"Two drifters; off to see the world; there's such a lot of world to see...". Recently these lines from Moon River have been in my head constantly, along with the daydream of becoming one of those drifters.

It is a relatively new daydream for me. The 'seeing the world' thing passed me by when I was younger. Two years ago I was content to read about places I had never seen and would never be likely to see in the Guardian travel pages. I had a good job, a nice house and a partner to share my world.

Then it all blew apart in the usual clichéd manner when my partner left me for another woman. I cracked under the strain and found myself unable to deal with the stress of coping with life alone and a high-pressure job. I moved to a house renovated by John Wayne Ltd - the original cowboy builder - and watched as my savings disappeared into the money pit of builders' and electricians' pockets in order simply to sort out basics such as lighting and heating. I also felt I had no choice but to leave the job that was causing so much stress.

Since then I seem to have been constantly searching for something - perhaps to regain what I had, perhaps for the unattainable - certainly searching for happiness.

Then in February I went to Nepal to raise money for the NSPCC by trekking to Everest Base Camp. It was an amazing, mind-blowing experience and I came back fortified with good intentions - surely if I could stand on top of the world looking down at Everest Base Camp having trekked for weeks through temperatures as low as -51°C I could do anything! While in Nepal I discovered the power of the internet as I wrote about my experiences and emailed friends back at home. Picking up their emails of support and encouragement from a tiny cyber café in the Sherpa village of Namche Bazaar was a powerful morale-booster when things got tough.

But the searching and soul-seeking continued when I returned home. Still with no job and with money too tight to mention, a friend one day suggested I packed my bags and went travelling. I immediately dismissed the idea as nonsense. I couldn't, could I? The practical difficulties seemed immense - I couldn't possibly afford it. But the idea wouldn't leave me, and just as those lines from Moon River kept running around my head so did the daydream of setting off to see the world, to be carried where the fancy took me, to broaden my mind and to enjoy the travel bug that I'd caught in Nepal earlier in the year.

So that's why I want to go - but why pick me? Well, my friends tell me I'm bright, funny and I write well - they all enjoyed my emails from Nepal. I have no dependants and am practical, independent and with a real spirit of adventure. And I would reply to readers' emails - especially if they kept me up to date with Arsenal's progress in the Premiership!