Coming from a family of avid readers, my Mum is the source of a great number of deliciously serious, deliciously light-hearted books. She is was one of Exclusive Books in the Maritzburg Mall’s most loyal customers. My sister and I would never return to the Big Smoke after a weekend at the farm without an armful of paperback novels to sustain us until the next visit.
When we flew to France last July with 120 kilograms of luggage between us, buying english reading matter was low on my list of priorities, but very soon after we settled, I found myself lamenting this. There are not an abundance of libraries or bookstores here that sell english novels, or certainly not the light frivilous ones that a mother of 2 little girls can get away with.
So what did my darling Mum do? She bought me a kindle, as an early birthday present. She really is the greatest. This, however, was no ordinary kindle. It is a supersize kindle, thanks to my very clever little sister. She’s had her kindle for 3 years, and knows little secrets…she knows that if you buy and add extra kindles to her own kindle profile, she can share her kindle library. It really is so awesome, because not only did I have 40 odd new books to choose from, but any books we add, are automatically shared.
And the reason Mom WAS EB’s loyalist customer? Mom is also now a kindle-er, thanks to my sister and Dad, so once again the ‘Carr ladies’ are enjoying eachothers’ choice in reading matter.
In order to welcome my Mum to the ‘fold’, I bought her/us a prize winning novelist. According to Jenny Crys-Williams of 702 TalkRadio fame, Hilary Mantel and her version of Henry the VIII (as written in Wolf Hall) is riveting reading.
Well,it’s not. Sorry to show up my lazy side, but after two months of ploughing through, I have managed not even half, so under the suggestion from my sister, I started up on the recent Bridget Jones last week.
I do enjoy light hearted reading, just as much as I enjoy something more serious and dramatic. However, I have a mental block on Bridget Jones, probably because all I can picture in my mind is Renee Zelweger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant. And Reneés’ whiney British twang. (Is that a Sloaney accent?? I really am crap with location accents- even in South Africa, I could not tell if you are from Pretoria or Polokwane).
Or was it her bumbling neediness that irritated me so much?
Whatever it was, I moved into “Mad About The Boy” with a hint of laziness, while hating myself for giving up on Thomas Cromwell and 1530’s English Royal Court.
Jonesy has not changed much over the years. She still prattles on about her weight and how many units of wine she has consumed. But now she is a widow (after Mark gets killed in a bomb blast in some war torn country), plus she has two little children, aged 4 and 7 (I think), and her friends are determined to gether back into the dating scene.
Something that I don’t particularly care to admit to, is this: The reason BJ irritates me, is because I can relate.
Perhaps there is something in her that we can all relate to.
While I (unfortunately, perhaps) don’t agonise over my weight, and I do not care to highlight the 2 units of wine I have some nights with dinner, I do over-analyse why my text messages/Whatsapps/e-mails are not being responded to immediately.
I also spend an extraordinary amount of time on-line, reading mundane articles on-line, while I let my children watch Barbie on You Tube (that’s a gross exaggeration. While they ARE indeed watching a Barbie dvd as I write, and as a rule,I am more strict than I take credit for, I just feel that if I don’t write this when the inspiration hits, it won’t get written. Besides, its only just gone eight o clock. Shops dont open until nine.)
If left to my own devices, (if I did not have to feed my hubby) my girls would eat fish fingers, oven baked chips and frozen peas 6 nights a week.
If it wasn’t for Anton getting us out of bed for his work run,we would also probably run late for school every day. And the only reason I am often early for the after-school pick up, is that if I am early, I get to have 10 minute child free chat with other mums.
If I was to write my own version of Bridget Jones, it would read something like this:
MONDAY 10 MARCH
● Weight: 10kg’s overweight.
● Own adult meals eaten: 2 and a half
● Kids leftover meals eaten: 4
● Cups of coffee:2 (good)
● Cups of tea: 4(not so good, but I am still without 5 Roses Ceylon)
● Temper Tantrums dealt with: 3 (1 earth shattering, 2 bearable)
● Minutes spent on iMessaging: 60 (love my sister and mum in SA)
● Minutes spent on Skype: 120 (grateful for a hubby to chat to)
● Facebook friends: 292 (less than my husband)
● Time spent reading the Facebook tabloid: 95 minutes (oooh, a wedding;, pretty pictures)
● Moments spent agonising whether to hook the caddy onto my bike and cycle to school: 3
● Moments spent actually hooking the caddy onto the bike: 0
● French homework done: 0
And so it would go on. I might try explain how much I hate myself for not phoning up the Franco-Lebanese mum and asking to meet her for coffee, or beating myself up for the fact that I have not picked up the broom today, despite the bits and pieces collecting on my socks.
What I won’t be deliberating is what to say to my 30-year old boyfriend in a text message, because happily, I have no need for that. Or spend meaningless hours on Twitter, because I can assure you: if it was me on Twitter, they would be very meaningless.
My Bridget Jones read was wrapped up in a week, it was a lovely read, but I am happy that I will no longer be empathising with her.
That being said, I do wish that I could casually throw in a line about whether or not to go and eat at Nandos on date night. I did love that line. Do you think Nandos are aware they feature in Bridget Jones’ Diary?
And now, dear diary friends, I had better tackle that French homework. Oooo…Friends are on TV again…
Post script: The first part of this post was written last week, in the morning. I got side tracked by school holidays, and am only finishing it off now, hence the time zones.
♥
Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals 