My guest today is Rosie Travers who is, in her own words, “an international jet-setter, cat lover and author”. I’m not sure if that’s the correct order! Rosie is kindly sharing her five photos with us today, and it’s definitely clear that she loves to travel. Over to you, Rosie.

 

 

 

My five photos are very family orientated because that’s what is most precious to me.  We’ve also been lucky enough to have done a fair bit of travelling in the last ten years or so. Moving abroad kick-started my writing – so I’ve included a couple of travel pictures too.

Childhood

I wanted to include a photo from my childhood – I am the youngest of three and this is with me as a baby with my two sisters in our garden in Southampton.  Like most kids growing up in the 60s and 70s we were left to our own devices and expected to make our own entertainment. Luckily I’ve always had a vivid imagination – or perhaps that’s how I acquired one!

Golden Wedding

This second picture was taken at a family party we held to celebrate my parents’ golden wedding back in 2000.  It was just one of those perfect afternoons where the sun shone and a good time was had by all. Sadly a few of the people in this picture are no longer with us so it is poignant memento of family togetherness.

Yosemite National Park

We were very lucky in 2009 to have the opportunity to spend three years living in the US. My husband was offered a job in California and it was like, how can we say no? Our elder daughter didn’t join us as she had a place at dance school in the UK, but she came out every holiday and we made the most of our time sightseeing. Ex-pat life might sound quite exciting but the reality is it can be very isolating, especially for that first twelve months or so as you find your feet. I started blogging about our adventures – and my writing took off from there.  This is a picture of my two daughters in Yosemite National Park, one of the most stunning places we visited.

Netherlands

Following our three years in the US we briefly returned to the UK before  moving to the beautiful town of Haarlem, just 10 miles from the centre of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The Dutch have a wonderful work-life balance and a very family orientated lifestyle, enjoying the great outdoors as much as they can. It was the first time in over twenty years I didn’t own a car and I didn’t miss it at all. If it was too far to cycle, I took public transport.

Queensland

Earlier this year we fulfilled a long held ambition and visited Australia and New Zealand, ticking off all the tourist spots. This is me and my lovely husband Neil at Cape Tribulation in Queensland. It’s not one of those places you’d want to hang around in for very long.  The water was crystal clear but we couldn’t swim it in because of the poisonous jellyfish and you wouldn’t want to sit on the beach because of the neighbouring crocodiles.  A sort of lethal beauty.

Thank you, Rosie. Yosemite National Park looks amazing. Not so sure about the Queensland beach, though. Yikes!

Rosie Travers grew up in Hampshire, and spent many years working in local government and juggling motherhood. Following a move to Southern California she started a blog about the perils of ex-pat life which rekindled a teenage desire to become a writer.  When she returned to the UK she took a creative writing course and fuelled by a couple of short story competition successes, joined the Romantic Novelists New Writers Scheme in 2016.

Her debut novel The Theatre of Dreams was published by Crooked Cat Books on 1 August 2018.

The Theatre of Dreams, a romantic comedy with a dash of tragedy and mystery, is set in a fictional south coast town. A devious pensioner, a disgraced actress and a bankrupt architect form an uneasy alliance in a covert campaign to restore an art deco seaside pavilion.

The official blurb:

Musical theatre actress Tara is down on her luck and in need of a job. When terminally ill octogenarian Kitty invites her to take over the running of her former dance academy in the old fashioned resort of Hookes Bay, Tara thinks she’s found her guardian angel. But it soon becomes very clear Kitty is being far from benevolent.

Too late Tara realises helping Kitty will signal the end of an already tarnished carer, unless she can pull of the performance of a lifetime.

You can buy Theatre of Dreams here.

Find out more about Rosie by visiting her website.

Follow her on Twitter @RosieTravers

Or on Facebook  

She’s also on Instagram: rosietraversauthor

If any other authors or book bloggers out there would like to take part in this feature, it will be running through to the end of the year, and I have vacancies from the end of September onwards. Please use the contact form to get in touch!