☰JANUARY 2026

A new year and new adventures

I was nine when I discovered the word 'wanderlust'. It was a joy to have my restlessness described. Now, I see it wasn't just a longing to explore the world outside my village, to see new places and meet new people. It had as much to do with the sense of moving across the planet, the joy of travel in its own right.

That wanderlust took me to Fair Isle when I dropped out of university. I was told that the bird observatory needed an assistant cook. Did I fancy it? I wasn't sure about the cooking. I had no experience. And I knew nothing about birds. But Fair Isle! The most remote inhabited island in the UK. A train ride from Devon to Aberdeen, an overnight ferry to Shetland, and then a crossing in the mail boat. Oh yes! I certainly fancied that. I still did, even when I was horribly seasick in the small boat.

I met Tim in Fair Isle. He came as a visiting birdwatcher with tales of travelling overland to India in a battered old Land Rover, of the birds he'd seen and the adventures he and his friends had experienced on the way. Tim and I travelled together and separately throughout our marriage. I envied his birding trips to Antarctica and the Caribbean, to Sri Lanka and South Africa, but I wouldn't have enjoyed roughing it as they did. All the same, I loved the impulse that made him set off with his friends, his binoculars and his telescope.

When our children were independent, we could set off together. We did a magnificent trip to Tanzania organised by a friend, overwhelmed by the landscape and the wildlife, and later, a riotous trip to Bolivia. And then, just before Christmas eight years ago, Tim died. I still travelled for work, but of course that wasn't the same. I found Christmas at home increasingly difficult and felt the need to get away.

Last year, I was invited to join a Seabourn cruise, to talk to the other passengers about my work. I asked if anything was available over Christmas and I had a brilliant trip from Hong Kong to Singapore, via Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. I'd always been a bit dubious about cruising, but Seabourn have small ships and they're friendly and unpretentious. I was converted.

This year, I'm back, writing this in the port of Wellington, about to head north; I leave Seabourn Quest in Auckland. The three days of strong winds and fifteen-foot waves crossing the Tasman Sea from Melbourne made for a different kind of adventure - I'm still not a fantastic sailor - but it was worth every moment to sail into the New Zealand fjords (pictured, Milford Sound in New Zealand's Fiord National Park), to stretch my legs walking a trail on the beautiful Stewart Island and to see albatross and little blue penguins on a trip from Dunedin.

Chatting to guests on board is a kind of travel too. There are wonderful Vera and Shetland fans who want to hear more about the books and the TV dramas, but of course everyone has their own story, their own place, and I'm listening more than I'm talking. I feel as if I've made friends from all over the world.

In 2026, I'll be travelling with Seabourn again. This time it's a shorter trip from Dover to Reykjavik via Orkney and the North of Iceland. We leave Dover at the end of May. If you want to see where The Killing Stones, the latest Jimmy Perez book is based, you'd be very welcome to join us.

And I'll be touring the new Matthew Venn novel around the UK and in Canada after publication in the autumn. Details will be on my website nearer the time.

Happy New Year to you all. Thank you to readers, booksellers and library staff for your support throughout the year. Best wishes and good luck to my fellow writers. I hope to catch up with lots of you on my travels throughout the year.