Why I Never Save the Best ‘till Last

I was at primary school in the days before you could choose what you had for lunch. Everyone had the same and if you didn’t like it..... well that was too bad. One day we were served up sausages, scrambled eggs and fried mushrooms. I was very pleased as I absolutely loved fried mushrooms and still do to this day.

Deciding to postpone the pleasure of the mushrooms so I’d have something to look forward to later, I pushed them to one side and got stuck into the eggs and sausages. During the meal there was a fight in the corner of the lunch hall because Ian Bramall had stolen one of Andrew Delany’s sausages. We all watched as Andrew stood up and started shouting. I was enthralled in the drama and didn’t notice as the dinner lady swooped in and took my plate away. When I turned back and saw the empty space where my plate had been my heart sank. The mushrooms were gone. If only I’d had them first, I thought.

A similar thing happened when I was older. I bought beautiful green trainers when on holiday. They were so lovely that I decided to save them for best. I didn’t want to wear them out just going to the supermarket or to collage. No these were going to be for special events, quite what those events were I didn’t know but they were put in a bag and tucked away in the bottom of the cupboard.

seven years later, when having a sort out I found the bag containing the unworn trainers. I opened it and got the special shoes out. As I held them up, the soles immediately fell off leaving holes and frayed material in their wake, they were unfixable and had to be binned. They’d been left too long.

So now I wear the sequinned jumper to the shops, save up and go out for that posh meal, eat the mushrooms first and enjoy life's little luxuries. It reminds me of something the poet James Morgan Nash once said to me, he said....... ‘Alex, live while you can.’