What do you do when you're not writing? by Jo Carroll
What do you do when you’re not writing (or travelling)? How often am I asked that! It’s a strange life, being a travel writer. I’m officially retired, so I can’t claim it’s a ‘proper job’, even though it fills almost all my time – or it feels like that. I had a proper job once. I worked in Child Protection – putting on special clothes to go to work, picking up my case and my files and heading for an office with a desk and secretary. I was, I was assured, an expert. Sometimes I had to appear in Court and give evidence, help to prove a child had suffered ‘significant harm’ (that’s jargon. I won’t elaborate.). I tied my hair back and wore stern clothes. The only way to survive a job like that is to learn to turn it off. No phone calls after eight at night. At least one day off a week. If a child continued to run around in my head I knew I’d missed something, and so go back to the papers and notes till I’d worked out what it was. Then close the office door, sit ba...