Let's Just Say ............

This week I spent a whole day sorting clearing and changing a computer desk over with a shelving unit.

I threw loads away, moved the table outside to the cattery, where I could place the antibacterial hand gel and virus killing spray on it to be used on entry.  I organised wires, placed phones, printers and live boxes on the disinfected shelves.  I bagged up things that had got out of hand on the shelves.  I washed the floor cleaned the walls, removing the mold and boxed up things that were becoming unruly.

After all the hard work I decided to try the mango paint I have bought for the kitchen walls.  A bright sunny colour that I thought would make the mornings and wake up process a little easier.

So I slopped the paint on covering me and the walls, floors and anything in a metre radius.  I completed a small metre square patch on the wall.  Loved the colour it was just as sunny and bright as I thought it would be.

Anyway the next day my friend turned up to walk my dogs with her dog.  After this she came in for a coffee.  I told her about all my hard work. While she sat there drinking her coffee and eating chocolate cake she casually said ' well when you have finished sorting and organising the shelves it will look really good.  Love the colour of the wall.  Did you prepare the wall before you painted?

With a gulp of coffee I told her that the shelving unit was organised and completed!  She laughed her head off and said is that the best it's going to be??

As for 'preparing' the walls - what was that I asked I just slapped the paint on over everything.  She laughed again and told me all the arduous tasks you should go through before slapping paint on!!

So 'let's just say'  I am not good at DIY and I am not very good (apparently) at organising and sorting. See you learn something every day.

Chaos still reigns on the Funny Farm

My Birthday

Well today it's my Birthday.  Will there be balloons, flowing wine and celebrations?  Now that's a nice thought but the reality is 'I don't think so'!

Gone are the days when you wake up to presents copious amounts of cards and Birthday wishes.  I remember my work days in the UK when it was your responsibility to buy cakes for everyone in the firm when it was your Birthday.  They had to be cream cakes and very calorific.  You would get in to work and your desk would be covered in cards and presents and your working day would be lightened as a reward.

I remember the excitement of wondering what my dear Mum had bought me.  She knew me so well that I always got given something wonderful. She would cook me one of her magnificent meals, she was just a divine cook and her roast potatoes were like clouds, fluffy and light.

My Birthdays when I was married were grim.  I never got a present from my husband, I was lucky if he remembered.  I remember once he wrapped up a load of old jewellery and there was I thinking he had actually bothered.  On my 40th Birthday he thew all my presents and broke them in jealousy and hated me getting more cards than him, someone you had to feel sorry for and hope one day he will be happy with himself inside and out.

This year my Birthday will go like this, the toilet needs to be unblocked, the dogs need walking, the cats need feeding, the eggs need collecting, vet appointment, recycling needs doing, rubbish bags taken to the bins, washing and I need to get on with my latest portrait.

Am I happy, yes very, I had a kiss and hug from my two lovely children, my dog was happy to see to me today with waggy tail and a kiss, I am having a coffee with a friend later today, it isn't raining and the sun is trying to come out. The fact that I come out of my front door and smell fresh air and not car exhaust, I see green fields and trees, animals playing, cockerels crowing, geese hissing, tractors working, deer's jumping and playing around in the fields and life is alright.

So I'm sending out Birthday waves to everyone today, keep smiling and make the most of the little things in life xxx

 

In my Head

In my head I get up early, I whirl around doing de-cluttering, housework, washing, cleaning and various other domestic things.  In my head I make lists and I am very organised.  In my head I create wonderful new businesses and market my own business impeccably .  I make wonderful dinners and bake cakes with pretty flowers on the top, iron and fold up clothes placing them in flower perfumed draws.  I steam clean everything once a week.  I spend time everyday writing my book, painting and drawing.  Beds are straightened smart and flat.  This is my life in my head.

My reality is something slightly different.  I stagger out of bed after 3 alarms chime, scream and shout at me.  I rush to make breakfast for the children.  Porridge in the microwave with no glass turning table as this has broken, so I have to balance the dish on the plastic forks that turns.  If uneven the dish tips and you end up with porridge all over the place.  My second job is to unblock the toilet.  This has to be done everyday as we have the most inefficient toilet in France.  I have got the plunge time down to half a minute with a technique that forces everything down the minuscule hole into the foss.  Next job is letting dogs out, cats in, feeding cleaning cat toilets and doing the outside poo run, making sure the bucket doesn't touch you and you don't tread in anything. I find that managing to get socks that match is a once a month miracle.  Wearing a bra is a rare occurrence as anything more than a nipple and you have to buy maternity!  It is now 11.30am so no beds made, no washing on, no pretty cakes made, no ironing done (not that I can find my iron at the moment), no vacuuming done, dishwasher not cleared and re-filled and no steaming done.

You see these wonderful mothers who fit so much into their days, being domestic goddesses. Could it be that difficult to be a domestic goddess or are some of us just not made to be like that! I am not and never will be a domestic goddess, life is chaos and the animals take up most of my time.  I am lucky if I get one job done in a day and then I feel I have achieved something!

 

A Vision

Well today I popped into town to get a few bits. On the way home I was blessed with a vision of a man, in town, standing up doing a wee on someone's garage doors!  If it's not bad enough that on a daily basis you have to detour around a car abandoned in the middle of the road and the vision of the driver doing a wee in the fields or up a bush on the side of the road but to be forced to see someone's tackle in town is beyond the pale.

The once raging appetite, which was the reason for me buying the Emmental Salade sandwich, vanished in a blink of an eye, now left with this disturbing vision not sure cheese is on the menu!

I wonder if the offending male would wee up his own garage doors or would be happy if a stranger elected his garage doors to empty his bladder onto?

Oh the joys of rural life!

Today

So today I am on the road to recovery.  I have had some sort of flu like virus which put me in bed for two days and rendered me more useless than I already am.  So today I get up and feel slightly more normal.  Making the list of things to do that should have been done a few days ago, I swig down a vitamin, mineral drink to aid the energy that is lacking, eat my sugarless porridge and get ready to hit the day.

First job was to feed the cats.  There are several sections of cats, the outside ones the indoors ones and the cattery.  So in my slippers and dressing gown I step outside into the garage to feed the outside ones only to squidge my left bunny, fluffy with ears slipper straight into a lump of poo! Totally horrified I hobble outside to scrape my slipper on the grass only to step into a large wet goose poo with the other slipper just outside the garage door!!! Removing both slippers I tiptoe back inside holding bunny slippers at arms length.  Throwing them mistakenly in the dishwasher I then put on rubber outside shoes and go to clean up the mess!  I then realised I had put them into the wrong machine panicked, put it right and put dishwasher on for an intensive cycle.

Having felt a bit better today I have done many loads of washing.  This was not without hassle.  Hanging up the washing is an art as you have to hang it high enough so the outside cats don't squirt up it.  You have to keep an eye on the bag full of the washing because they have a habit of sidling up unannounced and do a quick squirt just so you don't notice and then run off. You also have to be careful not to fall down the holes in the grass.  This I did today went flat on my face, when standing up I noticed my hand was brown and knowing my luck it wasn't mud!!! Having a tentative sniff I was relieved to say it was.

All this aside I am happy to say  I am on the mend and the weather is lovely.  My little friendly goose is always happy to see me and wanting her lovely long neck stroked.   What a day now its the cooking a meal for the family.  Always fun here on the Funny Farm.

Just Wondering

I'm just wondering if its fair.  When you are married and your other half does something wrong and you divorce, you have to pay to divorce them even though they are the ones who have wronged you.

My divorce cost me over £12,000 all because my husband fought every step of the way wanted everything, even the roof over our children's head.  I had to take it all to court which cost even more.  He on the other hand was in prison so got everything free.  The state had to pay to have him taken out of prison to attend court which cost a fortune as he had to be in an heavy duty van, handcuffed to two guards. Me on the other hand was suffering from a head injury, traumatized children and a redundancy.

He spent his life living on the back of my career and didn't really contribute to much.  It seems so wrong that he then wanted the house the car the money and said he didn't care if his children were left on the street penniless!  I remember the judge in the court telling him that in his court my husband has no rights specially as he was sitting handcuffed to two big guards!  He also said that he would not have allowed the attack charge to be reduced so as to guarantee a charge, something that still upsets me as I had concussion for a week and didn't recover properly for over 2 years from the head injury.

I now have the same problem (will I ever learn you say!).  I have my house here, which was paid for totally by my family, but has the man, who conned us out of over a million euros, name on the deeds.  I remember him saying that he will not do all the building work if he doesn't have his name on the deeds as well.  He said how can I trust you not to shut me out when I've given up everything  for you!!! I have since found out that if I die he gets everything and my family can be thrown out and be homeless.  I now have to pay to take his name off and it is possible, specially in french law, that I will have to give him half the value of the property.  Bearing in mind he put nothing into the property has never paid one bill and was in debt, we found out after he disappeared, when we met him.  This I have been told will cost me a lot of money. something I do not have, plus it might not ever be able to be done.  French law is different and doesn't make a lot of sense. He told the police when he was arrested that he didn't want anything to do with the house but he knows if he just hangs on he is going to inherit it.

So I am asking why do we have to be the ones to pay for the right thing to happen.  I also want to know if I have finally learnt my lesson.  Although I have to say when my whole family were conned I was recovering from a head injury, a divorce and a redundancy.  I had taken several little jobs just to make ends meat but was very unwell, so to have a man come in like a angel doing everything, helping everyone and generally being wonderful you tent to let them take over.  It is not until you are left with nothing you find out he heard about your story and zoned in on you!

So I ask again is it fair that the wronged party has to do all the legal work and all the paying?  It seems a little unfair. Also if I haven't learnt my lesson now then there is no hope for me!  

Never a Dull Moment

So I'm on the last day of this job, a bunch of kenneled dogs.  While I waded through the copious amounts of dog wee and poo, which I might add had been spread thickly across the floor like nutella, I wonder to myself how did I end up doing this?

The room where the dogs live is cold even on a hot day and the smell is quite lively!  The smell of pungent dog poo lingers in your nostrils for many hours after leaving said barn.  Worrying in the fact that a physics teacher in my secondary school once told us that you smell things because little particles of the smell go up your nose and stick to your hairs, remember that the next time someone close to you has wind!!! Some facts are better left unknown.

Not sure if you remember but we now have 21 cats at home.  This is not by choice but just happened.  My local vet who is wonderful said that the worming tablets cost over 6 euros each and that she has got some treatments you use on farm animals that is the same but would cost less.  After working out the relevant dosage I went away with two bottles.  Well today we tried to worm all 21 cats!  We first had to weight the cats.  This proved very hard as some were tiny and didnt even move the scales.  We resorted to the kitchen scales and a plastic bowl.  Then my daughter had to stand on the other scales then hold the cat while I peered through squinting eyes to work out how many tiny red lines had increased.  After that I then had to prepare two pipettes of liquid.  My daughter then holding the cats feet and scruff I proceeded to squirt the liquid into their mouths.  It turns out that one of the treatments is ok the other is foul and all cats foamed at the mouth went crazy and thew up!  This took a few hours to complete and was traumatic for all concerned.  I'm thinking maybe it would be better to save up and buy the tablets instead.

Other news on the funny farm, our dog Alfie stole my daughter's salmon puff and managed to eat it before she got to him.  We have a glut of goose and duck eggs.  Oh and my son thought he would light to fire that belongs to the central heating.  This has not been used for few years as the pipes are all split.  I get a phone call saying we have had a massive leak.  Not sure why or what reason he decided to do this but we now have brown water marks all over the walls, the hall carpet has had to hung high up on a pole to dry off without cats squirting on it.  The phone now crackles when used and the platerboard is looking a little wobbly!

Never a dull moment on the Funny Farm