Editor's Note

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to the first edition of 2023!

It’s great to be back after a relaxing holiday and we are all excited for the year ahead.

Over the Christmas break my family and I went down to 1770 – for those of you that don’t know, this is a little seaside town about eight hours south of here.

This destination is special for two reasons – firstly it has the first surf break as you head down the coast, it is also the first place where you do not have to wear stinger suits.

As a result, we spent about 90 per cent of the holiday in the ocean and I loved listening to the kids squealing as they were being chased by waves, building huge sandcastles and learning how to paddle on our new inflatable sea kayak.

At the beginning of the week my partner and I decided that we would limit technology as much as possible and on our first day I suggested we also stop scrolling on our phones.

For me this meant that I would stop nosing around on Facebook and he would stop checking sporting news.

Challenge accepted, we both ditched our smart phones and learnt to live in the present moment – nature became a screen and watching the kids play became our entertainment.

At first, I have to confess I caught myself instinctively picking up my phone whenever there was a lull in activity, but each time I placed it back down on the bench I felt empowered and invigorated.

By the end of the week, the kids had not watched an evening movie (we’d played board games instead) and no-one had really thought about screens at all – it all felt quite liberating.

When we picked up our screens again for the car journey home (there was no way we were going to get through that without technology!) it was really nice to reconnect with the world, but also realise we had not missed a thing.

Rach

Quote of the week: “Lost time is never found again” (Benjamin Franklin)

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