I'm going to write a travel book

I love travel books, any travel books, the more obscure the better but the one travel book I have never seen is the one written from the point of view of the person left at home waiting for news from the son/daughter/partner who is travelling.

It could be a whole new genre.

I would find it fascinating to learn what the wife of an intrepid explorer is thinking when she is left at home for months on end having to cope with going to work, getting the kids to school, getting the washing machine repair man in because the bloody machine has flooded the kitchen floor again while worrying whether soft lad has reached base camp without losing three toes to frostbite.

or what her Dad really feels about his little girl hitch hiking across Europe to Morocco. Just how cool is he with the fact that she could be getting a lift from an axe wielding psycho who keeps a picture of his dead mother on the dashboard.

and whether the parents of a son doing the Gap year traveling the world thing knew that they would slowly be turning grey with every new country he visited. I know for a fact that his Mum never imagined that she would feel permanently guilty when she was cooking dinner knowing that her little lad was eating noodles for the third day in a row.

So I've made my mind up I am going to write the antidote to travel books but not till James is home - because God forbid I should embarrass him with the ramblings of a mad mother who wants to warn every parent out there who has just been convinced by their fresh faced offspring that everyone goes travelling these days and I have planned against all eventualities, so Mother what can possibly go wrong!!!