boring rural idyll..I think not!

Who said life in rural idyll was boring? Certainly not me! Last night has to be the strangest evening I have had for a long time. Working away on my laptop as others snoozed at midnight I was met with the familiar sound cat owners everywhere will recognise and dread, the sound of your cat about to deliver you with a ‘gift’. Without disturbing the household I ran downstairs to be met by a true cat and mouse game. On seeing me said cat grabbed the mouse and legged it upstairs with me in hot pursuit. This mouse sure had spirit and after being dropped several times it proceeded to run into bedroom where the other half was snoring away...and I mean snoring! With lights on and squeals from me and the mouse the other half was dragged from his slumber to be greeted by me, the cat and the mouse! After several minutes of who can catch who first, cat decided she had enough and proceeded with mouse downstairs into the dark of the garden. Not to be petered and on a ‘I will rescue this mouse’ mission I followed with great speed! At this point the tale gets even crazier...and yes it is true! The mouse makes a dash for it and can be seen, as my eyes adjust to the darkness, zig zagging across the lawn with cat in full pursuit, I begin to follow the same path and soon we could be likened to a comedy trio or a scene from Tom and Jerry. As the cat is distracted by something rustling in the bushes I take my chance and grab the mouse with the intent of releasing this cute little thing to safer pastures! ‘CUTE’ little thing bites me, talk about biting the hand that feeds you! Said mouse is dropped as I reel back with shock and throw in a couple of expletives for good measure! The mouse is last seen snaking its way across the lawn with cat in hot pursuit once again, oh and the rustling...as I walk into the house nursing my bite and wondering if I could in fact use this to my advantage, desperate times require desperate measures, as a reason for an extension to completing a 4000 word essay I have to write in less than two weeks, the rustler presents itself...the hedgehog that appears to have taken up residence over the last week has come to see what all the commotion is about....just another boring day in our rural Idyll...I think not!

Show and tell

A few weeks ago I discovered the consequences of being rushed off my feet with work and trying to balance my rural life; tomato plants that were shouting ‘help us..Water’,salad onions which quite frankly needed resuscitation and a cat called Pandora who was very put out that she had missed a meal, and boy she was not going to let us forget it in a hurry!
We did our first ‘show and tell’ for flax & finch and I could never have imagined just how much work would have to go in to getting us ‘show’ ready! The week before was a manic dash to suppliers to collect goods and signing off designs for the display stand. By 1pm on Saturday afternoon as the local festival opened the stand would not have looked out of place on a Country Living photo set,if I say so myself! The same could not be said for me; I was a sweaty, dusty, tired, I've been dragged through a hedge backwards, mess!
The show was a great success and despite losing my roped in sales assistant, ‘him indoors', on a number of occasions as he strolled off for yet another drink or to listen to a band, I thoroughly enjoyed it. By close of day on the Sunday I was relaxed and calm and although still had the whole hedge backwards look going on, felt we had not only survived our first flax & finch show but it had been a major triumph!
So...despite the expiration of some of our vegetables...,forgetting to give Pandora her dinner, oops! and needing a good scrub down with a brush, would I do it again? Hell yes...but next time I think we will refrain from taking the whole of the garden and house furniture, setting the scene is so important you know!,and will definitely take a sales assistant that has more than a passing interest in soft furnishings!!

Life can be strange really, one day you are floating down the river on a friends boat thinking how wonderful life is and then before you know it you are charging round the house tidying away the debris of the weekend and collecting the washing, because when my partner left it on the floor last night he clearly believed my only job on a Monday morning would be collecting his cast off’s and returning them to his wardrobe as though they had never been warn, it’s that laundry fairy you see...the one that comes in when no-one is looking or so those that don’t even know where the washing machine is, believe. You see, I am one of those ‘working at home’ sorts that people can never quite get their heads round...'I was just passing so thought I’d drop in for a cuppa’ or ‘as you are at home could you just....’ i’m sure you get my drift!
Don’t get me wrong I love working from home, no long daily commute to work at hours of the day where it should clearly be illegal to travel. or driving at speeds where cyclists smile at you smugly as they thunder past you in lycra shorts which quite frankly should be illegal!
My office these days is a lovely garden room with walls of windows overlooking the garden from where I can stroll out when I see fit or pop next door to my neighbours to grab a coffee break. And then there are those times when I think that ‘popping’ to the shops in my work time might be quieter or when I can’t cope with walking past the washing up one more time without the need to do it before my next work task, a clean house helps me concentrate you know! And don’t get me started on the need to be checking facebook and Twitter...how on earth did we manage before we felt the need to communicate every aspect of our lives to anyone who cares to listen?
Once a week I do allow myself the guilty pleasure of sloping off to Pilate's for the morning and spend the rest of the day planning how I can find time each day to get to the gym, I’m still planning...
But for all of the distractions, the belief that if I am home I should have an immaculate house, I wish! And the constant balancing act of home life and work would I give it all up to work in an office, no bigger than my downstairs toilet...you must be kidding!