Time is an illusion and there is no past and future, only the now. This has often been said, accepted and rebutted all in one conversation. But whatever your feelings about time and reality, what we know for sure is that sitting beside the Zambezi, it feels a great deal as though you have stepped right off the train and onto the platform where time, for you, ceases, where you get to watch it all ride on past. There is a pause and a deep exhale. The river of life keeps flowing and will soon take you with it again, but for that moment, on the riverbank, you are free and nothing can get you.

This is how it feels to sit beside our river, and in particular, to step off the boat or out of the canoe and settle into a breakfast picnic in the shade of the trees. This is how rocking slowly in a hammock while staring out over the gentle glide of water between the green edges feels. It’s how life should feel from time to time. Still, peaceful, and with a beautiful view.

Breakfast picnics beside our river of life is our calm between adventures, it’s where our best ideas come from, where all the thoughts in our heads make sense, and where we find the energy and the peace to start the day. Because, as Alexandra Fuller wrote, “The world looks better when your belly is full, brighter and more hopeful.”