I won’t bore you with the minutiae of my day today, instead I’ll go straight to the chosen (random) picture from my archive.

This was taken in Kathmandu, Nepal in 1992. The event was ‘Holi’ the Hindu ‘festival of colours’. Looking back via the internet I’m told this was the 19th March so I’d already been travelling solo for nearly five months. I was staying in the Thamel district of Kathmandu at the time which got a bit riotous out on the streets. So much so that some Westerners who were unused to Asia didn’t want to venture out. Myself and the young lady I’m posing with – whose name completely escapes me now – did – and we had a ball! Ok, we came back looking like this – but what the hell. You never wear your ‘bezzies’ to go out at Holi anyway…

The photo was taken on the roof of the hotel where we continued the festivities as we had battles with all the surrounding buildings as they threw coloured powders at us and we throw ours at them – and woe betide anyone walking past in the street as it was ‘bombs away’! As usual – there’s slides of those days that I’ve yet to get around to scanning. One day…

It was whilst I was staying here that I heard an album being played that’s defined that time ever since. Every time I hear it it transports me straight back to that that rooftop and those times in Kathmandu. The album? Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Full Moon Fever. When I got to Bangkok I bought a (bootleg) tape of it to go with my Sony Walkman (remember those?) in the Khao San Rd and it’s an album that’s become the soundtrack to my life and travels ever since. Thank you Tom – your music’s meant so much to me for many, many years.