Cast your mind back, if you will, to those grim days of the first lockdown. While we were all distracting ourselves baking dodgy sourdough, doing star jumps along with Joe Wicks and gaping aghast at Joe Exotic et al on Netflix, Ellie Cooper was having arguably the best lockdown experience of us all. In a nutshell, Cooper literally flies into the unknown, leaving her day job as a teacher, to attend a four week yoga retreat in India, just as Covid-19 rears its horrible head and the world gets told to stay indoors. The fear of the unknown is palpable in this book; in the early days of the virus, Cooper is ordered to stay out of the ocean, as the Indian authorities believe that the seas are teeming with the virus. After a series of cancelled flights back to the UK, coupled with a steely determination to see out whatever- this-is in the beauty of India, Cooper’s short stay is parlayed into an epic adventure of nearly two years, which sees her buying a knackered old Royal Enfield motorbike, teaching herself to ride it, and crossing the Himalayas on it. Cooper’s writing style - poetic, witty and with a healthy dose of hippy whimsy - brings India to life on the page, and the reader comes away with the strong impression that the experience of living through the Covid saga has transformed this writer forever.

If you’d like to give it a whirl, then ‘Waiting For Mango Season’ can be purchased on Amazon, or direct from the author on Instagram: elliecooper.author. ES