The very best of festive wishes to everyone out there: wherever you are and whatever you celebrate, do so with mindfulness and a sense of fun! And if you're a writer, remember that...

Last month I was preparing for my return to Bangladesh and Bhola's Children. This month it's a flash of a - fantastic - memory, that's allowed me to reconnect with everyone and everything that's important out there.

After six long years, I'm en route back to Bangladesh, and the island of Bhola. Back in 2001 (yep, 21st Anniversary!) it's where my writing really took off, eventually leading to setting up Bhola's Children, So, this month, I'm cheating: a while ago I wrote a comic (hopefully) piece of flash fiction for a travel guide...here it is: Bangladesh?  Why? When Jennifer Lightfoot’s granddad won her a dream holiday in the local newspaper, she was unbearable:             ‘You’ll never guess where we’re going,” she crowed.  “You’ll never guess because it’s really erotic–‘(she was ten; she probably meant exotic.  Then again, given her later career choices, perhaps not).             She gave me a clue as the Mini-Traveller pulled off with the whole family squashed in, goggle-eyed.  ‘It begins with H and ends in N,’ she yelled.  ‘Ha-ha!  I bet you’ll never go anywhere I can’t guess…’             Thirty years on, Jennifer Lightfoot...

On Friday night, I had dinner with Sir Ian Rankin and Robert Aldridge, The Rt. Hon. Lord Provost of Edinburgh. For someone more likely to be found eating toast in front of the telly by 9pm, this might well have been the peak of my writing career.

Equality. Diversity. Inclusion...