I have some very happy memories of driving my mum’s Renault 5, which I adopted as my own car at 17, listening to UK garage on the tinny speakers with pals crammed into that little shell of a car.

Now, If you said that young UK garage loving, cheeky, kicked out of lessons, football playing, bike riding Dan he would be shaking his hips learning salsa with a local called Gloria in Guatemala at 39. I am confident he wouldn’t believe you.

He would also have to look at a map as to where Guatemala was.

I have vague recollections of geography lessons where we were taught about volcanoes - they were a piece of textbook fiction. Just a picture on a page.

So, very wild that I was sitting in a mist on a late afternoon a few weeks ago, not being able to see In front of my face. Battered by wind for an hour and a half waiting on the clouds to clear. And clear they did.

Then orange lava spewing in front of my eyes– another ‘hahaha moment’.

Not fiction or a photo in a textbook. Fact, hundreds of yards in front of me.

It’s a surreal existence sometimes - to watch Volcano Fuego erupt from mere hundreds of yards away and still be the guy who sometimes wants to hide behind the sofa like he did when he was 5.

Here I am on top of a volcano, after jumping on a rickety speed boat to cross a lake, speaking a little Spanish that I’ve been learning, to get to a little village in Latin America.

I am picking up trinkets of memories, experiences and a few tangible skills on route. Some of which might make me more flexible and able to say yes in however the next chapter reads.

Well, when you put it like that, what an adventure. What a journey from behind cushions to spewing lava.

15-year-old me didn’t know what was in store. 21, 25, 30, 34 could never have guessed or anticipated some of this either.

Striding… Promotions, Finding Love, being at peace

Stepping… Hike clubs, learning Spanish, Getting on the plane

Sliding … Anxiety, heartbreak, injuries

Reminding myself a slide is a stride on the other side of the world. I wish I learnt to recognise this more in the past. But then again, I probably wasn’t ready.

I now know I can dance salsa in Guatemala, I can climb volcanoes, I can miss people and not regret, I can also still turn up those garage tunes and feel that wonderful nostalgia surge through my ears and mind.

Who knows what’s next, but I know one thing for sure, I am not going to be 100% ready – but I am going to go anyway.

How the F did I go from UK garage to Guatemala…

So much serendipity, it can’t be luck

When we were young