I'm supposed to be going to Estonia on Monday to write an article, but I cancelled that. I'm going to wait a couple of months before travelling, so I'll be going in mid April instead now. A pity because I was really looking forward to tramping around in all that snow. Not that I don't like Spring, but I REALLY wanted to see Tallinn in the heavy snow.

After the medical incident a couple of weeks ago I have discovered that as soon as you have the slightest thing wrong with you, travel insurers refuse to cover you for it, however slight the risk. Having been very healthy till now I have never even thought about this before, and it came as an unpleasant shock.

Luckily I'm a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers, and sent an email round to members asking for comments. They are very nice and highly practical people and I've now received several useful suggestions, so I'm working my way through them. When I've researched them all, I'll write a little article about them for the guild newsletter, in the hope it will help others. It's a slight problem not being able to get travel insurance if you do travel writing, of course!

One of my plans has been to retrace Carroll's trip to Russia, or at least some of it. I daresay things have changed rather a lot since the mid 19th century and it would make a good article. So, if I can just find some suitable travel insurance....