Travel Journal 1982 Day 3

Friday June 18th 1982 Woke at 12:30pm after a glorious 12 hours sleep. This apartment is gorgeous, we're certainly spoilt with the air conditioning. We've decided to stay here until Tuesday and then we'll go to K.L. (Kuala Lumpar). I've just had to throw my jacket down the rubbish chute as it was weighing me down – sob, sob! It's nice not having to worry about leaving our belongings while we go out. The beige jacket was a favourite of mine but it was going to be too hot lugging it all around Asia. Had a fairly busy afternoon. Got a but into town and went to a market place called Change Alley. An incredible place where traders pounce on you as soon as you walk in; offering anything and everything for sale. We met two New Zealanders who gave us their map as they're going to England in 5 days time. Statue of Sir Stamford Raffles We visited the famous Raffles Hotel. My uncle was stationed in Singapore during the war and asked me to visit the place as he had fond memories. Singapore is beautiful, it's so clean... there's a S$500 fine for dropping litter, even cigarette butts. They also have a law against jaywalking with a S$10 fine. You have to use pedestrian crossings all the way. We walked along Queen Elizabeth Walk and found some beautiful gardens there. We saw the Merlion which pours water from its mouth into the river. Arrived back at the apartment at 7:30pm. Suzie was home. She's really sweet and is going to show us around Singapore tomorrow. She says we can use the car! It's incredible how trusting she is. We took advantage of the onsite open air swimming pool at about 8:30pm; fantastic and really cool. I came out feeling…

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Travel Journal 1982 Day 2

June 17th 1982 Landed in Dubai at 04:30 local time (01:30 BST), temperature 27˚C, dawn is almost breaking, so is Dawn with swollen feet and ankles! The air stewards have been lovely to us although food comes round almost every hour as we pick up new passengers. 05:30 we've just been for a walk outside, now daylight and very, very hot. We're exhausted as we haven't had any sleep yet. 09:45 local time landed in Karachi. We've disembarked to change flights. There's no such thing as queuing here, people just shove their way to the front. Stepping off the aeroplane was like stepping into an oven – 29˚C – hot with wet humidity. My skin has never felt so clammy. Flies are everywhere, no sooner do you swat them away than they're back. Huge, dopey things, I guess I'll have to get used to them. We had a thorough frisking by a large, angry woman before being allowed to enter the transit lounge. We have no idea when the flight to Singapore is. All I know is we're both extremely tired and it's baking hot. 7pm local time we landed in Kuala Lumpar. We're on a Boeing 707. The temperature is 30˚C: boil, boil, roast, roast. The flight from Karachi took 6 hours. I met a chap called Hamar, a student at Glasgow Polytech studying engineering. He's come home to Malaysia for a 3 month holiday and has invited us to stay with his family when we come back. It will be interesting staying with a Muslim family. We changed plans in Malaysia and didn't visit Kuala Lumpar 10:30pm (3pm BST) we landed in Singapore at last – 22 hours travelling. We've been worrying about where we will be staying in Singapore as I'm not sure the NZ chap (friend of…

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Travel Journal from 1982

Forty years ago today, I embarked on the trip of a lifetime. A friend and I set off for Asia and visited eight countries over three months. This is extract from the journal I kept is from day one. I'm keeping it pretty much as I wrote it, so not making too many corrections. Day 1: June 16th 1982 Weather Forecast for the day Source: https://weatherspark.com/h/m/147876/1982/6/Historical-Weather-in-June-1982-at-London-Heathrow-Airport-United-Kingdom#Figures-Temperature The weather forecast was correct; a dull and drizzly day when we left. Well, today's the big day. Woke up at 9:30am following a wonderful sleep. Who knows whether we'll sleep tonight, perhaps not! We have slight hassles at the moment, our reliable travel agent, alias Mr Messy hasn't quite sorted out our insurance correctly, we haven't got the premium in other words – so it's 12 midday and we're off to Regent St to collect it. It's all part of what's going to be a totally disorganised holiday for two in Asia. Perhaps we should have gone for two weeks to Bognor Regis! Poor old J is having ladies problems at the moment! Went to travel agent and sorted out insurance (sigh!). Also gained his father's address in Delhi. One more for the road. We contacted the agent's father when in Delhi a few months later and were invited for dinner. I'll cover this in a future post. Arrived at Heathrow at 1:30pm and checked in. Having a quiet time preparing ourselves for the flight. 3:30pm passed through customs. J was searched on her way through by a lady who was rather sour faced and she became even more unhappy when I laughed at the prospect of J being towed away before we even set off! We're now sitting in the boarding lounge waiting to board a rather ferocious looking aeroplane which has its…

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Dawn Brookes Fiction Reading Order

Chronological Reading Order This is the order in which you should read if you want to follow characters through each series by chronology, rather than each series individually. All of the books are written so they can read as standalones without major spoilers. Some people prefer to read in series order and others might want to follow the characters develop chronologically. The Rachel Prince Mysteries feature Rachel Prince as the main character and are set on a fictional cruise ship. Rachel enjoys meeting up with her best friend who is a nurse on board the Coral Queen. Lady Marjorie joins her on alternate cruises. It wasn't planned like that... it just happened! The Carlos Jacobi series features Rachel's love interest; a PI intent on changing the world with the help of his ex police dog and a quirky detective sergeant, Fiona Cook. The Lady Marjorie Snellthorpe series follows an elderly quartet who get together for holidays and end up solving murders. This is a developing series. A Cruise to Murder (Rachel Prince #1) Deadly Cruise (Rachel Prince #2) Body in the Woods (Carlos Jacobi #1) Killer Cruise (Rachel Prince #3) The Bradgate Park Murders (Carlos Jacobi #2) Dying to Cruise (Rachel Prince #4) Body at the Jewry Wall (Carlos Jacobi #3) – coming in 2022 A Christmas Cruise Murder (Rachel Prince #5) Murderous Cruise Habit (Rachel Prince #6) Death of a Blogger (Lady Marjorie Snellthorpe Prequel Novella) Murder at the Opera House (Lady Marjorie Snellthorpe #1) Honeymoon Cruise Murder (Rachel Prince #7) Murder in the Highlands (Lady Marjorie Snellthorpe #2) Murder in the Strawberry Tent (Lady Marjorie Snellthorpe #3) – coming 2022 A Murder Mystery Cruise (Rachel Prince #8) Hazardous Cruise (Rachel Prince #9) Captain's Dinner Cruise Murder (Rachel Prince #10) Corporate Cruise Murder (Rachel Prince #11) More to be added…

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Monday 7th March 2022

I finalised events for the literature festival I chair and managed to get them all up on the website. The day pass tickets are now up for sale, so if you live near to Derby, feel free to take a look here. I'm continuing edits on my two-thirds finished draft of Murder in the Highlands and made steady progress with it today. It's starting to come together and I'm getting a handle on the characters and suspects, developing them at the same time. I've spent a few months exploring the social media platform Tiktok and will be creating more videos for my author presence there. If you would like to follow me you can find me here.

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Sunday 6th March

Work in Progress I'm going through the editing process of Murder in the Highlands before taking the work forward. This helps me to refocus my attention and sets the stage for the final third. I'm almost two-thirds of the way through so it makes sense to do this now, making sure that what I've written so far is making sense. At this stage in almost every book I've written, I hit a brick wall and get a little bit bogged down by my internal critic. Once I come out of editing mode, I'll be able to silence the critic and switch back into creative mode! Looking forward to that. To be honest, I've been distracted by world events of late... who wouldn't be? Other Stuff As it was Sunday, I tried to take some rest and get other more mundane things done around the house. I went to virtual church as I have been doing since the pandemic started. Funnily enough, I've been able to go to a church in London which I went to when I lived in the capital forty years ago. All Souls Church in Langham Place has been putting on virtual services throughout lockdown and is continuing to do so. I've enjoyed returning to somewhere that seems familiar in spite of the number of years that have elapsed since I last went there physically. Literature Festival In 2018, I founded a literature festival which I now chair. I spent the morning creating and adding the final few graphics for events to the website and put the day pass tickets on sale. Tomorrow, I'll need to read through some guest blog posts for the site. I love doing the festival but while it was cancelled for two years during the pandemic, I'd forgotten just how time consuming it…

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