Well, I actually hope it is. But perhaps that is a discussion for another time :-)

But I’ve been thinking today that we are all essentially the cumulation of our memories. What defines us is what we’ve experienced and seen.

As I age, I’m aware that time is the rarest commodity I have. But I think I often forget that it’s not how much time I’ve spent that is important, but more the quality of the time spent. And whom I’ve spent the time with.

I am still very much getting over some personal grief. I was extremely close to my dad and although it is now approaching three years, he is often on my mind. I treasure all the fun I had with him, and his passing is a stark reminder that ‘all we have is now’. It is only in grief that we can realise how precious time is, and how precious the connections are that we have formed with others.

Wealth isn’t money. Wealth is in living a life of meaning. And to get meaning in our lives, we have to form connections.

I would like to thank Ulana, Geoffrey, James and Steve for coming to Hokkaido this Autumn with me to help me research a future tour here. As you may already have figured out - I love Hokkaido and Japan. Although I always go in winter time, I have for some time wanted to find out what Autumn is like.

I am now wondering ‘what’s next?’, where to go next on my adventures? Because I realise that investing in one’s future memories is an important thing to do. And this I think, is really at the core of why we all take pictures. We don’t just want to record things because they are beautiful or interesting. We record them because they are part of our own visual journal through this incredibly wonderful thing we are all experiencing called life.