Seeing in photos or in person

 Rick and I often read in bed, books, Facebook, e-mails, magazines, whatever early in the morning before getting up. We share some things we read.

"I love when I see where I've been." He showed me photos of Annecy and Edinburgh's Holyrodod Palace. Both places we've been often. They may be places that people who only have one crack at a place would choose to go, but we look in anticipation for next trip there.

Holyrood always had a special fascination for me because of my interest in the Tudors and Mary Queen of Scots.

We are lucky because we leave in Europe. It means we can drive to places that others have to fight long airport lines to get there.

In both of our homes in Geneva and in Argelès we can go to France, Spain, Italy for lunch and for the first two even to food shop or leave our dry cleaning in Geneva.

Also, we get a chance to travel to research our writing.

As a child, I seldom left our small town, which was very nice, but limited. My mother knew of all the places I would either visit or work in. However, she felt she had seen them without leaving the comfort of her home and town.

I could never make her understand, a photo, was only part of the experience. The smell of a croissant baking from a French bolangeries, or the sound of bagpipes.

Sometimes it is easier to disagree.