On Tuesday, I was meant to go to Paris. On Monday night, I was all packed and everything was lovely. I was prepared to take the relaxing Eurostar trip from St Pancras International to Gare du Nord. But at around 11pm, I was visited by a horrendous evil that was to prevent me from travelling. Namely, exploding at both ends for six hours, aka acute gastroenteritis. So I ended up in hospital, got rehydrated via a drip, and babbled nonsense caused by some anti-nausea medication to my wonderful boyfriend who accompanied me the whole way (except for the bit where the doctor poked her finger into my bum, when I ordered him outside).

So I spent Tuesday sleeping it off and nibbling dry toast. I had to rebook my transport to Paris, and miss my first night's accommodation, so now I get the fun part of doing the travel insurance admin. My first thought was "thank goodness for travel insurance", but now that I consider it a bit more closely - the cost of the insurance is far more than the cost of this mishap. Granted, my insurance covers me till next March and there could be another incident before then, but the chances seem unlikely. I've been living away from home over two years now and it's the first time this has happened. I didn't have to pay anything for the medical treatment I received because the UK has a sterling public healthcare system (more on that later). Of course, travel insurance is *just in case*, and it could have been a whole lot worse. I suppose you never know what might happen and you do have  peace of mind knowing it's there.

So I've been living away from Sydney since February 2011 and I've got used to the whole distance thing, mostly. It's tough and I miss my mum a lot, but I choose to see the bright side rather than the negative one. I have friends who live overseas whose parents make them feel really guilty about their decisions, and approach the fact that their offspring live far away as something their kid has "done to" them, which is not fair. You raise your kids to give them as many opportunities as you can and then they have to make their own choices. I'm lucky that my mum insists that I mustn't feel guilty about being far away, even though at times I do. She's very supportive and she always has been, and in some ways my being far away has done several great things for us: