The journey is the destination ...

It's taken me years to understand this thing about me ...that for me, the journey truly is the destination.

It goes like this ... it's not that I simply want a cup of coffee and any old coffee will do.  It's that I want a coffee that tastes good, and I love it even more if it comes in a cup I adore.

My parents didn't raise me like this.  I suspect their preference might have been that I was the complete opposite, simply because they didn't intend raising princesses but there you go ... it happens to the best of families.

But journey doesn't have to be aesthetically pleasing, nor the destination.  My favourite house was a fairly grotty little one-and-a-half bedroom cottage that sat on the edge of Otago Harbour.  Everything about it was run-down and make-do but I loved the wall of old-fashioned wooden floor-to-ceiling-windows that gave me a view out over the lawn and the harbour.

I loved the drive home ... the twisting-turning kilometres between Dunedin city and Broad Bay, the narrow confines of a road that ran along the harbour-edge and tat was framed by a steeply-rising hillside in places. 

I packed my Nespresso coffee-machine for this time in the Wallonian countryside but told myself not to be silly about taking a cup too ...

Yesterday, we wandered over to Lille, France.  A car full of internationals and voila, what did I decide I might do.  I thought I might quietly keep an eye open for a cup for my coffee while I'm out here.

Voila!  I found this and it works.  That first coffee this morning was just so veryvery good in the red cup.

Dinner outside in Wallonia ...

There are two Americans, both from NYC ... an Australian, a Belgian, and a woman from Rwanda, and me ... that New Zealander.

There is lasagna, red wine, lots of Belgian beers and there's this exquisite sheepdog creature who chases that ball that he drops at the feet of anyone who might care to throw it for an hour and two.

There's an excellent soundtrack playing and the air is warm.  We're out in the countryside, all cooking and talking and mocking some ... as happens sometimes.

Life is kind of beautiful really.

A Boy and his Scooter

A couple of weeks ago, I moved in with a family for 24 hours and proceeded to capture a slice of life of their life documentary photography shoot.

It was such fun.  As a family unit they have this incredible energy and work as a team in a way I've rarely experienced.  I've been curious about families since I was small ... a child ethnographer, for reasons I don't understand. 

Daily life was chaos and celebration, caught up in this energetic bundle of people and intelligence and kindness, and frustrations too.  Just as a family should be ... if that 'should be' was according to Di.

It was a privilege and so much fun.

At one point, it came about that I wasn't allowed to continue with the shoot until I had taken this photograph.  Mr 4 insisted, in so charming-a-way, who could resist.