Save the Date

Hello Dear Reader

According to my weekly Bible Country Life, parties are back and with them ‘Save the Date’ notifications and even ‘Re-Save the Date’ notifications. I for one have never seen the point of the first, never mind the second. Just send an invitation like a normal person. But of course we cannot do that. We are humans. Why keep things simple when we can, in the immortal words of Love Actually’s Harry ‘dip it in yoghurt and cover it in chocolate buttons.’

I would file this new craze for ‘Re-Save the Date’ alongside hairbands on new born babies. Just no. Stop it. Why on earth does everyone want to make their children look like potatoes dressed as Carmen Miranda? I no understand. Every day in my family, my pleas fall on deaf ears and I greet a new baby cousin (we were fecund in the pandemic, my lot) with nervous anticipation and, much as I love these children and their parents, there they are within moments of their perilous journey from womb to world: bows on bald heads. It’s a cruelty. All newborns are unspeakably ugly - my hours old son looked like a Halloween pumpkin carved by an intoxicated toddler. Why draw attention to it? We ought to let these poor little critters have some small shred of dignity.

Sometimes you wish you hadn’t saved the date. Who hasn’t turned up to a wedding half wondering if it would happen at all? Few things in life are as thrilling as the seconds after the celebrant asks if there’s anybody present who knows why a union might not go ahead. Many’s the time I have had to put my hand over my mouth to stop it from saying something it might regret. Still, I really do wish I had piped up at one particular wedding and aired my concerns about the groom’s golf obsession because, as I suspected, it was a harbinger of things to come and I might’ve saved them all a lot of legal bother and needless squabbling over some very tired self assembly furniture.

Lest you think I am an insufferable curmudgeon - it’s possible - I love both babies and weddings. In either order, I’m not one to judge. It’s the optimism, the setting out on a journey unknown with nothing but hope in our hearts.

It’s like making a new album.

It’s like making a new album and asking you to save a date.

It’s like making a new album and asking you to keep an eye on your inbox on Friday April 8th when I will be doing the music version of a gender reveal party and telling you all about my new album and then making you wait absolutely ages by which time you won’t care less whether it’s a girl, a boy or a chimpanzee because you’re so totally over it.

Nah. It’s gonna be great.

So Save the Date. Friday April 8th. See you then.

With love,

Nerina x