Category: Travel Diaries

Here, Donna J. Jodhan returns to England in January 2019 for her second chess break at the Windermere Manor Hotel in the Lake District, travelling with her friend Rebecca and Rebecca’s husband, Immanuel, and with her good friend Jilla as her escort. Illness forced her to withdraw from the tournament, but friendly games and the kindness of fellow players turned the week into the start of a lasting chess friendship.

Here, Donna J. Jodhan recounts her July 2018 getaway to St. Lucia with her mother, from packing together at her mom’s home to ten days of morning and evening entries in her voice diary. Her mom describes the quiet bay, the chairs and umbrellas on the beach and the fruit boat patrolling the water, while Donna notices that the birds they usually hear have almost disappeared.

Here, Donna J. Jodhan shares the voice diary she recorded on her hotel balcony in St. Lucia in July 2017, on ten mornings in a row during her annual getaway with her mother. The star of this diary is a dove: the mournful birds her mom called their lovey dove, which the two of them listened for each morning, until one day a dove called and another answered, and soon after, the doves fell silent.

Here, Donna J. Jodhan takes readers back to St. Lucia in July 2016, where she and her mother spent nine days by the sea after flying in from Trinidad. In the voice diary she kept day by day, her mom describes the view for her: sea crabs crawling on the sand, boats lit up in the dark, the tide coming and going and palm trees swaying in the breeze, while Donna listens to the night singers that start at six in the evening and stop at five in the morning.

Here, Donna J. Jodhan shares the voice diary she kept in July 2015 during her annual summer getaway to St. Lucia with her mother. At its heart is a simple daily ritual: Donna, who has very little vision, asks her mom what she sees outside, and her mom describes the bay, the white and green boats, the yachts, the swimmers and the tide as it ebbs and comes in again.

Here, Donna J. Jodhan returns to England at the end of January 2014 for her first chess theme break with the Braille Chess Association, a week at the Windermere Manor Hotel in the Lake District with her good friend Jackie. She traces how chess came into her life as she lost most of her vision, from a slim Braille booklet and an adapted board to lessons with a chess teacher named Nadia and a course at the Hadley School for the Blind, and she explains how a blind player tells the squares and the pieces apart by touch.