I was chatting to The Husband whilst we were enjoying a very nice glass of Gabrielskloof vino at Il Contadino on Sunday (another great place to get wine or bubbles by the glass BTW.)
Me: why are we here?
Husband *puzzled*: at Il Contadino? To have a glass of wine and a focaccia.
Me: No, why are we here on this earth? What is our purpose?
The husband started looking increasingly nervous.
Husband: Why are you asking this?
Me: I dunno. Life after Covid seems rather random. Like what is the point?
He was understandably nervous as we had just been discussing death (as one does) and life insurance and I was pointing out that life insurance is important as you don’t want to be grief-stricken AND rabbiting on about your late spouse AND poor too. Better to be sad and rich, than sad and poor.
The husband took exception to my logic.
Husband: I don’t think I’ll be looking for my next shag at your funeral if that’s okay with you.
Me: Perhaps not at my funeral, but you can’t live the rest of your life alone. Unshaven, dishevelled, oil stains on all your clothes because you’ve got no one to remind you to wear an apron when you cook.
No, no, no.
I will suss out suitable candidates before I pop off AND I will leave a long list of hints for the next Mrs V especially regarding the cats.
Husband: only the cats?
Me: Well, maybe some info about the oak tree and when it needs its next jabs.
Husband: and the children?
Me: the children can handle themselves. Good luck to the new Mrs. V, I have a feeling they are not going to take kindly to her at all. In fact, I feel almost sorry for her. Perhaps I should leave her some notes about them…
I cackled.
The husband did not seem amused.
I twigged while I was writing this that it’s Mother’s Day coming up which perhaps explains my feelings of purposelessness. For the first time in twenty-two years, I have no kids or mother to celebrate with.
I am not SAD about it…not exactly. It just feels…weird.
The husband is at a school reunion knees up so he won’t be around in the morning, and I will have no kids to make me coffee and flapjacks – you get flapjacks on Mother’s Day whether you want them or not – so it’ll just be me and the cats. And it has to be said that they’re not brilliant at making breakfast although Princess Poppy may well bring me a half-dead mouse or perhaps a lively Parktown Prawn…
(No, it’s not the right season for the prawns, but I thought I’d just sling that in.)
Also, let’s be honest, it was Mother’s Day when the wheels fell off a couple of years ago and so led to me writing my sober curious memoir My Year Of Not Getting Shitfaced, so perhaps I should be spending the day at the ashram down the road, meditating and behaving myself as opposed to going to the pub, chucking red wine down my throat and acting like a tit.
Well, I would do that if I had the time (the meditating, I mean not the acting like a tit). But I do have eleventy-twelve billion scripts to edit so that I am free for next weekend which is of course The Franschhoek Literary Festival.
(Excuse the clumsy segue – nothing better came to mind.)
Please be proud of me, dear readers, as I am not even taking my laptop down with me to Franschhoek and will be putting an out of office notification on my email. I am planning on having an entirely bookish weekend, catching up with writer friends, schmoozing in the green room and attending the fabulous panels on offer.
I’m appearing on two panels: on the Friday Sara Jayne Makwala King and I are going to be put through our paces by Joy Watson. That’s from 2.30-3.30 pm in the Old School Hall and then on Saturday I’m interviewing Gail Schimmel about her latest domestic noir, Little Secrets. That’s at Hospice and it’s from 10-11am.
Not. To. Be. Missed.
Book recommendation:
In preparation for my interview with Gail, I was reading her book and supposedly taking notes, but abandoned the note-taking as the book is so delicious and such a page-turner that I had to get to the end.
Little Secrets is about Monique and Ben Klein and what happens to their ostensibly rock-solid marriage once Ben meets Daisy who says she just wants to have coffee with Ben and be his friend but ja…Daisy needs a running f*ck smack in my humble opinion.
Their marital woes are complicated by their daughter, Rosie who’s going through her own teenage stuff including a horrible frenemy called Raine, something awful that happened to her at a party and a woman called Margie who won’t leave her alone.
The novel really deals with the issue of communication and what happens when we stop listening to each other. It’s so lovely reading a book based in your own city, I thoroughly enjoyed all the local references plus the suspense is fantastic, I completely gobbled this book up.
TV recommendation:
I watched a quite delightful, frothy film on Showmax called Marry Me. It’s a romcom starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Lopez about a pop star who lands up doing a live wedding thang and getting married to a high school teacher after she discovers her lover has been spreading it around. It was the perfect weekend fair. I recommend it.
I quickly googled What is the Purpose of Life so that I could leave you with some sage words…nothing resonated, I have to say. BUT I did hear something brilliant in my daily meditation on the Headspace App where Andy says that we have to enjoy the journey, NOT focus on the destination. It’s all about letting life unfold and being in the moment, instead of feeling that you HAVE to climb Everest (even though you really, really don’t want to) or become a billionaire (unlikely on my current salary).
WHAT A RELIEF!!
I can forget about what I should be achieving and just bumble along, enjoying life and seeing what turns up.
I find this idea very comforting.
Happy Being-In-The-Moment, Happy Mother’s Day and Happy Reading! xxx