Some of you have been asking me where this photo was taken. (In case it looks familiar, it’s the one at the top of my blog page). It was taken from a rest-stop between Nice and Monaco on New Year’s Eve last year. We’d been hugging the coast so we could gawp at the views like this and what finer day could we have wished for to bid farewell to 2007? The sea sparkled, the sky was cloudless blue and the earthy tones of the Mediterranean houses warmed the scene. All the colours seemed so intense that day.

The village in the picture is Villefranche-sur-Mer, which, at different times, has been home to various famed figures, such as Jean Cocteau, Isadora Duncan and The Rolling Stones. Monsieur and I gazed down from the top of the cliff, wondering how impossible the roads would be if we returned one summer with more time to mosey. Whenever I look at this picture, it makes me smile and remember the warmth of the sun – something not to be sniffed at in a Northern Hemisphere December. It really was quite the perfect day.