old friends

I often talk to clients about mapping out their ideal year then breaking that down into their ideal month, week and day. It's something I love doing myself - it helps me to prioritise the things that make my life really enjoyable. (I'll write more about this in a later post).

One of the elements of an ideal year for me is having regular breaks. They don't need to be anything fancy - just a long weekend down the coast is enough to make me feel refreshed. But ideally, there will be a short break in my diary once every quarter to look forward to.

So last weekend I set aside a day - which actually wasn't quite long enough - to begin planning this year's breaks. Coincidentally, a girlfriend of many years emailed me to say she was booking a trip to Tassie to catch up with some old friends for her birthday....and she asked if we could make it. The timing was perfect.

In a couple of weeks we will get together with the group of friends I spent every weekend of my late teens and early twenties with. They were the friends who opened my world up in a way no one else has done since. Long before the term 'foodie' was coined, these guys were cooking delicious banquets from the pages of Gourmet Traveller. We would eat outside around an old wooden table that we would eventually carry down onto the beach so that we could savour the last of the sunlight.

We spent summery Sundays lying in the sun waiting for the boys to return from surfing trips, we rode the sailboard along the cool clear waters of the foreshore and in winter, sat around the fireplace playing Trivial Pursuit and drinking red wine.

These are the friends who taught me to make the most of every moment in life. They taught me to always buy the most exceptional ingredients, to cook beautiful food every day, to dance until dawn, to drink French champagne, to travel the world, to learn about art, to laugh...and to treasure incredible friendships.

It's been 20 years since we've all been in one place together. I can't wait to catch up.