January 2017 – Chocoholix

Fired up… ready to go!

Image January 31, 2017January 31, 2017chocoholix5 Comments

“She knows not where she’s going
For the ocean will decide
It’s not the destination
… it’s the glory of the ride.” (words from Zen Dog, thanks Nilufar!)

I got a brilliant card (below) from a sweet and very ‘lovly’ 6 year old little friend … I just love all the hues of blue & aquamarine she’s used for the sea & islands. It’s now installed as the very appropriate screen saver for my round the world adventure …

So that’s me off to Heathrow today, crossing a new threshold… and off on an explorer’s journey. See you on the other side!

Carpe the f***ing diem

January 23, 2017January 29, 2017chocoholix2 Comments

One week to go til I set off on my big adventure…

So, the idea of taking time out from work is also meant to be a break from my über-planned life to date, in which I’ve never been out of work for a single day since I left university, and slogged away at my great and interesting jobs almost without pause since the summer of 1987.

Throw caution to the winds… throw plans out of the window, and just go with the flow…and see what happens. What turns up.

It lasted about a week. It turns out I can’t live without a plan. I was almost cracking up with the strain of not knowing what I was about to do next. Lost and anxious. My good friend Shirley in Boston came to the rescue. “Carpe the f***ing diem”, she said.

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2017 – a year of adventure

January 19, 2017January 26, 2017chocoholix5 Comments

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started

And know that place for the first time.”

TS ELIOT

So, I finally took the plunge…

After 13 amazing years working for the Fairtrade Foundation, I’ve had the privilege of meeting coffee farmers from Costa Rica and Ethiopia, banana growers from Colombia and Dominican Republic, sugar farmers in Fiji, women cocoa farmers in Ivory Coast, date producers in the deserts of Tunisia and beleaguered olive farmers in Palestine. Some I’ve been able to visit on their own farms, others I have met here in the UK.

Now I have decided to take a break from the day job to embark on my own personal adventure in 2017. On 31 January, I board a plane in London and head off down under to Australia and New Zealand, and then from March on across the Pacific to Easter Island, Chile, Peru, Ecuador/Galapagos, Colombia, Panama and finally ending in Costa Rica some time in May. On this trip I want to get closer to the stories, cultures and ecosystems of the places I go and people I meet. There may be the odd familiar face, and hopefully many new ones too, along the way, but this time I definitely have no work agenda – just to meet and make friends, explore places and communities, stop, look, listen and gently breathe in and out for a while 🙂

Come with me on my journey & stay in touch as I go 🙂