Mar 21: The Start of Spring

For SuperTrip 2024, I wrote my first blog post 3 months before departure.

For SuperTrip(s) 2025, we got our bags out 30 days before departure and started making piles and choices.

For SuperTrip 2026, I sat down today, 18 days before we depart, to set up the website pages. Our bags are still in the cupboard.

This does not reflect any lessening of excitement or anticipation. Each SuperTrip fills us with an urgent sense of gratitude, wonder that we have the time, health and capacity to experience these exceptional adventures. Carey has a count-down on his mobile. I am quietly fizzing inside at the thought of the complexity and juggling that are about to drop away.

Not that 2026 seemed that it would be particularly stressful when we booked Carey’s Big Beautiful Birthday trip, back in November 2025. We returned from SuperTrip2 with a clean slate and stripped back our obligations for the Fall and Winter.

But, the Universe took one look at our peaceful plans and said “hold my beer”.

We spent the dead of winter with no exterior drywall or insulation in our condo, thanks to a leaky roof which resisted all fixing for 6 weeks. Thankfully, this inconvenience also revealed a black mold infestation. We spent weeks confined to the bedroom, industrial heater, scrubber and dehumidifier droning 24/7 in our living area, (and not in what Carey would call “the good way”).

We caught “something” (Covid? RSV? ‘Flu?) that felled us both for 10 days: Christmas, New Year canceled

A dear friend collapsed and was hospitalized for a month. Our (thankfully) “free” days were filled (ungrudgingly) with hospital visits and sourcing supplies. And, no small amount of worry and concern.

Uncle Floyd died, after a long illness, but still unexpectedly and much mourned. His carers, also much loved, face a long transition into a new way of living.

We moved out for 10 days to enable a (much-delayed) redecoration. The results are uplifting. The process was a thing.

Carey was called (there is no other way to put it) to return to Knox UCC. From one Sunday to the next he was back in the Tech booth, and I had switched choirs. This too is uplifting, but also head-spinning. We were/are busy there immediately.

My wonderful, generous friend Anne, spent months with me, finalising my fourth poetry collection: “Surface Tension”. My first book since Tsveta’s death. The first time I have approached “the market”. A complex time of recognising losses, moving forward despite almost-certain rejection.

And it’s only the Spring Equinox!

To put it another way: our roof is fixed; our friend is back home with a renewed lease of life; our condo is a joyful pale, pale green, with new trim and crisp woodwork; we are back in the Knox community, with a renewed sense of belonging and ample opportunities for service.

So, it’s been a good year, so far. A good place from which to finally turn our attentions to packing and departure.