Material Girl

This weekend I have mostly spent cooking.  With a sneaky bike ride completed at Cannock Chase on the way home.  It was part of the deal.

I reckon I live pretty much 85% of my life in the present, 10% in the future, and 5% in the past (does this add up?).  Obviously recently stuff changed with plans to become some kind of middle aged itinerant and perhaps I'm looking ahead more than living in the now, but that's not the norm for me. 

This weekend had me a little bit in the living in the past zone.  Many reasons.  I responded to an urgent request for a cook to look after a group of volunteers on a training weekend.  For the Waterway Recovery Group, an "organisation" I've been involved in intermittently for the last 21 years of my life.  They've seen me at all manner of stages of my life, and it's through them that I met my now dead husband way back in time now or so it seems.  And some of them never knew me before I was with him, which sometimes I find a little odd as it feels like I've known many of those good folk for pretty much ever. 

Anyway, the thing is, the reason I'm able to become a wanderer for the kind of period I'm planning is because of Dave (late husband)'s death.  His life insurance ensured the mortgage was paid off, and it also left me with enough so that I can do this, so I can buy the van and so I can manage without earning.  Having said that, I'm a saver too, it's not all ill gotten gains.  And his heart would have expanded at the thought of me doing this.  He'd have been proud of me, and he'd be so goddamn pleased to see me so happy.  He would have approved.  Which, actually, isn't that important because my mantra on these occasions of "The Dead Don't Get To Have A Say" applies, whether the dead would or would not have agreed with my decision.

I don't know why I wanted to just jot that down as an acknowledgment to what has made this possible.  And no, I'm not lucky, but in some ways, perhaps fortunate.

And because it's about the money, we're singing along with Madonna:

"Experience has made me rich ..."