‘Put your lipstick on, begin the day. It will start without you anyway.’ ‘What will I wear to your funeral?’ ‘And how do I look after your orchid?’

Kellie wanted to ask so many questions while she still could. But how do you say goodbye forever? That one didn’t bear thinking about.

When her mother Pamela is diagnosed with cancer, their family plead with her to try everything that might give them all more time. She reluctantly agrees, but on one condition. Life goes on because it has to and so does the weekly family dinner with wine and loud sibling banter. With grace, guts and cups of tea the matriarch prepares herself and those she loves for the inevitable. Their conversations are honest, funny and at times confronting, where a shade of lipstick is the only bright side.

This is a toast to love, friendship and the ordinary. There is no happy ending but the Curtain family discovers there can be ‘good’ in goodbye. And it somehow leaves them feeling just a little victorious. Now put on the kettle and open the wine.