Official photographer

...for the Cercle Occitan Gabianenc. A group of us in the Occitan group are preparing a talk on the toponymy of the area around the village - the origins of names of geographical features, buildings and pieces of land. I've offered to take photos to illustrate it and this is the area of the map we focused on in a meeting the night before last, with my written notes (full of errors!) on some of the names we discussed. As A., who has done most of the research, keeps reminding us, every statement about a name comes with a question mark because original names have been changed over the years and misunderstandings may have been introduced. Over the past millennia this area has seen influxes of peoples, including Celts, Romans and Arabs, so it's fascinating to try to work out how these have resulted in the Occitan names and then their more recent French versions.

I'm off to Wales for a short trip next week, but when I come back it will be almost March, the weather will be better and I'm looking forward to getting out into the countryside with my camera, and I'm sure I'll blip some of the results!

Tonight we have an ethno-botanist coming to give a lecture on the relationship between human settlement and the trees and plants of the region....followed by a good meal.