Home Is Where The Roast Is

When days off are so few and far between, deciding what one is going to do with their precious free-time requires consideration. Usually, a big group of us would spend the day (and night) touring around the two-hour radius beyond Elmer, New Jersey.

 But this week, all I wanted to do was feel like a non-counsellor. So I returned to the world I once loved – a place of shopping and quality coffee and real food – and was invited ‘home’ with fellow counsellor, Kate.


Kate lives in Delran, a suburb which lies between two suburbs in New Jersey – Camden and Moorestown. If we were in Sydney, this would be like comparing Silverwater with Potts Point. Camden is an industrial wasteland with a crime-rate going through the roof, while Moorestown boasts acreage, architecture and country clubs. Yet they exist side by side.

Having not been in the vicinity of a shopping complex in weeks and not having physically shopped in months, getting my first hit of spending in the USA left my travel savings considerably depleted. I'd forgotten the sheer bliss that comes with purchasing new clothes and having something to wear that you haven't been kicking around in for the last  4 weeks.

I'd also forgotten the sheer bliss of being in a home, with a bathroom and bedrooms and a kitchen which produces real food. We were treated to a fully-blown roast dinner with carrots and beans and gravy and mash, all topped off with one hearty slice of peanut butter pie.

And served alongside the food were plenty of licks from Kate's dog, Kira - a golden ball of lovin' who had just as much right at the dinner table as the humans.

And so we returned to camp full of food, licked to death and recharged with all the goodness of home.

Ciao for now. xo