025. ...with the people who make my life rich.

(morning thinking)

I'd like to travel more with friends. We've been on holiday with The Cagoules a few times and we go camping with The Sayers and a Few Goodman. There’s a crowd for summer party weekenders and festivals but those latter occasions are weekendy and while I love these gatherings I've noticed that I often pack up for home feeling that I'd happily take a day or three more.

I'm thinking about American TV shows I've seen where the families go to the Catskills each year or to their regular lake house or cabin and there's a slightly different social group and social dynamic from home. They broaden their social skills here I think. Or sharpen them? There's relaxing time of course, but there's also the perspective shift and change in interpersonal dynamics. I think this is missing from our lives and, because we're not special or unique I wonder if it's missing from other people's lives too.

There's a propensity I think to take a holiday by transposing your family unit to a new location. Lifting the relationships and repotting them in a hotel room or apartment somewhere sunnier or with fresh distractions. But it's still the same dynamics in a new container. Maybe that's a British thing?

Its not a bad thing either. Getting away from the unfinished DIY; the annoying kitchen kickplate that always needs fixing. Or whatever yours is. I want a week of that not catching my eye as much as the next person.

But I'd also like an indulgent week or so with the people who make my life rich.

I realise I'm thinking this because one of my besties is on her way, right now, for an October break week in Spain and I wish my family and I were going with them.

We grab hang out time and catch-up in and around the school run or snatch some chat time while the kids play. Very occasionally, too infrequently, we get together round a table to share a meal and talk for longer. Life is complex and schedules are overly full. To have a week of lazy days with indulgent slow talks and long exploring walks, even silent time, in the company of good friends would feel like such a luxury.

In fact, it occurs to me that time is so short and so precious that the little bits we get with our friends are often so full of talk that we don't get any quiet reflection at all. We don't get to sit quietly with people who make us feel safe, appreciated and loved. Not often enough anyway.

Anthropological documentaries of tribal life come to mind; groups sat, focused around a task, with not much talk going on. Or, no, there's talk but there's space in between the words. Maybe the conversation's pulled out, spread out a little. Slowed down and gentle. Exploratory, reflective and thoughtful. More talk less chat.

I'd like to build more of this into my life. I think that's what Soup Club might be. Practice or an opportunity to open up my experience of social time to more people in the hope that it makes life deeper, richer, more connected.

So while CJ and the kids are lining up for passport control and I'm super excited for them I keep thinking how I'd love it if my fam-a-Lamb were also in that queue.

Let's go away together more. Let's travel and explore. But we don't need to make a big thing of it. It doesn't need to be four star hotels or luxury Airbnb. We don't need fancy dinner parties, we can just meet up for soup.