Sometimes we surprise ourselves by taking a leap into the unknown. Sometimes life throws up an opportunity too good to resist. It happened to me in 1997. One minute I was just a normal wife and mother of five, the next I was flying 5000 miles across the world to meet someone I knew only by virtue of an online  writer’s club, by myself. Ok, I know having five children is not classed as strictly ‘normal’ but you get the picture. What possessed me to do such a thing? Heaven only knows. The opportunity arose and with the encouragement of my husband, I took it. To be truthful, when I…