I recently saw a Facebook comment that literally said, “we are all just here for a holiday… enjoy each day and stop worrying about stuff”.

Sounds about right to me!... And while it’s easy to say that, I know there are many MANY people in this world that have ‘problems’ … whether domestic violence related, work or lack of housing, general health, mental or other issues, treating our life ‘as a holiday’ might just be a way to deal with some of the problems we can often have!

We’re currently looking for a house in Hervey Bay QLD having spent the past 4+ years living in our caravan (& loving it!) – Recently we had two instances of obvious ‘mental health’ issues.

The first one was an ‘intruder’ in our (apparently) ‘safe/locked’ park! Totally off his face on ‘something’. He was trying to get into a small campervan next to us but the solo female traveller stood up for herself and moved him on… right on to our caravan where he bumped into it in the middle of the night waking us up.

Kaye got up and saw this guy out the window in our annexe (as did out two CCTV cams!) – We called the police, and he was eventually taken away. And while he wasn’t ‘aggressive’ – he was obviously disturbed by ‘something’. Very sad.

The second incident happened recently. A guy in one of the cabins was talking loudly on the phone from his deck. It was 10pm and we thought… ‘ok, he’ll stop soon’.

WRONG!... This went on and on for ages and became more aggressive right up to 1am – swearing & yelling his head off not on the phone this time… but to himself!! We realised the next morning he had consumed probably a 6 pack or more of Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey Cola cans he’d strewn all over the deck of the cabin!!

And despite us being quite ‘concerned’ for our safety on both occasions, it reminded us that there are many many people ‘doing it tough’ mental health wise these days. Clearly their life right now is not too good, and they are not in a good place.

So given we’d like to think of life as a holiday, sadly that’s not the case for everyone.

What can we do?... Well first and foremost – especially if it’s a friend who seems a little troubled – is to ask… “R-U-OK?” - More about that here:  https://www.ruok.org.au/

And if you’re feeling a bit ‘flat’… just remember that old Monty Python song… “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life”!

Oh… and keep smiling… Life really is just another holiday eh?? 😊