Weekend planning is a prime time to apply the Deathbed Priority Test:

"On your deathbed, will you wish you had spent more prime weekend hours grocery shopping or walking in the woods with your kids?"

Louise Lague wrote this. Who is she?  She's a journalist who writes about mental health issues, so I guess we have something in common.


We need more cereal, we need more milk, we need something for Sunday lunch but I don't want to go to Tesco. No kids at home, so instead, my Deathbed Priority is to spend more time with my horses. Sorry Peter.


This morning, after yard duties and stocking up the shed with hay bales - oooh, WHAT a lot of hay in the back of Olive Oyl! Just as well she's MY car so I don't have to worry, eh? - I spent some happy time with Alfie. He has lately acquired the look of a woolly mammoth (without the tusks)


Actually, I rather like this look, but he gives the impression that he's neglected, which is very far from the truth. So before a well-meaning passer-by summons the RSPCA, I spent a long time grooming him until he was shiny like a conker, washed his legs (caked in mud), pulled his mane - for the uninitiated, this means thinning it - and brushed out his tail until it rippled all silky and black. It took a long time. A very long time.


Here he is in the summer, looking more like a conker.

 All this effort so he could then go back into the field and roll in the mud until he looked like a woolly mammoth again (still without tusks)

Did I care? No, I didn't. Because Alfie and I had such a good chat. He's a very good listener. Doesn't say much but definitely understands EVERYTHING.

I'm sure he'd understand why we still have no cereal or milk and nothing for Sunday lunch.