I vowed to travel slower this year (minimum three months in each place) but so far I've ended up breaking my rule at every opportunity. It sounds glamorous moving somewhere new every single month but the reality is it takes a toll on your body, mind, soul and work. Plus when you work for yourself and every moment of your life represents a photo opportunity (yep, that's me), you tend to never make time to do nothing, be on holidays when you travel, take a walk for no reason or read a novel in the afternoon in bed.

So all this moving around and non-stop 'doing' plus various life/work events have forced me to stop and take some time out to rest and re-evaluate (just in time for Mercury Retrograde to force us all to slow down actually).

For the next five weeks, I'll be living on my own (with a few visitors in between) in the tiny town of Mercatello sul Metauro in Marche, Italy. The population is 1,500, there's handmade pistacchio gelati only a minute's walk from my little apartment, my only transport is by bicycle, there's almost no english spoken and the wi-fi is very patchy. Here I hope to take some time to get my life and business in order, but also to be quiet and just be.

p.s. A few pics below of Mercatello sul Metauro, more to come soon!