And so this above is the only picture I have of an amazing weekend spent with some new and extremely interesting friends on the West Coast.

The weekend was different for a couple of reasons. For starters it was a meat free, and mostly preservative free weekend… kind of. In total we were 10 people, of which 3 were vegetarian, 2 pescetarian, and 3 others weren’t vegan, vegetarian or pescetarian, but did not eat anything with preservatives or added sugar. That made the weekend menu very interesting. We all helped with the cooking, and I’m thrilled to share that we had the most delicious predominantly plant based meals that were tremendous fun to prepare.

The other difference was it was really chilled in strange way, considering we don’t know each other that well. I guess I expected some anxiety since I didn’t know them well, but to my surprise, everyone was super relaxed and friendly (happy?). I think it’s because everyone that was there, was self assured and just confident in their own skin. Silly things to illustrate my point…. after an amazing dinner and socialising on both nights, everyone went to bed by about 11pm. Despite there being loads of alcohol (and vegetarian food) available, overindulging just wasn’t something that appealed much to anyone. Over the weekend I went for two longish runs and my friends did various things including cycling, kite-surfing, sculpting (one posed and one sculpted), a few of us read a bit, listened to music, had stimulating conversation while we prepared food and at times we just all chilled on the beach. And during the entire weekend no one bothered to watch tv.

The culmination of this translated into the most significant difference, the outstanding feature about this weekend….To me is feels that everyone there was present. And that was seriously cool.

It truly was different to any other weekend I’ve been on before. We didn’t take pictures. No one bothered to ask anyone else to take selfies with them. No one posted on FB or Insta or anywhere else that I know of. It’s not because the weekend wasn’t fun – it’s because we were all fully engaged in the weekend. On Saturday I realised that there wasn’t a single person that seemed to be preoccupied with their smart phones. Smart phones all lay on a pile on one of the tables while we sat outside sharing pita and talking about that various activities that everyone got up to that day.

Every time I caught myself thinking about the past, or the future (besides a few very practical things that needed my attention), I gently acknowledged and then dismissed those thoughts. I don’t know for sure, but I surely am inclined to believe that this thing, this new experience to me, aka living in the present is the source of true contentment and happiness.

Anyway who knows….. but lets try this Bronwyn why not!