Reflections from Carcassonne

January.

The month where you take stock and cast your gaze over the year ahead and perhaps reflect slightly on the one just passed.  This is the quiet time of year when it's lovely to meet up with old friends, find time for yourself and concentrate on doing what you want to do rather than be caught up with the flurry of the day. What I find about old friendships is that they hold fast, years may pass but when you get together again the spark is still very much there.  As the years go by I have friends whose lives have changed beyond recognition, suddenly life hits troubled waters perhaps through an unseen illness and that is when the strength and the bonds of loyalty are tested.

Carcassonne always strikes them as the place to cure all ills, banish the blues and generally regain the sparkle back in their lives.  It's true, I won't deny it but also being free to be true to yourself is pretty uplifting too. Invigorating in fact.

And so the diary is pulled out, tentative dates made, travel plans put into place.  Meanwhile it's business as usual and I'm so very lucky to meet such lovely people in my line of work.  I'm a 'people's person' I couldn't imagine not having contact with a wide variety of people from all over the world.  You rub shoulders with your guests for a fraction of time and yet there are encounters that stay firmly embedded in your memory.  I'm always flattered when people open up and confide their lives and aspirations with me too, I wouldn't dream of repeating it either, it's a two way thing, trust.

So I'm wandering as the whim takes me, writing as the mood takes me and taking pictures as the image moves me. These indulgences are leading me to people and places I wouldn't have previously dreamt of.

What are you doing in January ?

*The fine architecture depicted in the photograph is one of the many buildings in Carcassonne that have retained their former beauty.  The secret is to look upwards rather than down or backwards...