A couple of years ago I heard someone talking about that fact that, for many, this time of year (August/September) has become the new “new year” - there had just been a summer break and a new academic year is about to start. Well I’m totally feeling that.
Over the years as a self employed person, because Ben is a teacher and we have kids, I’ve tended to take the whole of August off and this year was no exception. So in July a number of projects came to a pause: work of course, music – been working hard on getting my CD done and a big gig for that, music in the church – took a break from my slot on the rotas at Bookham and Cobham, kind of even took a break from my marriage -don’t panic!! Ben went on another trip to Brazil with another teacher who has initiated an education project there.
So whilst Ben was in Brazil, Hilary, Darcy and I went on a camping trip to the South of France to our favourite spot – Collioure. It’s great to get away and create distance mentally from everything you’ve been involved with and let the dust settle, it’s great to live simply and it’s great to spend time with special ones in such lovely surroundings.
We finished the holiday off with a bang. We spent the last couple of days in Paris and the final day was Hilary’s birthday. I knew that Ben had a flight change in Paris on his return journey from Brazil and half-jokingly suggested he finish his journey there and join us. Well he did! I had booked a table at one of the restaurants on the Eiffel Tower and Ben was sitting at the table when we arrived!
We had one day to regroup on our return to Cobham before going off again to Soul Survivor – a gigantic youth event held at the Bath and West Show Ground in the West Country. This is the fourth year running that we’ve gone with a group from Ben’s school and although it’s mainly directed at youth the input is fantastic even for an oldie like me. Standing in meeting with a crowd of about 10,000 is incredible and ma
kes you take stock of your purpose. But for me it was amazing to feel the continuity from previous years and seeing that even at 50 I still have a lot of purpose and can dream dreams and it was amazing to realise that I had been taking that on board in previous years and actually put it into practice. 
So having had a break, having restocked internal resources, comes the period where you have to gear up for the year to come starting with sorting the house out, which for those that know us well is like climbing mount everest! It makes we hanker after our perfectly sized three man tent and minimal but ample equipment ie bed, small suitcase of clothes, stove, kettle, comfy camping chair, washing line – sorted!
.So that’s a work in progress, but the other thing is planning: setting out some medium term goals in order to check in every now and then to make sure we are keeping our focus on the things that have clarified themselves during this break. Ben has come back from Brazil with some real specifics that he feels called to which won’t happen without a plan and I need to continue to push through on the things that need to be progressed on the jazz front
And its great to chat these things through with good friends and we had a great impromptu get together with our friends Mark and Sarah who have a history with us in keeping us on track when we procrastinate. (If it wasn’t for them we would never have got round to the decision to have another kid – so its thanks to them ... as it were ... that we have Darcy!) 
