You know that saying, “Happiness is not a destination, its a journey?” Well, I can tell you, it’s not exactly true. Sometimes, just sometimes the world does let you know that you have arrived somewhere pretty darn special.

In the midst of this past winter of discontent, I had booked a rambling country estate for a big chill weekend with friends. It was a great idea but surgery bookings, and re-schedulings meant we kept on putting it off and putting it off and putting it off some more. Helen, the wonderful lady who owns Tarureka, was beyond patient with us and when we eventually did go to Starship, she joined in following our journey through the blog. After Albie got out of the woods of Intensive Care we received a very unexpected and very awesome email from Helen, “…I just wanted to say..that when you are all ready for a Tarureka mini-break then the stay will be on us…It’s a small thing we can do to show how much we admire you three….” Amazing huh? The people that Albie touches, it blows me away.

So it took a while, but we got there, this weekend away a chance to thank our nearest and dearest friends, who have helped us through such a dark time. To celebrate life and love. And we did. Glorious food, conversations and wine. A little tennis. A little walking. A little croquet. A little swimming. A lot of lying in the sun.

I was so conscious of a feeling that we had graduated somehow, arrived in the place that we had hoped for for so long. Our small boy running around, his heart and head strong, with his  seven lil’ pals in the garden.

Happiness is a destination it would seem, just sometimes.

Footnote: When Albie was in Intensive Care, one of his nurses was Brian. He is a part of a NZ contingent who go to Fiji each year to provide first world heart surgery in third world conditions. The entire team provides their time and their services for free, but they have to ship all their own medical supplies.  It’s really expensive and paid for through the Friends of Fiji Heart Foundation. In lieu of having to pay accommodation costs, we all put together and donated  $1395 to the Friends of Fiji Heart Foundation in Albie’s name.