When you are travelling, no matter whether it’s a little trip across London on the tube, the Looe Valley line or international travel, you meet and interact with all sorts of souls.

I know, I know, I’m a self-professed atheist so what am I doing using the term ‘soul’ – other than in the context of soul music of course. Well, I’m really referring to personality, presence, charisma, whatever of those non-tangible things that make up what’s really interesting about a person. The ‘fairy dust’ that sprinkles you with what you are inside. So, I know that the origins of the word soul come from religion but never mind, the term I still like.

Today, I have interacted with an amazing array of souls, some already known to me and others completely unknown. I hope there are some that I won’t come across again and some that I hope I will.

Take the first leg of my journey. A taxi ride from the hotel in Sorrento to Naples airport with a group of my colleagues, some better known to me than others. One person, I have known and liked for a long time now was sitting next to me. It transpired through talking to her today that she and I had also worked together (for the same company that is, rather than the same part of it) before, which surprised both of us. One good soul.

On the other side of me, a man who is new to me. What a man. Gentle, quiet, unassuming on one hand, yet charismatic, stupendously intelligent and a great businessman make up some of the rest of his whole. He’s tipped to end up running our company and on the strength of what I saw this week, I’d say that would be a very GOOD thing. Another very good soul.

On the plane, my heart sank when I realised I’d got a pair of shaven-headed men of thirty-ish sitting in the two seats next to me, both in full Scotland footie regalia, on their way home from Bari, where their team had played on Wednesday night. They both had thick Glaswegian accents and I was convinced that I was going to be subjected to three hours of debauched behaviour, beery and loud. Not so, once again, I find myself thinking I was too quick to jump to a conclusion there. They were quiet and polite, not even getting noisy when they realised that there was basically no food on the flight other than a few bars of chocolate. Two good souls.

Then things went awry on the next part of the journey – I found myself jumping off the seat with the ‘balancing action’ when a huge man plonked himself down next to me on the coach between Heathrow and Reading. He immediately started mumbling, some more comprehensible than the rest, and I realised with a sinking heart that he was my ‘punishment’ for misjudging the boys on the flight. He’d just come off a flight from Tehran, where alcohol is totally forbidden, having been working in the oil fields there for six weeks. I reckon that he must have tried to drink six weeks worth of booze on the flight. He was toxic and wanted to talk. Hmmmm – you see where I’m going with this one.

Next, probably the best soul of my journey – a train manager who did a very kind act for me, for which I was deeply grateful.

On the train, I’d plonked down my stuff, gone off to phone DM to give him an eta and when I got back from the corridor, I found a young woman in the seat opposite me, which given the train was almost empty seemed strange. She was very apologetic, having not realised there was anyone sitting in my seat when she sat down. She chatted away to me, asking me where I’d been and where I was going. She was as sunny and fresh a person as you could possibly hope to meet at that stage of a 13 hour journey. A truly happy soul, twinkling away.

The little lost soul in the photo is a little stray dog at Naples airport, curled up in the sun, trying to get a nap until he suspiciously raised his head when I got out my camera. He looks a bit like I always feel when I’m travelling – lonely and lost so he is my clumsy analogy for me on my journey. (Well, I never claimed this would be great art now, did I?)

Last year, I did a shot that I quite liked and was inspired by computers......now there is a total first for me!