The stupendously silly season

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I should be waiting a little longer before writing this, until the stupendously silly season is over, but if I do there will be too much to say, because there has been too, too much to do..…

In a week or so, everything .. please. please, everything .. that is happening in the beleaguered land of Gerolstein will be over, and we shall be able to enjoy our ‘summer’ (if and when it happens) in the peace and calm of our lovely rural surroundings. But, for the moment .. (silent howl)

It started with the bathroom. If I had known what was coming, I would never have dared the bathroom. But I did. And – give or take a few final and decorative touches - it’s done. Yesterday a lady came to ‘vitroglaze’ the shower room, tonight it will be dry .. and I shall be able to inaugurate my Monsoon dump shower. It had better be a stunner.
The operation is, I think, wholly successful. The room has come out exactly as I imagined and wanted it. The tradesmen have been every one a gem, the thanks for which must go to Richard the Revamper: he may be extraordinarily expensive, but he is extraordinarily good, and we all know, to coin a cliché .. ‘you gets what you pays for’.



So, the bathroom done, and bedroom two metamorphosed into a delightful dressing room, we now move to the replacement of half the bedroom ceiling, and on Friday the roofers begin the entire re-roofing of the house. I can’t even think about that one. Please the Lord they don’t make a mess …



The saga of the trees ended happily. After the disastrous episode of getting fifty pine trees topped of ten to fifteen metres of huge frizzly spires – an exercise which cost us broken fences, smashed gates, ruined hay, a wrecked electric fence system (still not working) – I called in a classy firm by name Roseworks: and in a day and a half those young lads with their chainsaws and a bobcat had turned a mass of tangled, broken boles and branches into a neat pile of shaven tree-trunks (size a, to be sold), another of size b, to be cut up and used for the winter’s fires, and a third, large one of rubbishy bits (to be burned) .. all that remains now for me to do, in person, is pick up the thousands of pine cones lying in the paddock so that they do not damage horses feet or farm machines!



Today? Ah, today the haymaker arrived at 7am to mow, and any minute now I shall be turfed out of here by Spiderman who is coming to spray the houses, inside and out, in a usually very successful bug protection exercise. Tomorrow the men from Daikin come to instal Wendy’s heat pump, Friday it’s the roofer, the vet to ensure that Duchess is in foal, and also probably the man to grade etc our 500 metres of driveway..



And somewhere in there, are horses. They too have been active. D’Arcy continues his ‘finishing school’ at Motukarara, Lucie will follow him there very soon: she is very much a handful (I hesitate to say ‘her mother’s daughter’ given the notoriety of her mother) and has a cavalier disregard for fences. That is to say, she doesn't stop when she gets to one .. she goes over, under it, or straight through it. Ping. Mikie has the cart back on for the first time today. Elena has had a wee freshener and goes to the workouts on Saturday. And over in Australia very little Livia, only just turned two, is about to do the same! Amazing! An early two-year-old! And in France, Tenor has been to Caen (in spite of a blodge of muddy heel) and qualified comfortably…



Duchess (once scanned and, I pray, found pregnant) and Douchelette and dear Sally will move into the hay paddock as soon as we are baled which will be somewhat of a relief, as Douchelette seems to have inherited the female family traits and shows all signs of being a very lively lassie. A nice 4 acre paddock should keep her occupied!

My quiet spring. My lazy summer. To get a breather, I have booked a wee trip to see Barry and Rosie in Sydney in January..

But it’s a long way to January. Still, maybe after this week – after the baling, the spraying, the roofing, the building and all the rest -- life at Gerolstein will be able to relax back into its normal routine

Festive season? No way. Festive, for us, will be a bottle or two of bubbly on the terrace, in country silence, looking out at our horses and our gardens..
We’ll have earned it.