Paris, New York - October 2004

We left Sydney after the festival of the winds at Bondi Beach. The blue sky was enlivened with riotous coloured kites which fascinated and amazed Trinity.

This trip we went to Paris to meet with Alexander Calliet, one of David's mates. Trinity and I tagged along for the ride. It started with British Airways losing our luggage. It was cold so we had to go out and go shopping with the lost luggage allowance that our insurance provided.

In fact we didn't need a thing as we were staying with the Calliets who have young children of similar ages so we used their clothes. But still we shopped, stockpiling hip Parisian clothes the next size up. See Lili being chased by Alexander in a playground, and Trinity midway down a slide below.

Janice, Alexanders partner is a fabulous cook and we ate garlic and butter snails fresh from the market in their apartment over looking the Eiffel tower. It was night so every ten minutes the lights sparkled. Trinity and I got up and danced to the imagined music that goes along with the sparkles.

Deborah, Davids sister lives in Paris too, so we got to meet up with her and run through the Marais with hordes of children and, of course, the ever present chaos. And the playgrounds in Paris don't have the avoidance of litigation at their heart, so there were wonderful swings, flying fox type equipment and much dangerous fun for kids and adults alike.

Then we moved on to New York....David worked with Dr
Jeffery Schwartz at a presentation at the Harvard, while we rented an apartment in Times Square, with Toys R us right next store. David was also building the graduate certificate at New York university were we had built a commerical alliance.

We did a brief trip to Washington DC for David to speak at the Positive Psychology conference run by Martin Seligman, founder of that movement (left). We also got to sit in on sessions with people like Csíkszentmihályi who created the concept of being in flow. Lots of food for thought, though mostly a little academic, with little linked to how to apply the concepts being discussed.

Back in New York we spent time on the weekend in Central Park, with David's favourite destination - the roller disco. There were a number of characters skating round the small track, doing their thing. My favourite was the guy who did the slow motion run, backward with a water bottle on his head. We also came upon some folks giving free advice, which David loved the concept of.

We got to hang out with my good friend Marni too. Then a wonderful thing happened. We decided to get out of the Times Square apartment and stay somewhere else and got connected to a wonderful space downtown in Soho, with a kind family who welcomed us into their home for the rest of the trip. Then we headed home to Sydney.

Mudgee & Byron Bay - March/April 2004

Georgia Lush, one of our long standing (and perhaps long suffering) employees got married in March to Frasier Slack-Smith. It was a lovely afternoon, with the wedding held in a vineyard west of the Blue Mountains, completely appropriate for a Lush event. I think Trinity found a kind of peace sitting on a barrel of wine.... a sign of things to come?

The next month we went to Byron Bay to meet up with an American friend of David's, Alexander Calliet, who was running a workshop in Brisbane with a business associate of his Ken. Both had brought along partners and children. We rented a beach front house on Tallows beach, ate feasts and swam each day. So great to meet people with common interests and great business ideas.

Showing people around this part of Australia is great fun. We visited the light house at the eastern most point of Australia, the Byron markets and generally reveled in the sunshine after a stressful phase in our business.