There are many forms of Therapy. Mine is meeting regularly with a group of women – friendships made when my boys started school.

We’ve been together for close to 40 years helping, supporting and making each other laugh. It’s the best form of therapy !

We always have a weekend away together usually in early December at Patsy’s beautiful beach house.

Last year we decided on a ‘getaway’. Somehow it ended up with Bali as the place that offered the most affordable holiday.

Today we left. Only 6 of the regular therapy girls and two honorary girls.

Meeting at the airport at 6.30am we wandered into duty free and ended up tasting gins! It must be 5pm somewhere!

Then it was coffee time.

And before we knew it we were onboard for the 5 hr flight up to Bali.

We were scattered around the plane with Lynne & I on each aisle in row 6.

Three of the girls, who shall remain nameless, were in row 15 ordering little bottles of bubbles.

We arrived at 2pm local time and got through immigration in record time except for Mani who had to see an official before being allowed in. We waved and waited …..then she was in.

Our driver picked us up outside for the 90 min drive up to Ubud. We decided we were thirsty so made a stop at the supermarket and bought a few cans of Bintang and bags of chips! The supermarket was big with many brands we know. But some great decorations!

We continued on chatting and getting into holiday mode – the Bintang helped as the traffic crawled into Ubud.

From the outside our small hotel of 8 rooms didn’t look great. But the staff arrived to carry our bags and we walked into a very natural little oasis. really charming.

We unpacked into our spacious rooms. Four upstairs. Four down.

Then met for dinner Cracking open the gin purchased at the airport.

We chatted over a late dinner making plans for the days to come.

High on list of ‘must do’ is a massage.

Tomorrow!

Heading back to our rooms ready for a good sleep.