A couple of years back, before I had finished writing my last book, my publishers asked me whether I would like to write a book on pilgrimage.

I thought of holidays and journeys I had been on, none of them quite seeming to qualify as a pilgrimage. And in particular I remembered encountering pilgrims when I was on a study trip in Israel, my reaction to them being one of complete annoyance: here we were trying to search among the stones for every last bit of knowledge we could gain, and the pilgrims got in the way, standing about praying with their eyes closed!! How could they come thousands of miles to see a holy site and then not even look at it?

I began to think I did not qualify to write a book on pilgrimage, and was thinking of saying “no” to the publisher. But then I did a bit more reading and research and discovered that there are three entirely different ways of understanding pilgrimage from a Christian point of view. Then I read my own diaries and notes from some of those earlier trips, and I began to realise that I was more of a pilgrim than I had liked to admit. I may not have been on an “official” pilgrimage. But what is the point of a pilgrimage, really? and what is its definition? What makes you a pilgrim rather than a tourist? Who is to say that a journey filled with laughter and mishaps is any less a pilgrimage than one that has an appearance of spiritual perfection? And, surprisingly, not all pilgrimages involve going on journeys: there is a kind of pilgrimage that you can make in your own kitchen, and without even realising it, that is exactly what I had done.  I had to cave in and admit it. I’d become a pilgrim by accident.

The Accidental Pilgrim is my account. It’s semi-autobiographical, and draws in pilgrimage themes from history, from the bible, and from contemporary spirituality. It is to be published on 21 July, 134 days from now. If you want to pre-order you can do so on Amazon.co.uk

(It’s also on Amazon.com, although featuring the clunky working title! Must get that fixed…)