It took me a week to untangle from work, then I lost my glasses. It took me a few hours to figure out how to replace them in rural Queensland (a very fun road trip with my brother Alain, as it turned out) and then, because I was in rural Queensland trying to chillax, whatever the INS calls itself these days raised a question about my green card application.

Since there was exactly nothing I could do about it, I worked hard on being Zen; and the next time I checked my email my friends in the States had sorted everything, which makes me feel very loved.

Even with these transpacific stressors, the holiday is definitely working. I’m sleeping about ten hours a night and taking long naps in the afternoons, and behold, my cough has nearly cleared up. My sister was here for the weekend with her kids, making eleven of us altogether. Kelly and Ross were just delightful with my girls, very patient and playful and charming. It hurt to say goodbye.

Mum and Dad and Alain are still here, all camping on the same site. It’s beyond perfect. Our world is defined by the shops across the road – good cafes and restaurants, a butcher and a baker; the spectacular beach with its shipwreck; the creek that runs down to the beach; the playgrounds and the pool. The feel of everyday life is like Burning Man, oddly enough – walks and fun interspersed with socializing and tea.

I haven’t spent so much happy, unstructured time with my mum and dad and brother and sister since my wedding.

I was already feeling much better in Sydney, after going for a run through the rainforest gully behind Jeremy’s parents’ house, and being teased by my husband AND my brother about my Google hypochondria:

“Oh no! My hand has five fingers on it! What could this mean?”
“It must be… pentadactylism!”
“BILATERAL pentadactylism…”

Then we got on a plane (Julia already an old hand, outraged that there was no seat back video) and hired a car and drove through a no-visibility Queensland summer storm to the gloriously named Dicky Beach, where the tail end of a cyclone had whipped up the surf around the wreck of the Dicky.

We split a bottle of Wirra Wirra chardonnay with my mum and dad, and woke this morning to mackerel clouds and generous sunshine. There are five cafes, a pool, two playgrounds and a beach of awesome beauty, all within one minutes’ walk of our cabin.

My mood is much improved.