Chance encounters

This was supposed to be last week's grateful post, but it looks like I've missed a week.

I've been meaning to write this for a while, but it just hasn't happened. I won't be a slave to my blog, I keep reminding myself. I won't let it become a chore, or something on my to-do list, because then it won't be a creative outlet anymore.

Anyway, chance encounters... That's what's been on my mind.

Image from here

It's funny how life can change, or take on an entirely different quality because of a chance encounter.

I've always been grateful for meeting the friend of a friend years ago who insisted I come out to Australia on a working holiday visa and stay with him in Sydney. I did, and it led me to my husband.

And more recently, I bumped into another mum at the library whom I'd only met once before. Fast forward a few months and out of the blue, she emailed me to ask if I'd like to join a group of mums for an exercise class with a personal trainer. It just so happened to be organised on the day that I have to myself, so I jumped at the chance. How else am I going to shift 10kg??

And what a difference it's made to my week. Not only am I training with other mums, doing things I've never done before like boxing, but we're exercising outdoors – and the setting is pretty spectacular. It's a house on several acres with amazing views, so it's unlike any other fitness class I've done.

All from a chance meeting...

And this week, in particular, I'm grateful for having come across family daycare. If it wasn't for a colleague of Graeme's, we wouldn't have found someone I completely trust with my children.

For the first time, I decided that Luca and I could do with some time together on our own, without the koala.

Normally I might have felt sad that, unlike other families we know, I don't have my mum nearby to help out, or my sister, or anyone else in the family.

Instead, I just felt grateful. Grateful that I had someone whom I was happy to leave Kian with for a few hours where he could play and paint, be sung to and read to.

Grateful that I didn't need to feel any guilt (hell knows there's plenty of that!). Because he was happy, and Luca..., well, he was a very smiley little boy that day.

We went for a walk, baked jammy biscuits, made a bongo/shaker, pottered in the garden and we talked. No rushing off to change nappies, no 'I'm listening Luca but I need to sort Kian out'. My attention was all his.

All thanks to that encounter.