There are few things that teach us about life like life itself. I realised a while ago that once you take a stand on something, a belief, philosophy, statement of faith, you will be tested on it. The Universe has a sneaky way of doing this, usually in a subtle way that’s barely noticeable unless you’re aware of it, often with a liberal dash of humour.

My son, David, is an amazing child. He’s also very challenging. He was sent to make me stronger, something that he does on a daily basis. Last night I was cooking supper, freshly made butternut soup, while I was helping him with a school project on leopards. The idea was that he would use my computer for research while I was preparing the soup. For some unfathomable reason women seem to think that men are lying when we say that we cannot multi-task. We can’t. Seriously.

I wasn’t concentrating on cooking properly as I was fielding David’s constant barrage of questions and insistence for help and mistook cayenne pepper for paprika. David doesn’t eat spicy (burny in his words) food. Realising my mistake on tasting the soup I had to make a plan. Pouring off the liquid I managed to salvage some of the chunks of butternut that were still cooking. I placed these in the blender and topped it up with milk, thinking that the milk would knock the edge off the cayenne pepper remnants. Placing the lid on the blender I felt an all too familiar niggle but pressed play anyway. The lid blew off the blender, covering me and immediate surrounds in boiling hot, blended, supposed to be oh so delicious, butternut soup. I’m doing laundry today. With stain remover.
The resulting butternut soup was still too spicy for David who refused to eat it.

The lesson I learnt from this is simple. When you end up in the pressure cooker and feel that niggle, don’t press play. Stop, take a deep breath, exhale slowly. Listen to your Self. It may save you a lot of laundry. And stain remover.