CHAIRS & PALM TREES - THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

What a lucky creature I have been these last few weeks, feeling as though I've had the best of both worlds!

When one decides to up sticks and head halfway across the globe, one generally leaves with mixed emotions - a sense of trepidation, mingled with huge excitement and anticipation of what's in store - a new adventure and the road less travelled.  For some people there is an underlying concern (even fear) that they will hanker for that which is familiar and comfortable. That special store (where you know where everything is), a favourite restaurant (that knows exactly what you like, how you like it and can even be trusted with the request "surprise me!") and so on. For some, it's the thought of dealing with the disruption in their established routine built up over many years - things that have moved beyond a habit and long since gained the status of Ritual - for others, like myself, it's the very fact that there is a chance to create new rituals that is so very appealing.  Though there is one thing that we all seem to agree upon - that there is a sadness in leaving friends and family. Even for the most exciting adventure imaginable - part of you wishes they could come along for the ride and that somehow the journey would be that little bit more special, if they were part of it.

For me, I was leaving friends to be re-united with family so one-out-of-two is not so bad.

What a bonus it is then, when one of my dearest friends decide to make the journey and come to visit my island home - and even better when they come for a wedding! It's been a wonderful 14 days, and in that short time, my friend and I had slipped into a routine of post-children's-bedtime-evening-chats.

Today they should be safely returned home, to temps some 20 degrees cooler than they have left here.  Those days seem to pass extraordinarily quickly but we managed to make some new memories.

Old friends + new location + happy occasion = very special memories.

This particular friend and I have begun a ritual of sorts - that of taking a photo of the boys and I in "the special chair" from the time the eldest was a baby. On this visit, the boys and I had our photo taken on the beach under the palm trees and we joked that in years to come perhaps we will recreate the "St Lucian palm tree picture" as we do the "York chair picture" - here's hoping for very many chairs and palms trees .....

"Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit" ~ Khalil Gibran