London life at its finest, there.

I love colours on walls, and painting the white wallpaper in our tiny spare room was the agreed testing ground for bolder projects. I first sketched out the design of the tree and raven in pencil, and then painted the sky (a combination of deep blue and purple tempera) and then the ground (ochre). Completely easy-peasy painless process , aside from the cramp in the biceps of my paint-applying arm. Originally I was going to add more detail to this – paint the tree and the raven – but now I quite like it the way it is (although I will jazz up the ground at some point).

Next project- painting skeleton leaves on a white duvet cover with fabric paints.

My preferred method of packing is to leave it all until the last minute and then rush around in a faff while the ticking vein in Z’s forehead becomes more pronounced.

However, due to the fact that I’ll be working all day the day before we leave – I’ve started packing and planning in advance.

Normally my travel wardrobe is not particularly inspiring, since I pack with the doomed certainty of a woman who knows her husband will drag her all over the known Universe as soon as his foot touches the soil of their destination and it consists of things I can walk miles in without crying, but BlogHer has been a wonderful excuse to dust off and bring out the pretty stuff (worn on its own, or with leggings and trousers in case it gets freezing).

N: What can I say about Belize?

Z: It’s wet and green. And it doesn’t have roads.

Most of Belize is jungle, which in some areas looks primordial and huge – all tangled canopies and gigantic ferns and tree roots the size of my leg – while in other places it looks more like a dense European forest (if European forests were in the habit of housing jaguars). Because I’m ignorant I thought the forest was really old, but most of it sits on top of the Mayan cities of old – it appears that pretty much wherever you dig your pickaxe you’re guaranteed to stumble on an ancient settlement, provided you had substantial time and money and energy for this pickaxing- which isn’t excavated due to insufficient funds.

In a way I found it a comforting idea – that nature persists even if a civilisation perishes- and have ever since had postapocalyptic visions of my living room with giant roots and glossy ferns growing from the floorboards, their droplet-covered fronds refracting light.

I think it says a lot about Z and me that we invested so much more effort into planning our honeymoon than we did our wedding, and we chose Belize since it promised to cater to both of our passions: exploration (his) and lazing on books with beaches (mine). We went there in January 2007 and ever since it’s been our reference point for Things That Are Magical.

Although I had been apprehensive about navigating a foreign, densely-jungled country in airplanes the size of my sofa nothing untoward happened and I’ve ever since felt that pilots who don’t saunter up to you in shorts and slippers while chucking away the remains of a cigarette just aren’t living the right kind of life. Our first five days were spent in the jungle-happy mainland (Orange Walk) in Chan Chich lodge on a private nature reserve.

It was a breathtaking place – vivid with birds and monkeys and fermented oranges. The first couple of nights howler monkeys having it out sounded like someone being murdered, but eventually we more or less just slept through them. Between the fragrant air, the high ceilings and walls-as-blinds it was essentially like going to bed in the open – falling asleep was like floating in space with the occasional dream of jaguars . The 11 cabins of the Lodge were set far apart from each other and the seclusion of the place could be deceiving which everyone learned to their regret one day as on the way to dinner Z and I were treated to a full-frontal vision of a fresh-from the shower neighbour.

Untamable toddlers and equally wild gardens = a love story.

adding a redeeming quality to this otherwise uninspiring day