One should always have something sensational to read on the train

As the nights draw in and the weather gets increasingly grim, I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s thinking wistfully about my summer holiday.

At the beginning of September I packed my Greek dictionary, and set off for a little bit of island hopping with friends. We went to Crete and Santorini and had lots of adventures along the way. From being trampled by a herd of donkeys in Santorini to discovering quite possibly the best ice-cream shop in the world in Rethymno, Crete, I chronicled it all in my holiday journal.

When I was little, my parents encouraged me to write a holiday diary and I’m so glad they started what has turned into a lifelong habit. I love that I have a collection of diaries spanning all my travels since I was about 14-years-old. When I read back through my travel journals, I am instantly transported back to the holiday and find myself recalling little details that I would otherwise have forgotten. And when I’m searching for ideas, sometimes a little incident from a holiday can spark the plot for a short story or even a book.

I think the character Gwendolyn Fairfax in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest sums up for me why a diary is a good idea. As she says, “One should always have something sensational to read on the train.”