23:10.

Let me tell you about Mornington.

Five of us made the 2-hour drive up to this coastal area on Nov 2, a public holiday which name I cannot recall (it's something about the Melbourne Cup and races...).

The idea for a roadtrip was vocalised on Oct 25, during coffee after Urban Life, City Church's cell groups. We planned on making it on a Saturday but Nov 1, again after Urban Life, this time at a jazz club we hit after cell group, Raymond announced he couldn't make it on Sat due to an Ethopian wedding he was due to attend. So there in the Bennett's Lane, bathed in blue-ish glow in a club that rapidly un-filled after the band ended, we decided to do the road trip the day after.

And that was a full paragraph of information that you didn't need to know and I have no idea why I chronicled.

Any how, yes. Mornington.

If happiness could be measured, then I was perhaps guilty of being excessively happy. If indeed happiness could ever be excessive.

From pancake breakfast along Chapel, shouting to Nirvana in the car along with James and Kenneth while Germaine and Ray just stare (I think...) to screaming at the coastline (twice) from a lookout cliff in a fashion akin to every other movie or television drama character who did so before. Never mind that we waited half an hour for James and Ken to pick us up, never mind that we were going with a carload of people mostly unfamiliar to us. From scattering salt on Kenneth at Portsea, running out in the pouring rain to take picture of Skye Road and me with the road sign (kudos to Germie) and every other little thing that happened... flip, really just even being in the car, I was happy. The rain could not stop that, being in slippers during pouring rain was but an insignificant matter, as was being cold and at times, wet.

I was happy when Germie and me went downstairs at 745am to meet Ray and wait for the car, I was happy when we were all sprawled on our living room's floor at the end of the day about 10.30pm, every one engaging in nonsense. And if I am using the three words too often in this post, it's because I was really... happy.

The darnest thing was that after they left, and Germie started her tussle with the essays in the living room while I sat on my futon in our room, I felt some sadness. Nothing lasts forever.

Maybe that utterly weird ritual with candlelights, incense and a would-be pen portrait on - of all surfaces... - toilet paper in James' modified beng (heh) car could be inscribed with meaning beyond what we understand.

If you went "huh?" at that description of a seeming weird ritual, you are justified in doing so. 'fraid I don't quite have words to describe the whole event and what happened leading up to it. In sum, I ran back to the car half-drenched from shooting Skye Road [inserts big grin] to find my roadtrip kakis lighting tealights and incense, the same good friends who proceeded to chant some pseudo latin before each blowing out an incense. That was the Skye memorial. Hah.

If T N P and OCF and all of last and this year have been the heightened lessons or rather, increased manifestations of God's work in teaching me to love, then I have to say that that day in Mornington was a heightened exercise in happiness.

Germie, Ray, Ken, James... thank you.

And pictures are on the photo blog.