I’d never been to the Pyrenees before - what a treat it was! On my second trip for Go Slow France, I flew into Perpignan, hired a car, then drove inland, after an hour or so beginning to climb. It was hard keeping my eyes on the road as the views unfolded, bend after bend. I stayed at 1500m above sea level, in a Gite d’Etape on the coast-to-coast hiking route.

I last visited Mont St Michel about 30 years ago, and had forgotten how imposing and surprising it is. It’s essentially  a rocky island off the Brittany coast, with the abbey built around its granite apex. Below is the village, built on sand in a fortified enclosure, surrounded by the bay - which has the strongest tides in Europe.

I’ve been burning a lot of midnight oil recently, preparing for an exhibition at the Arison Gallery in Chorlton, Manchester, from 3rd November. Deciding, with Paul, the gallery owner, which images to use, then getting them printed to the highest possible quality, has been a slow process, with much deliberation and debate. The final selection is now being mounted and framed. Too late to change my mind now! I’m pretty excited, as you might imagine...  Arison will exhibit a selection of my work - people and places, cityscapes and landscapes, all taken with passion and pleasure.

I found a huge onion plant in the kitchen garden at Auberge de Concasty in France, and got right down onto the ground to photograph it against the incredibly blue sky. That was before the inn’s owner, Martine, mentioned  that she always wore boots in the garden as there were occasionally snakes around. I’ve had the picture blown up to a metre high and printed onto canvas - it has considerable impact! It’s hanging in my current exhibition at the Arison Gallery and is proving very popular - I’ve taken orders for three copies in the last fortnight.

I stayed in this wonderful place, high in the Auvergne at the end of July on my travels for Sawdays and the new Go Slow France book. Ali and Harry kindly invited me to spend two nights with them and their team, and their two children, to give me time to capture some of the essence of Auberge de Chassignolles.

There's a full moon tonight. I have some great memories of full moons, including one over the Taj Mahal - that one still makes me laugh like a drain. It wasn't a romantic evening, believe me! This photograph, though, was taken in France, on the Atlantic coast. It was a hot night in August, and a whole bunch of us, kids and adults, played cricket on the beach till it went dark - or as dark as this gleaming light allowed it to. It was a great evening, and a pretty spectacular sight to see.

Always nice when some new kit arrives and there's time to have a proper look at it! This weekend it's an upgrade to a black and white post-processing tool, Nik Software's Silver Effex Pro 2. It takes a while to get to grips with something that offers so many new options; but great fun. I was very keen to get my hands on this software as I'm off to Venice next week, hoping for some misty, moody shots that - I hope - will be perfect for black and white treatment.