Dear Reader, I can only apologise for the wall of silence from me of late. It has been one thing after another lately! Water coming through the ceiling, trees coming down making roads impassable, escaping chickens, 3 cracked windscreens (twice on my car, would you believe it?), 2 flat tyres, 1 pair of favourite trousers ripped and the week from hell when Poppy caught the norovirus and was very ill indeed, resulting in our first trip to a countryside hospital! I wish spring would really take hold, dear Reader. The four of us are sick of the rain as I am sure so many of you are too. Our school run route is under water and we can see sandbags are out, water is being pumped on to country roads and carpets have been taken up. Farmland is awash with water and the landscape is more brown sludge than green with flecks of white snowdrops and yellow daffodils. Still, we must be thankful we are not in Somerset. My thoughts go out to those poor people.
I found myself ever grateful for the wonderful nature of country folk around here a week ago. Trying to get home after dropping Primrose off one morning, I found myself face to face with rather a lot of water.
Luckily for me, a very nice chap in a tractor (Poppy still hasn’t got over that a tractor stopped to talk to us) stopped me before I went any further. The road was in the process of being closed (no guesses as to why…) and there was even more water further down – only really just passable with a 4×4 and certainly not with a puny school run car. The ‘very nice chap’ looked me up and down and asked if I had any wellies in the back. I replied that I hadn’t but I did have a rather smart working cocker spaniel who enjoyed a swim. Judging by the bemused look I was given, it would appear, dear Reader, that Monty on this occasion would be of no use….and wellingtons would have been a more sensible addition to the boot that morning. Said very nice man then told me to follow him through the water and I proceeded to drive through the wake of a tractor until I reached a dry track again. I also received a very much needed lecture of the list of countryside must-haves for the boot of the car should I find myself in a similar pickle in the future. To the ‘very nice chap’ – you are my hero of the day!
I’m afraid it didn’t stop with watery incidents either that day. Jerry’s supposedly trusty Lanny giant got a flat battery and Jerry and I spent half an hour in the dark trying to extract the enormous thing from the car in the freezing cold before attempting to recharge it in the laundry room. I am sure that this sort of stuff only happens to us. It just hasn’t been our month. Still, as someone said to me this week, we must count our blessings and looking at all the flood water in the surrounding countryside, I have to say, our lot could be far far worse. There was even a hint of a rainbow this morning so that has to be a sign that things are on the up, wouldn’t say, dear Reader?
In all the recounting of chaos, I forgot to tell you dear Reader, that Monty, our gorgeous spaniel boy, turned 1. Any excuse for cake. He even got a feathery birthday treat when Henny, our little brown hen tried her special ‘escape from chicken Alcatraz’ number and shimmied under the fence. The birthday hound saw an opportunity to embarrass me further chasing her all round the garden whilst I ran after him in my dressing gown, pyjamas and wellies, yelling “Leave”. I imagine that our neighbours had a good old giggle at my expense that morning.
My silver lining finally appeared though……a couple of nominations in the Mad Blog Awards for Most Entertaining blog, Best Blog Writer and MAD Blog of the Year. Whoever you are – I could kiss you for nominating me. I got the tweets just as I thought the week was a complete dead loss! I hold no hopes out for winning but the nominations have cheered me up no end. So….THANK YOU! I raise a gin to you!