Book club is BACK, and just in time for those long, sunny summer days (surely they are coming!) Brought to you by Villa Maria, we’re so excited to once again bring you a new book to devour and savour over the season. Whether you like to steal a few hours of me-time with your feet up, or sneak in a chapter or two before bed, we invite you to relax, enjoy, and maybe even share a cheeky discussion with friends or family about the madness you just read.
And, thanks to our partners Villa Maria, each book is expertly wine matched with one of their incredible canned wines – perfect for a picnic, the beach, or just you, a book, and a little chilled indulgence at home.
This month, Alice is revisiting an incredibly poignant and relatable book about what it’s like as the ‘sandwich’ generation – where you’re still looking after kids, but ALSO your ageing parents. A beautifully balanced mix of humour, depth and home truths, we’ve paired this book with the stunning sparkling rosé – because no matter what you’re dealing with as a Kiwi woman, you still deserve some me-time, some self-care, and some sparkle.
Capule x Villa Maria
It’s a stage in life that so many of us are destined to experience – yet, when our time arrives, it’s so jarring it feels as though there must surely have been a mistake. This simply can’t be real. We’re much too young. This stage is for proper adults!!
If you’re an elder millennial, like me, you may have already arrived in this place.
Suddenly, when you catch up with your old school friends, you’re no longer talking about crazy nights out and who is dating who. No, now you’re seeing them for the first time since their father’s funeral. Since their mum’s diagnosis. You’re talking about Alzheimer’s. About Parkinsons. About which retirement villages to avoid. About which lawyer would be good to talk to before you sign any contracts.
But, in the very same catch-up you’re also talking about your kids’ schools and daycares, what age they should start wearing shin pads to soccer and who might want the latest Barbie hand-me-downs… as well as how you’re keeping your sanity together.
This, my strung-out friends, is where we find ourselves: in the sandwich generation.
We are the stressed meat sandwiched between caring for our ageing parents on one side while we care for our children on the other.
It’s a bizarre duality to simultaneously hold. And it’s confronting. Having your parents now be the ones who need your help, guidance and strength involves a lot of denial, grief and acceptance.
If this is you now (I’m sorry!), or, you know this will be you one day (likely sooner than you’d really care to admit?), I simply cannot recommend Catherine Newman’s book, Sandwich, enough.
It instantly became a bestseller and won a slew of awards, so yes, you may have heard of it, or perhaps even read it already, but if not, you need this book in your life.
The main character Rocky is older than us millennials (even an elder millennial like myself): she’s 54 and her two kids are now adults themselves. They’re all back together though for their family tradition of spending a week-long summer holiday in their cosy, slightly-falling-apart cottage in Cape Cod.
Rocky has just found herself in the sandwich. The health of her parents is failing – and it’s a horrible, horrible realisation for Rocky. Yes, I was a little envious that she’s at least going through this stage with older kids who don’t need quite the same attention and care as little ones, but, Rocky’s also going through something else big and unenviable and with terrible timing: menopause.
As her hormones send her through bouts of rage and deep sorrow, Rocky is half living in the present, and half lost in the past. She’s thinking so much about the summers gone when her kids were just young, about the choices she made around her own body and her own fertility and it’s painful, confronting and… also quite cathartic.
She’s been holding on to a secret – is now the right time to let it out? Is now the right time to let it all go?
All this is going on in her mind, but Rocky also describes the changes and sudden unfamiliarity of her own physical body – which can be both hilarious and very confronting. Sandwich is where I first learned about vaginal atrophy – although apparently the preferred term is Genitourinary Syndrome of Menopause now?? It actually led me on to talking to Robyn Malcolm – yes, that Robyn Malcom and yes, strange sidestep – about it and a study that showed that GSM is experienced by at least 50% of women and as many as 84% (you can read that chat here!). How shocking that this book is the first time I’d even heard about it?!?
Okay look, yes, this does all sound quite full-on and maybe quite depressing, but Sandwich also performs some kind of magic trick, in that it goes to all these places and hits all kinds of nerves, but does so in a way that while it may make you cry, it can also make you laugh out loud and smile with joy just as often.
While we’ve still (hopefully – *touching wood immediately*) got a good stretch of summer ahead of us, Sandwich is a GREAT book for taking away on a little break or settling into the couch with on a grey day.
PAIR IT WITH: VILLA MARIA PRIVATE BIN SPARKLING ROSÉ– but make it portion perfect with the canned version!
As big fans of bubbles – but not having to get through an entire bottle in one go! – we adore Villa Maria’s Private Bin Sparkling Rosé cans for those me-time moments. If you’re looking to control your portions a little easier – or you’re into having less waste (because who hasn’t left a few inches of flat bubbles in the fridge because the teaspoon trick does NOT work) then these are perfect to have in the fridge for those times where you just want one or two glasses.
R18, Drink Responsibly
