“You irredeemable mung bean*”, I shouted at Bloody Good Bloke.

“You picadillo!” he shouted back.

“YOU… bearded potato wedge.**

You… big mac sauce.
Uh… not sure where I was going with that.”

We like to test out our creative insults on each other at times.

*Insult adapted from Mhairi McFarlane’s excellent holiday (or lockdown) read, Here’s Looking at You.

**Insult directly swiped from my favourite copywriter’s new creative writing newsletter (highly recommend!)

This particular bout was spurred on by BGB leaving the fridge open 1cm so that it beeped repeatedly until I had to leap up mid coaching call to run and shut it.

After I’d finished my coaching calls for the evening,

I beckoned him over with my T-rex hands.

“You naughty, naughty pickle.” I grinned at him, holding up my angry finger.

“You Wollondilly” he countered, nudging my nose with his playfully.

Play is one of the most beautiful parts of our relationship.

We are always laughing and joking, sparring with words — sometimes physically — well, mainly me.

Sometimes if I’m feeling agitated for no apparent reason, I’ll play fight, and try to jiu jitsu tackle him to the ground.

Unfortunately BGB has far superior jiu jitsu skills, having actually trained in jiu jitsu a while back, unlike me. Also, he’s about twice my size and approximately 15 times my muscle mass.

He cheers me on as I lift a single 8kg kettlebell from Aldi with two trembling hands

while he does sideways sit ups holding a 34kg kettlebell over his head with one arm.

He laughs at me, his eyes dancing as he holds up pillows for me to punch and kick when required.

A year or two ago I realised that when working out my values (which I highly recommend you do in my much loved short course here), I had missed a really obvious one — play and humour.

I got out my tools and burnt-engraved it onto a piece of wood to add to my values board that sits behind my desk. It always reminds me, with a stern wooden finger, not to stray too far from the things that bring me the most fulfilment and joy.

Like all my values, my life fades to dull if I don’t have a hefty dose of play and laughter in my life.

I pretty much find everything funny, most of the time. Even my problems.

Which can be problematic at times when I forget that others may not find their problems as funny as I do.

I wrote this post simply to remind us all to play, to have fun, be silly, dance around with T-rex arms.

Break into dance when the Eurythmics comes on in the supermarket aisle.

(Another thing Bloody Good Bloke finds much entertainment in laughing at me for).

Let the joy of the moment take you, without “I’m an adult” suppressing your urges to be ridiculous.

Be like a toddler.

Those small drunk humans know better than we do how to live a bloody good life.