Reverse Bucket List

After completing my mini bucket list (5B450) in 2017 I have had a little more to do with bucket lists. My new bucket list is called 5450+ which is more of a being list than a doing list. After a brief exploration of the blogosphere I discovered that reverse bucket lists could be a good exercise in reflection and gratitude. The sixteen items on my reverse bucket list are a reflection of my life over the past fifty odd years. I think the 1990s was a big ‘to do’ list for me: getting a job, getting a career, getting a house, writing songs, poetry, short stories, getting a husband, getting a baby. Since that time I have become more reflective. The last item on my list, ‘2 years of mindful discoveries’, offers the hope that the 2020s will be more a time for ‘being’ and less about ‘doing’.

Lorna’s Reverse Bucket List - A Meaningful Life?

1.      Thirty Years a Librarian (February 1990 –February 2020 plus)-after gaining my library degree-BA(hons)-in 1989

2.      Five decades of travelling (1970s-2020s)– (50 places in England and 33 other countries)

3.      A year of London – visiting 52+ interesting London places

4.      Found and lost love

5.      Learnt to drive

6.      Bought a house (with Richard)

7.      Twenty years since SubVerse (2020) – (active period was 2000-2005)

8.      Raised Amy to the age of 20+ (got her through school and helped her with qualifications) (2020)

9.      Twelve years a Piano Teacher (2008-2019)– helping pupils get fifteen certificates in ten years

10.  Ten years at church (2008-2018)- including ten months of Sunday School teaching from 2010 to 2011

11.  Ten years of Arts and Crafts (2010-2020)– redecorating the house, appreciating art and culture, developing craftwork

12.  Ten years in concert (2010-2020) – Playing classical piano pieces in various public places

13.  Two diplomas in the 2010s – Level 3 in Business Administration and dipABRSM in Piano Teaching

14.  Ran a craft stall in the Twenty-Teens (2013-2019)

15.  Ten years a blogger (2013-2023) – Highlighting my creative and therapeutic endeavours

16. Two years of Mindful Discoveries (2018-2020)

The photos are from the 'Bucket List Coffee' shop in Eastcote.

 

Extra Good Mothers

On a cold evening in October seven mothers meet in the Chapel Cafe and take part in the Good Mothers' Club where they share their stories and advice on the good, bad and ugly sides of motherhood. Below are character descriptions of the eight women involved.

Sister Eleanor is the mysterious nun who runs the Good Mother's Club in the Chapel Cafe. She is well meaning, virtuous, honest and determined to put the good mothers on the right road through life.

Sapphire Meadows came from Trinidad and married a TV executive. She is a proud woman, determined to do her best for her only son, Eliott.

Christine Bishop is a mother of two who fears her life is becoming more meaningless with every passing year. Despite being a church going Christian she is attracted to a strange new age religion to bring her more fulfilment.

Nadine Verda runs an after school art club. She is a busy mum with three clever children and an emotionally distant husband.

Alice Plummer is a mental health worker and a mum. She's a good enough mother and a good enough psychologist, without endeavouring to be excellent at either. Trouble comes when Alice's only daughter, Lucy, develops a strong bond with a mysterious girl called Emily.

Olivia Marlow is studying computers, helping her husband in the tech industry. She becomes obsessed with the fantasy of being a 1950s housewife and starts to think this lifestyle would be the best way forward for the entire family.

Zoe Wraith is a part time accountant who finds that the school run is the bane of her life. She has triplet daughters who require much of her time and attention and a mosly absent husband.

Madeleine Sharpe is a young single mum. She is tempted to explore her submissive side with a mysterious, older, dominant man who seems to know all about the most secret and exotic experiences available in London.

The Good Mothers Club

The Good Mothers Club was inspired by the Amacus portmanteau horror films of the 1970s. My harried heroine, Alice Plummer, stumbles upon the Good Mothers Club in the Chapel Cafe and spends a mysterious evening with six other mothers and the ghostly nun Sister Eleanor, sharing tales of motherhood, madness and sacrifice. These are two posters advertising my story.

The Chapel Cafe

In the Good Mothers Club my heroine, Alice Plummer, stumbles across the Chapel Cafe, while there she meets other troubled mothers with whom she shares dark secrets and disturbing tales. this is a description of her first venture into the establishment.

'It certainly was worth the walk. The Chapel Café was my dream coffee shop; it boasted a polished wooden floor, tall and colourful stained glass windows featuring motifs of a heart, an anchor and a cross, thick round wooden tables, red velvet cushioned armchairs and the kind of intricate carved wood and stone features you would hope to find in an old church. I walked up to the coffee counter to order a drink; there was no queue and only the minimal conversational murmur coming from the other customers. Looking around further I noticed something else unusual about the café, it was a gadget free zone: no laptops, no mobiles, not even a kindle or an ipod. I took my mobile phone out of my pocket, switched it off and put it back into my bag.

‘Um, regular, no, medium, latte please,’ I heard myself saying, I obviously intended to stay for a while.

‘You’re here for the Good Mothers Club,’ the barista was a young, intense man dressed in black and white. He had fine, strong features and clear eyes that seemed to stare into the heart of me.

‘Am I?’ I asked.

‘They’re at the back.’ The barista nodded to the back of the chapel, to a slightly raised area, I guessed that that was where the altar used to be. There stood an oval table, around which sat an array of brightly coloured women. At the head of the table sat a pretty, young woman in pale grey with a white headdress, a nun. She smiled at me with such a warm generous smile that I smiled back.

With my freshly made Latte in my hand I headed over to the table of women, taking in more details of the other customers as I went. There was an unkempt young man in an Edward Munch ‘The Scream’ t-shirt, a group of business men in suits, teenage Goths, an older couple, an elegant 1950s style starlet, a couple of disheveled high school students and a group of international tourists, from various remote corners of the world.

There were two vacant spaces at the table, one next to the nun and one opposite her. I made my way past a woman in blue, who was having an intense conversation with the woman in red who sat by her side, in order to sit in the vacant seat nearest the nun.

‘Hello, come to make up the numbers,’ smiled an attractive, bubbly woman, dressed in a big, bold, mauve dress, as I sat down opposite her, ‘You’re just in time, the meeting starts at six.’

I glanced at my watch, six o’clock, and then I looked at the nun, she began speaking and the small conversations that were taking place around the table died down.'