The girls and I are just back from a week-long holiday with the framily (if you´re not familiar with the concept of framily, it´s explained here), taking advantage of the October bank holiday here in Ireland, and the way schools stretch it into a whole week of mid-term break.

So, this time, our reunion took place... In California!

(Photo of San Francisco´s Golden Gate Bridge, taken from the end of the bridge itself.)

We´ve had a fantastic week (thanks a million, Juanjo, Gema, Laia and Joan for welcoming our whole gang into your house).

I have to admit that, when it comes to travelling, I´m not adventurous at all; my default option is to always end up going to the same places... That´s why I´ve been making more of an effort lately, looking for reasons (or excuses, depending on how you look at it) to introduce variations in my holiday plans without straying too far away from known territory.

The two variations that I´ve seen working well for me are either taking the girls to places I´m really excited about (like when we went to Nerja this past spring, having been there as a child, or like when we visited Paris, because, well, who doesn´t want to visit Paris), or visiting family or friends who live in really cool places (like when we went to London a couple of years ago, also with the framily, or to Stuttgart this past summer with my cousins).

This year, we´re incredibly fortunate in that we´ve been able to fit in a third trip in the autumn, with bonus points for fitting both criteria: we have very good friends who live in California, and I was very keen to get to know that area, especially the city of San Francisco.

And let me tell you, it´s been an exceptional week: as well as spending a whole day exploring San Francisco (what a spectacular tram journey we had, up and down those hills), we visited several interesting places in and around San José (each of them in its own way, as Audrey Hepburn would say), and best of all, got to spend time together like in the good old times, catch up with each other, see the "kids" enjoy, celebrate Halloween differently for once, and laugh and laugh and laugh during the whole process.

(The best part of it all, as always, is the company. Here we are, walking around Chinatown.)

I´m delighted to have made this trip, to have prioritised (time, energy and budget-wise) this Californian adventure. The shock of coming back to reality this week may be a little tricky, given the jet lag, the weather and the daylight changes, but it´s still a hundred per cent worth it.

In these times we´re living in, with its Instagram posers and its constant FOMO (one day, we´ll have to talk about the paradox of election; I just saw I haven´t written anything on that yet), sometimes it´s very hard to decide how to spend our resources in ways that fulfil us and enrich our lives, instead of leaving us feeling empty and dissatisfied.

And there´s no "one size fits all" answer that we can all use: we each have to find our own answer, and feel free to modify it as time passes and both we and our circumstances change.

What do you personally find most fulfilling? Are you giving that thing the priority and attention it deserves? Or are you simply just doing things out of habit, because it´s comfortable or because everyone else is doing them?

We only make this trip once, and we really should make it count.

Nancy Reagan

Each of us gets to decide what makes our trip count, our life count. Each of us, as Audrey Hepburn would say, in our own way, according to our own priorities. Making each moment count is in our hands.

Thank you, "chavalit@s", both junior and senior, those who could make it in person and those who accompanied us in spirit. Thanks for making this week count.