My bucket list
A few weekends ago we had a group of friends over for a shared lunch. Majella’s pretext was that somebody else had been going to host it but they were unavailable. Lunch was fine – food, wine and fun company – but the real reason was eventually revealed as a celebration of impending retirement for me and two of our friends, Jim and Warwick.Our respective wives had prepared posters with photographs and other material recollecting our work histories and took some time to tell their versions of our stories to gathered friends. Majella’s finale was to present each of us with a small bucket and invite us to take turns at drawing items for out ‘bucket lists’ to be placed in real buckets – pictured. We each collected 10 items.
In no particular order, my 10 items were:
Try a food you have not tried beforeVolunteer with a community groupGo to a live sporting eventTake your beautiful wife out to dinnerOrganise your photosRead a novelVisit a waterfallBuild a sandcastle on the beachWalk in a rainforestGo to a movie with one of your children
Some of those seem easier than others. Some seem less attractive than the options, such as “Enjoy a glass of wine while watching a sunset” (or similar), pulled by my friends. I have to admit to some ‘bucket list’ envy.
I can report success with the first item on my list. Our daughter, Jane, had her birthday last week and her daughter, Emily, made her a cake from quinoa. Jane came to dinner at our place on Tuesday night and brought the remains of her cake. My reaction to trying that has been immortalised on Facebook.