In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Happy Place.”

In a most happy place over Queenstown 1998

One of my all time favourite ‘desert island’ books is Wilbur Smith’s Eagle in the Sky. “He’ll be in the sky” are Debra’s words when he disappears near the story’s end…well, the book’s end anyway: Eagle is one of those tales that you hope never ends, that David and Debra go on and on…

As much as I love aviation, I never got round to learning to fly but when I need to go, I go for height, up a hill, onto a mountain, some place high and quiet where I can look down and think.

My other happy place is at a keyboard or holding a pen, using words to seek and maintain balance, to put my feelings some place where they become tangible and malleable. I can’t promise the words will always make sense or that later on I might not remember the emotion behind them but they lie as reminders of places I have been, journeys I have made, people I have been…words as much a sanctuary as a windy hilltop or craggy peak…

Happy place does not necessarily mean tidy place!!!