Going Back To Places.

As you know by now, I finished my previous job at the end of June and am in the middle of a month’s break, before starting the new job in August. The first 10 days of our break was spent about 460 kms away interstate at a place called Wagga Wagga, where I first served as an Associate Pastor some 19 years ago. After that, we came back home for a medical assessment of previous ongoing Physiotherapy treatment of a back/nerve problem yesterday.

Now, today, we are heading to the beach at Philip Island. Yes I know it is crazy going to the beach in the middle of winter but we have got the use of a house there close to the beach, at an unbelievable cheap rate, so we are taking it up. Besides we will be using it as staging ground to visit various other familiar places nearby.

Philip Island is connected to the mainland by a long bridge at a place called San Remo in the Gippsland district about an hour or so’s drive from our part of Melbourne. One of my Aunts lived in nearby Wonthaggi and owned a holiday block at San Remo and so from my earliest memories we used to camp at this block in San Remo between Boxing Day and New Year's Day. Right up until the block its large shed and old bus that served as a communal bedroom, was sold. Later we stayed at her house in Wonthaggi. Later again, my wife and I even had our Honeymoon in Wonthaggi and have visited it and Philip Island a few times in the past, as recently as last year. Last year, we did nothing but rest, but this year we are taking two weeks and plan to revisit many of the old familiar places of my youthful memories.

In a earlier blog, “Going Back to People,” I mentioned that I am usually a people person rather than a places person, but I think all of us, every now and then just need to get away from our normality and go back to a familiar place and just stop and smell, no not the roses, but here, the salt air. again.

I thoughourly enjoyed the past 10 days with our friends, and even wished it could have been longer but I am also really looking forward to revisiting old memories again and drawing on them for fresh strength and insight.

Do you have a place where you can go and just relax and refresh yourself again? If so make the use of it as much as you can and rejuvenate yourself. Take care and I will catch you in a fortnight. Walter