Well my pretty cherubs, I have had little need over the past year to update on 'where Jo is' because Jo has mostly been nowhere. Obviously I have been somewhere. To maintain a prescence nowhere would have enters realms of difficulty which I (short of particle collider machine), am ill equipped to deal with. Somewhere has mostly been between here (London) and there (Ramsbury). Yes, I am one step further to becoming a grown-up. I have a job. A real one. Depressing though this thought is, it comes with one major benefit: dubloons. Who knew?


Naturally, in accordance with the universal truths of the world, as everyone knows when you start a new job, the first thing you do is book time off. February to be exact. What to do in all this time? I hear Central America calling me, more precisely, I hear Honduras calling me, I hear Nicaragua calling me. I can't understand it because I have 1 month to learn Spanish, but I hear it's cry. I also have one month to buy a raincoat, obtain anti-malarials, remove the post-Christmas blubber (note to self: giving up chocolate beforehand in no way served me any favours)

"Ain't no sunshine when she's gone...

...and she's always gone too long." But rest assured, the virtual me is back! Cue image of glorious sunshine. Given that I haven't been to anywhere particularly exotic, or indeed intriguing in the last few months I am destined to wax lyrical about the more mundane, the everyday, yet equally remarkable happenings of this crazy world which surrounds me.

First up I guess I should brief you as to where Jo is, seeing as it's the title of this page. Well I am back in the Shire, nestling in the cosseted country surroundings of Ramsbury in the bosom of my family. A land of uninterrupted vistas protected by popular opinion (wind turbine - not in this backyard), where post offices are allowed to remain open, snow falls in spring, marathons are 5 miles long, the US army of the 1940's is always welcome, 2 cars a traffic problem is and a week of sunshine in May does a summer make.

Alas, all is by no means lost. I am using my vastly underemployed time to work on my entries for the next photography competition which includes a short film category I'm quite keen on (time to charge the batteries - watch this space), and remembering the morning I woke up early join the laughing club only to discover it was humour's day off.

Well I'm off to bake an amazing chocolate cake that will make exercise even more of a necessity to survival (Bear Grylls, literally eat your heart out). I have added some more pictures to the intermeweb of Africa and Sri Lanka/India/Nepal. For now fact facts I will leave you with this for a bit of thinking: there are 86,400 seconds in a day, if a goldfish has a memory of 3 seconds, how many times will it think 'fishy, I'm a little fishy' each day?!