Life in the very fast lane...: For as long as I can remember, I have been away fr...

Life in the very fast lane...: For as long as I can remember, I have been away fr...: For as long as I can remember, I have been away from home over the Easter weekend.   It is normally beach walks, sea air, and pink gins by...

For as long as I can remember, I have been away from home over the Easter weekend.  It is normally beach walks, sea air, and pink gins by no later than eleven o’clock in the morning, lots of lemon, plenty of ice.  However, this year, with Easter falling at an awkward time in terms of the school calendar I now find myself bound by, my newly manicured feet were held firmly in the leafy suburbs of Johannesburg.

What is interesting about this holiday is that it is so often perceived as just a lovely few days away from the hustle and bustle of our ordinary lives, and yet, as I discovered yesterday, which was Easter Sunday, it is so much more than that.  Given that I was locally based, when my mum said she would meet me at church for the special Easter service, I knew I could run, but there was no way I could hide, so off I went obediently, and in fairly good spirits.

We tend to get to the end of the year and madly run around making our New Year’s Resolutions – this is something I am particularly good at as it involves making a list, and being a secretary at heart, lists and I like each other very much. 

And so it was particularly of interest to me yesterday morning, that Easter is more about new beginnings than the 1^st of January is.  I won’t go into the biblical analogy that was given, but if you think about it, it is indeed about new starts, new clean (Easter) eggs waiting to develop into brand new chicks, and the start of fresh things – in particular, a chance to remember our hopes, our wishes, our dreams.

Of course, this news was a huge relief to me, because if I look at my list of resolutions I diligently drew up at the beach in December, so far, not too much has been accomplished.  So now, this is like “take two” – a chance to start again, and try again, and hope again.

I have been criticised in the past, probably quite rightly, for tending to follow the adage “you get one bite of the cherry” – often quite anti second chances.  Yesterday morning, I thought to myself how wrong this actually is.  If the universal calendar gives us a second chance, are we not also supposed to pick a leaf off our autumn trees, and give each other, and ourselves, another try too?

After much thought, many Easter eggs, and a pink gin or four – I think the time has arrived to forget the Christmas tinsel, and look forward to all those things we thought had tarnished, but in fact, are shiny, bright, and new.

Life in the very fast lane...: I was told recently that if you want to achieve yo...

Life in the very fast lane...: I was told recently that if you want to achieve yo...: I was told recently that if you want to achieve your dreams, you need to have your thoughts in order by having a five, ten and fifteen yea...

I was told recently that if you want to achieve your dreams, you need to have your thoughts in order by having a five, ten and fifteen year plan.  Given my age and stage of life, the fifteen year plan would pretty much reflect where and how I want to live out my dreams, for the duration of my life.

Given that only the good die young, I am pretty sure that this means my fifteen year plan will be the one that keeps me going for a very long time.  In other words, I had to make it truly good.

So with this in mind, I set about planning.  Given that I am truly clear of thought after a glass and a half of my favourite tipple, I made sure the house was quiet, the glass was full, and there was plenty of ice in the freezer.  Warm white wine just does not work for me.

My five year plan was easy, and very boring.  Be financially secure, still live in Johannesburg, educate my daughter, and do not fall pregnant.

My ten year plan was slightly better – educate my daughter, be based in Johannesburg but have a quaint beach house I can call my holiday home in the Eastern Cape, travel overseas and drink champagne from sun up to sun down, do not fall pregnant.

But my fifteen year plan was really the one that filled me with a huge shudder of excitement.  It is as follows – as I will have educated my daughter by then, I will be free to base myself outside of Southern Africa.  My favourite country aside from this one has always been, and will always be, France.  So there we are – it’s off to France I shall go.  The South of France is my most treasured part of that country, and I have always coveted the idea of buying a stone house with shutters, with a view of the French hills, somewhere along the Tour de France route.  Of course, by then I will have sorted out my life savings, so I will be able to write full-time (heaven help us all).

I was as proud as punch – my five, ten and fifteen year plan completely sorted.  However, I was not finished – the best, as they say, was still to come.

We all know I am not very good at long-term relationships, well, let’s re-phrase – I am brilliant at getting into them, but staying in them – not so hot.  The French are fond of their brief encounters, and I am fond of many French things, such as their wine (of course), their cheese, their olives, their baguettes, their croissants, their porcini mushrooms, their truffles, and last but not least, their kisses.  Eureka, I found it, the perfect solution for me.

I will learn the art of discretion, and I will befriend the local wine farmer for a bit, the local porcini mushroom farmer for a while, then the local baker, olive farmer… and so we go on… you get the picture.  I will be kept in company, without having to marry anyone, and better than that, I will be kept in wine, mushrooms, bread and cheese.

Of course, when it is Tour de France time, I will be busy as far as the locals are concerned, so that I can spend my days on the side of the twisting roads, watching out for the yellow jersey, and not having to call home and tell anyone where I am and what time I will be home.  Bliss, pure bliss, especially for a free spirit such as myself.

The locals will be happy as they too will not be required to marry me, and they will be entertained by my endless stories and tales of times gone by, and dreams by then currently being fulfilled.

I looked up and found the bottle finished, and the plan – perfected.

And so, the moral:  I have my plan, which means I have begun to pave my personal pathway to my dreams; and until then, there are really two things I should be focusing on – learning French, and not getting pregnant.

Life in the very fast lane...: I met up with some girlfriends recently for dinner...

Life in the very fast lane...: I met up with some girlfriends recently for dinner...: I met up with some girlfriends recently for dinner, and of course, after a few glasses of fine wine, the conversation headed straight toward...

I met up with some girlfriends recently for dinner, and of course, after a few glasses of fine wine, the conversation headed straight towards that allusive thing we call love.  The pursuit of love, the lack of love, unrequited love, regrets regarding love, and of course, the hope one feels at times that love may possibly still be in store at some point in time in ones future.

After much debate, there was a sudden moment of clarity - somewhere, somehow, every girl, at some point in her life, wants to be pursued by someone they could possibly love.  This desire is universal, and is the subject of many a novel, many a movie, many a wish and many a prayer.

I think we all understand by now that men are hunters, and women are gatherers.  We know about the man cave thing, and whether we like it or not, we need to accept that male and female DNA is as different as North and South, day and night, vodka and gin.  But deep down, women want to be chased - they want to feel like they are being fought for, that they are more important to someone than other women in the running, they want to be chased and they want to run and run, until they allow themselves to be caught, and then feel that they are special, and someones favourite favourite.

As the wine flowed and the ice diminished, it became clear that when women allow themselves to be caught too early, the pursuit is done, the race is run, and the game is simply over.  In the background, if you listen carefully, you can actually hear the man whispering "done... next!" 

Of course, women being women, this is likely to be when they become far too interested in the man of their moment, insecurity kicks in (an instant turn-off for anyone with XY chromosomes), the woman starts planning where she can hang her curtains, this is known commonly as "the furniture look", and the man starts taking up other activities that keep him away and out of the cat's clutches.

We did not manage to really come to any conclusions at first on this subject, so another bottle was required to increase our ability to analyse this properly.

After the end of bottle two, we got it.

As women, at a point before being caught, you need to run like your life depends on it.  When at first you feel the urge to cave in and be caught, you run even harder, and you keep running until you are quite sure that the undersides of your Nike trainers are almost worn through.  When you have run nearly half way across the emotional country, and you are sure you have enough money for all the toll fees and plenty spare to put diesel in your love tank... you turn around, allow yourself to be caught, and revel in the knowledge that somehow, the XX beat the XY.

And so, the moral:  first stop tomorrow... the sports store, for my new pair of Nike trainers.  Let the running, and the chasing, begin.

Life in the very fast lane...: I have a love of romantic movies, but particularly...

Life in the very fast lane...: I have a love of romantic movies, but particularly...: I have a love of romantic movies, but particularly when they are combined with an aviation slant… think Top Gun, Fly Boys and the one I wa...