virgin Islands inspired me with the modern day setting for this romantic adventure novel   I even got to sail around Tortola, the larger of the British Virgin Islands, in a restored schooner that had been used in the filming of the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Do you recognise the above rock formation from the opening scene in the movie?
Researching Tortola – The British Virgin Islands

Janice Horton writes contemporary romantic fiction with a dash of humour and a sense of adventure. Look out for Janice’s new release for 2015 Castaway in the Caribbean and her Amazon Kindle bestselling books Bagpipes and Bullshot and Reaching for the Starsand her fun Voodoo Romance series of novellas. Her nonfiction guide to online promotion How To Party Online is recommended reading by publishers. Janice is a senior editor at the award-winning Loveahappyending Lifestyle Magazine (LLm)
No Kindle? No problem. Amazon provides a free to download Kindle App for all devices.



Pre-order today at the special price of just 99p or $1.48 and read on launch day when the ebook of Castaway in the Caribbean with automatically download to your device.

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 all boys 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, Dominica, St Vincent, the ABC islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao. We spent my birthday in the lush tropical rain forests of Grenada. 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 HortonOctober: 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 late catching up on November's post because I've been ‘snap gapping’ again – this time to the Kingdom of Bahrain in the Persian 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.comthe 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

Caribbean Island Update – another month in paradise…

August was our second month spent here on Utila, a tiny Caribbean island off mainland Honduras. It has been a much quieter and more laid back month than July – when there was the island carnival and music festival. It also feels much hotter, not so much because the temperature has risen but because the wind has dropped. We no longer get that wonderful easterly breeze rushing through our Little Yellow House cooling us down, and there have been nights when we have succumbed to the high price of the electricity and used the air-conditioning for an hour or two - when the island’s electric power supply is on that is – and it’s off far more than it’s on!

August on Utila - everything is calm and the sea is like a translucent blue mirror.
In August and in September all the divers on the island get excited because the increased temperatures and the calm waters brings the whale sharks close to the reef and to the island. Whale sharks are the biggest fish in the sea and my lovely husband Trav was at last able to achieve his dream of swimming with a magnificent whale shark this week!

Trav is happiest under the sea.   Trav with a lionfish Top News: Trav has now completed his Dive Master Internship

Now, it doesn’t look like it from all the fun photos I have to show you this month, but I promise you that I have been working very hard too - writing and researching my new novel ‘Castaway in the Caribbean’. So far I'm on target and I'm on schedule!

Despite what it looks like - I have been working hard too - honestly!                                                                                So as we go into September I’m very aware of how fast our time here is flying by - and I still have so much I want to do - both on the novel and also on the island. So when I'm not actually sat down writing, you'll find me out and about researching. As boats feature heavily in my story, I've been particularly interested in looking at boats and going out in them, all in the name of research!


Research!
We still take a Thursday off work to have some fun together and we usually go to our favourite beach. Sometimes we have the whole place to ourselves to sunbathe and snorkel on the reef and other times we meet up with lovely friends for lunch and drinks - and deck jumping!

Jumping off the deck at Coral Beach!
This month we had another fabulous day out on the boat with the lovely peeps at Ecomarine Dive Center. Last month we were diving and snorkeling and we stopped for lunch at an island called Pigeon Cay. This time we took a Sunday picnic to an island called Water Cay. The Cays are a string of tiny, mostly uninhabited, tropical islands off the coast of Utila. It was wonderful to spend a whole day relaxing on the white sand under the shade of the palm trees or laying in the shallow and incredibly warm water sipping rum!

At Water Cay, Utila, Bay Islands, Honduras. Top group photo copyright: David Thatcher

Then after all the highs there was a bit of a low point to the month when Trav and I both came down with a horrible tropical head cold. I got cold sores on my mouth and Trav had to stop diving for a couple of days as his ears wouldn't equalise. But the worst thing was that I then had a nasty re-occurrence of the tooth abscess that I first got during our trip to South Korea a few months ago (see my previous post on South Korea). You see, I just didn’t have time between that trip and this one to have the tooth properly crowned, so the flare up wasn’t totally unexpected, but it was very unwelcome non-the-less. I took a course of the antibiotics that I brought with me in our medicine kit, and I hope that will keep the problem in check, until we get home on the 1st October and I can get a proper dental check up.
The big highlight of the month came right at the end – with Trav’s graduation party and snorkel test. He graduated as a Dive Master as the same time as a lovely lady called Cat, who is also from the UK. It’s tradition for the graduating Dive Masters to put on entertainment – which usually involves them getting their own back on their Instructors!
Trav and Cat put on a fun version of the UK TV show ‘I’m a celebrity – get me out of here!’ except theirs was ‘I’m a PADI Pro – get me out of here!’ The PADI Pro’s had to answer crazy questions and were rewarded with shots of rum if they got them right. Particular fun was had at the ‘Reef Tucker Trials’ when Fish Lips, Moray Eyes, Fire Worms and Squid Balls had to be eaten!
The final part of the night involved the graduates having to earn their Dive Master T-shirts by doing the famous ‘Snorkel Test’. This involves rum being poured into a mask and snorkel and it being drunk through the nose and mouth. Trav has been saying for weeks that he wasn’t going to do the test but in the end he was persuaded otherwise. But to make Trav’s test more embarrassing for him, his instructor made him wear a far-too-small wet suit throughout. The whole night was great fun and I’m so proud of my Dive Master husband!

Dive Master Graduation Party and Snorkel Test!  September is going to be a very busy time for us here on Utila. I still have to work hard on finishing ‘Castaway in the Caribbean’ and Trav will be working at the dive center as a fully qualified Dive Master. On top of that there will be the island's Independence Day celebrations mid-month. During the next few weeks, Trav and I will have to make even more time for having fun together, in order to fully appreciate the time we have left on Utila before we suddenly find ourselves back in Scotland; at the start of what will be wintertime.
I’ll try to post some writing updates during September and maybe some sneak snippets from the chapters I have written, albeit unedited, until my lovely editor gets her hands on the manuscript. I’ll also do another monthly round up at the end of September before we travel home. In the meantime don’t forget that you can find me on Facebook and on Twitter.
Do please feel free to leave a comment - I so love to hear from you - and do come back soon!
Love, Janice xx