One Year Ago Today

This time last year, I was catching a plane to Toulouse, France (see map below) on my way to a small village in the south of France called Durfort. Flights to Europe leave around 6 p.m. from Toronto, so I worked most of that Friday and then headed to the airport in the late afternoon to catch my flight. Although you can't fly directly to Toulouse from Toronto, you have to go through somewhere else about an hour's flight away, like Paris or Frankfurt or Rome. Or you can fly to Paris and take the train to Toulouse, but I went through Frankfurt so I could say I had been there, even though I never left the airport.

I had been to Paris for a week in March and loved it. I'd had 3 days there on my own and then met up with my friend Debbie from Australia and her mom, who had been visiting relatives in England and were having a few days in Paris before heading back home to Oz. I really enjoyed my week in Paris and couldn't wait to go back.

In May of 2008, I had taken my first precious metal clay class with Kate McKinnon, who came to Toronto to teach classes at Beadfx. After her class, which I really enjoyed, I was checking out her website and noticed that she was going to be teaching a class in the south of France for a week at the end of July. If you've ever read Kate's blog or her website postings, you'll know she is very good at describing people and places and I knew from what she had written about Durfort that I wanted to go there. I also enjoyed looking over the website of Gwen Gibson, who owns the villa in Durfort where we stayed. I decided that a trip like that would be almost as nice as going back to Paris, so I signed up.

Over the next few days, I'll be sharing some of my memories from that trip here on my blog, so stay tuned...