Back Home Again

I flew out on a Wednesday, one week ago today. John picked me up but was so weakened by being sick for 2 months that I drove our car home. Knowing how much my husband prefers to drive and knowing how little he thinks of my driving prowess, I knew this coming week would test us both. For I too wasn’t feeling so hot. Actually, I was feeling quite hot and then quite cold, so we were quite a pair as we stumbled slowly to pick up a few hundred dollars of food for me to cook for us. But for that night I selected a pre-cooked chicken that was taken off the rotisserie in time for me to buy it. Eventually, we arrived at our country cottage. At first glance it looked reasonably tidy but as I walked on the pathways, I noticed the endless broken pots turned over onto the sodden ground and all the broken bits of trees that were everywhere I looked.
Once inside I almost fell over. Everything was located in a different place amidst cardboard boxes of stuff, like the dozens of eggs. Every surface seemed crammed with things I’d had in other spots. Mixed up assortments of things were in cartons in every room, along with furniture that was not where it belonged. The kitchen wasn’t too bad but I could tell that John’s lack of interest in keeping things sanitary did apply to many places where we cook. But he did clean off an entire counter space that I’d had filled with things I use and I could see that he arranged the few items he wanted in his particular way that includes some sort of logic. I just wasn’t thrilled to have to rewash dishes that were still drying or clean the kitchen bench tops, the counters, so I could put the new foodstuffs away. But I knew in advance that a sick person like John who has a different view of cleanliness than I do, wouldn’t give a toss about dusting or vacuuming or washing the sinks. Our bedroom was the least bit affected and then I knew that it was our son’s recent rearranging of his possessions that turned our lives upside down.
That was the culprit.
Aha, I thought.
Jake had been here to help John for a few days and in that time, he managed to destroy our relative domestic bliss by putting things in every place but where they belonged.
I could understand though. He was good company for John and he did drive him wherever they wanted to go, thus relieving his father of that responsibility. But most of all, it was raining most of the time he visited and that kind of dark, dreary, saturated dampness has been the bane of our existence here for almost two years now. Every season has been colder than usual and terribly wet. This dank dilemma is hard for oldies to take. We are now one month into our spring season and everything is moldy and slippery and smelly..
My poor chickens are just as depressed. But there is a bright spot to this tale of woe. Just days after I left my daughter, son-in-law and grandson, their ornamental fruit trees have come into complete blossom and Julie sent me two quickly snapped shots of those glorious pink beauties that I had photographed earlier in the week, before their more dramatic coming out party. So here they are. And now I’m going to go to sleep early and dream of sunnier days with tidier gardens and houses.
Or maybe I’ll buy a magic wand and just sit back and eat endless amounts of chocolate. Hmm....