Life past and present!!

While sitting in a strangers house, after washing and feeding an old lady with no teeth, cleaning up cat vomit, clearing litter trays and lightly toasting a piece of bread for a bird, I think back to times gone past.

My day used to consist of waking at 5am and getting the children up driving them to a friends house for onward transportation to school. Then 2 hours travelling to London.  When there, I would be organising work schedules, production, order creation, outwork and keeping all the clients happy.  I held meetings and spent all day rushing around.  I then spent 2 hours driving home, picking up the children, making dinner and bed ready to do it all again the next day.

Now my days consist of walking dogs, cleaning up poo, talking to parrots, getting chickens up before it's light, cooking boiled eggs for Great Danes, keeping wild cats out, keeping guest cats in, staying in cold houses, creaky houses, big houses, grand houses, spotless houses, at home houses, knocked over by goats, chased by sheep and finding chickens who have forgotten where their home is. There are houses with well water, tap water and bottled water. Electric is a hit or miss thing. the lights dip when the kettle goes on and putting on more than one appliance trips the whole system.

I've swapped my suit for a waterproof coat, court shoes for wellies, briefcase for a wheelbarrow, doing my hair now means teasing straw and hay out of it, running my fingers through it and forcing it into a scrunchie. Making my face up means smiling, having a nice soak means taking the dogs for a walk in the rain and holding a meeting consists of me giving the chickens a good talking to when trudging around in the dark with a torch gathering them up. A dual flush system now means pressing the button twice and watching the trickle of water reluctantly make its way out and try lamely to make its way down the hole, anything more than a wee doesn't usually make it. I spend many hours driving around the french countryside in search of places hidden deep in woodland, out of the way spots, down tiny tracks, some with grand entrances and some with no entrance at all.  Getting lost is an everyday thing even with a SatNav, turn left often leads you across a field, take the next right has been the entrance to a cowshed. Then there's the fog which creeps across in seconds creating a blanket of white making driving impossible above 10kmh.

So while everything was available at the touch of a button I never really appreciated it until now.  There is nothing you can rely on to work here and just a hint of a storm and the power sulks.  Taking the rubbish out now means a 15 minute walk to the end of the road several times. Putting the heating on means chopping the wood bringing it in and lighting the fire. Getting ready for winter means banging nails in and hanging blankets at doors and entrances, duct taping up holes, double glazing means sticking plastic up at the window and laying duvets on the floor in the loft. The luxury of having hot running water is beyond utopia and the immense  happiness at having a 20 year old car that starts first turn of the key makes life worthwhile.  I have definitely realised the real value of life and any materialistic tendencies have fizzled away into the distance.

Life in rural France is definitely different, interesting, eventful, stressful and hard - but that's just life on the funny farm