Close Quarters

Living in the rented cottage was fun to begin with. It remains an extremely well-appointed holiday house. The not having any toys thing makes for remarkably clutter-less living. Truly remarkable for me. But on a Saturday when everyone else is out there isn’t much to do here and it’s no place to be on your own. Under normal circs on a Saturday such as this I would be cooking, radio on, singing, dancing, embarrassing any passing children.

We have collectively and individually become very good at spending as little time in the cottage as possible, the space being too small for the children to fight in, the kitchen too small to cook in for anything other than necessity and the bed too small for my husband and I ever to have a full night’s sleep in. (My husband or I can have a full night’s sleep in it, but not together.)

With the boys away killing birdies and my daughter at a friend’s house I have, until now, had a gratifyingly successful day of staying out of the cottage. I think what I have been doing is similar to what disaffected teenagers do. I may yet find myself hanging around the village cross at nine o’clock at night in inadequate clothes, furtively smoking whilst scowling.

I should acknowledge my horse’s help in facilitating my being out today. And, massively, my friend Ice Maiden AKA the Horse Whisperer. My horse went lame yesterday so I was up first thing to see him, dragging my daughter with me. He is staying at IM’s stable just now, my field (in which IM’s horses and mine live most of the time) being treacherously pitted with hoof prints, frozen solid and unusable. Having broken the early morning ice on the puddles at the stable my daughter snuck into IM’s house and ensconced herself. She has been quiet, tidy and helpful and has managed to stay there all day. Maximum points to her. I finished doing the horses and had a cup of tea. I sipped it slowly. I went and collected some hay from my store and stacked it in IM’s store. Very neatly. No point in going back to the cottage because the vet was coming. I went to our house and had a look round the building site where a totally humourless bearded man I have never seen before was standing in my son’s bedroom breaking something. I went and got some grit for the ice at the stables. I chatted to people I normally only nod to.

There are always horse poos to pick up. I did that too. Again. Then the vet came so I kept him talking for as long as I could. And the work experience girl who was with him. I’m sure she was more fascinated than she looked to learn that I did work experience with a vet when I was in 3rd year too. I fed my horse his pain killers and gave the other two something to eat too so they wouldn’t be jealous. Then it was lunch time – a dangerous break in the day. I went into the house to pretend that I was about to take my daughter and myself away and was offered some lunch. What could I say?

After lunch, the girls started designing a book. IM and Mr IM drifted off to do some DIY. Nothing to do at the stables so I walked across the garden to the field and attempted to pick up frozen horse poo there. The rake we use for the job was unwilling to be cajoled into service as an ice axe, a task for which it is plainly unsuited. A chip of frozen horse poo flew into my mouth. So I went and picked up some warm ones which by then had appeared at the stable.

It was too early to start putting the horses to bed so I went and had a coffee in the deli. I sipped it as slowly as I can sip a cappuccino. As I was leaving I saw someone I vaguely know walking up the main street. Even though my car was facing in the right direction for going back to the cottage I turned it round in the opposite direction and turned it again in her street, just in case she spotted me and perhaps, I dunno, asked me in for another coffee. But she had disappeared.

That was when I realised there was no avoiding going back to the cottage.

Now, fortunately, its time to start putting the horses to bed. It can take an hour if I steam all the hay, which obviously I will. Luckily we’re going out for dinner tonight. To Ice Maiden’s. Lucky for us, anyway.