Roman Holiday

A favourite Rome shop, Il Papiro, selling all kinds of
handmade paper and stationery products

I'm always inspired when planning a holiday, and envisage spending hours with notebook and pen, sketchbook and pencil, cappuchino or espresso, depending on the mood and location.
I dream of the uninterrupted hours, the time to dream and people-watch, and notebooks filling with jottings and eavesdropped gems and tidbits of conversations - 'dialogue research', and story ideas.  And of course, a completed manuscript, ready for the first edit.

But what invariably happens is very different. Postcards from the previous city visited are hastily written and posted, to arrive at their destination days after I arrive home.  Hours are spent sightseeing, lugging our heavy but fantastic cameras. Food and drink take second priority (next to the photography), as well as a spot of shopping, as one does, always with an eye for a great bargain or a treasure not acquirable back home.

People-watching outside our hotel, in the Piazza della Rotonda,
Pantheon taking centre-stage

And when our dirty blistered feet find the hotel room our more exhausted limbs fall into bed, lulled to sleep by the only English-speaking TV channels, CNN or BBC.  And the next day is a repeat, until all the days roll together and you find yourself at the end of your Roman Holiday, filled with wonderful memories, a thousand photos, perhaps a little heavier than when you started (just the luggage, of course!), and yearning for another month, or three, just for the chance to sit and write, daydream and sketch.

But you have loved every minute, and you wouldn't have it any other way.

Arrive derci and Ciao Ciao, my lovely Rome

Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck - Roman Holiday - all-time favourite movie