This is what I wake up to, here in the bosom of my family. The perfect place to readjust.

It’s fun living in a wooden house deep in the forest instead of trundling past on the train.

And happiness is………

everything I have with me drying in the sun. Even my moneybelt and my PJs and my dirty clothes bag. (I’m wearing my sister-in-law’s clothes so everything can get washed!). Wonderful! It’s not much of a wardrobe for nearly 7 weeks but it all comes down to keeping my rucksack as light as possible.

(Only read on if you’re interested in logistical type stuff – what I’ve got with me and so on)

So, what did I bring that was superfluous? Most of my medical kit, which is good, and a hard drive stuffed with films to while away the hours on the train – it didn’t work with my tablet (of which more later) and in any case there were no hours to while away as I was perfectly content on the train.

Usually when I travel I take the Lonely Planet guide book, there’s a better book for the trans Siberian train journey but the Lonely Planet one was much more up to date and what’s more available as a kindle so I opted for that – not such a good decision – a kindle doesn’t work for a guidebook and lonely planet isn’t nearly as good since being taken over by Radio Times – so that one was a learning experience.

I did buy a mini folding Bluetooth keyboard to go with the hated tablet – which made the hated tablet almost bearable……I hated the tablet because it works like a phone and insists on doing what it thinks you want it to do instead of doing what you tell it – and makes it extremely difficult to tell it what you want it to do anyway. But it’s half the weight of my mini laptop (which I love) and works as a kindle too so that was probably the right decision – insanity versus physical struggle??????…..hmmmm……..possibly physical struggle preferable to near insanity!!!!! (I needed something for working on the magazine I edit)

I carried everything in my much loved red rucksack which has been all over the world with me over many years. Including a litre of water, coat, some food, everything, it weighed 12 kilos and was not full. Inside, things are packed into stuffsacks – wardrobe, office, bathroom, etc, with a cloth bag for dirty washing. I took one of those tiny packaway rucksacks to use as a daysack and a simple cotton cloth bag – the type you hang over your shoulder – which was brilliant for nipping to the shop and for those many trips to the loos on the trains – perfect for those oh-so-necessary wet wipes, toothbrush etc, etc. I wore my old lightweight wonderfully comfortable walking boots (they’re more or less in pieces now!) and took flipflops.

As well as treading across the steppes of Russia and Mongolia, these lovely boots have walked me in the foothills of the Himalayas and the Atlas mountains, across the west of the Sahara as well as the Gobi desert, and in the forest in Poland with my lovely neices and on gorgeous beaches in the Orkney islands…………..the mountains of Wales and the green rolling hills around Ludlow…………..