I spend a huge amount of my time belting round the roads of the UK. With the house in Cornwall that’s only got worse! Despite that, I rarely travel ‘over seas’ because, well, quite frankly I hate travelling. In fact, I loathe it.

In my professional life, I’ve often been asked if I’d like to switch to our International team and I get head hunters asking me if I’d be interested in European or International roles all of the time (blimey, that sounds posh – but it’s true). The trouble is though, that I really can’t see any reason to do that sort of job other than the utter bliss of a few hours a day when no-one can contact me because I’d have to switch off my mobile while flying. Actually, now I say it, that bit sounds OK.

To me, the destinations I go to on business rarely make up for the pain of getting there and back, even Barcelona – a wonderful city that I’ve visited a number of times before – where I will be for the next two days is a chore. I hate just about all aspects of travelling, especially alone – the dreary waiting around for security checks, passport checks and planes, the discomfort of not being able to move around much on the plane, the arrival in whatever city where the temperature is just too hot for the clothes you needed when you left home and it was only 2-3º, not really knowing the languages or how to get about – well, quite frankly I’d rather stay in cold, damp, dull old UK. Especially as I will see nothing more or less than the inside of a hotel that could be anywhere in the world…

The worst bit though is staying away from home. I NEVER sleep in hotel rooms so I spend my time feeling like a zombie to cap the lot.

So tonight I’ve packed my Mary Poppins bag with clothes, toiletries and other personal stuff, along with my laptop and its accoutrements and it sits, looking at me in the hall, serving to remind me that I will be losing a lot of sleep over the next two days and spending a night away from all the things I hold dear. And to cap it all, my alarm is set for 4.30am tomorrow and I won't be home until 9.30pm on Thursday.

And worse is to come – at least this week is only Barcelona, a mere 707 miles from Heathrow according to my ticket – next week, it’s New Jersey, flying in one day, a two hour meeting the following morning, working in my hotel room for the rest of the day then flying back the following day. All that effort to try to clinch a deal with a client based there. Groohgh.

Nah – gimme a trip to Grimsby any day! All I can think about is touching back down at Heathrow and getting home. Funnily enough, last time I posted a message about hating travelling, a guest pointed out that I’m clearly too spoiled for words because most people would give their eye-teeth for such a ‘hard’ life. All I can say is ‘they’re welcome to it’.