Why my dog and husband have a lot in common...

Friday 27 March 2015

Cool and showery with sun later
14 degrees

I wake at 6.15 thinking of everything I have to do and am down in the kitchen, printing off mandate forms when OH appears.  I don't think I have seen him at this time in the morning for at least a year.  He wanders around, getting in the way and tripping over the ironing board. The dog has his paw over his eyes and is trying to pretend this just isn't happening so early in the morning.

By 8.05 we are out of the house and at the top of the road where mobile signal kicks in.  My 9.00 appointment in the far away mountains has cancelled.  Why do people always cancel by text.  Why the hell can't they email or, even better, ring up?  I say to OH we need to go in any event to see the property we intended taking on in a mountain village.  Manage to close my eyes and ignore the swerving motions.  OH needs the loo so we look for a bar and can't find one until we get to the town which has a fiendish one-way system and it is market day so extra impossible to find a parking spot.

We squeeze in next to a mini chateau and go to the bar opposite.  OH goes into the loos and I order coffee.  Ten seconds later, OH bursts out of the loos, declaring they are all point and shoot, and charges out of the door.  The bar owner is making coffee.  I run out after him and he is already 50 metres up the road.  It is like being out with the dog.  I shout and he ignores me.  Finally catch him up and do a lot of shouting.  He goes and gets the car and I find a parking space outside a bar and guard it against would be parkers for what seems like a very long time before OH finally turns up.  

We have what turns out to be an exceptionally good cup of coffee and a framboise tarte and admire the art deco writing on the post office building.  A mentally retarded girl hassles us for our mobile phone to make a call and the bar owner comes out and takes her inside.

Refreshed and calmed down, we go to the meeting place and the owner comes to meet us. He had said that his house was just five minutes from town and is was because he drove like a maniac.  OH was happy to take up the challenge.  The coffee and cake started churning in me and I felt like throwing up by the time we got there.

The house and gite and apartment are absolutely lovely.  The living room has exposed stone walls with a huge log fire and is wonderfully warm and welcoming and the double glazed windows almost block out the noise of the passing traffic.  Almost but not quite.  For a country road, it carries a surprising amount of traffic.  The land contains a lot of chickens and they have taken off the grass and made a lot of mud.  It is on a bend in the road.  Still, the price is good and so is the coffee and we leave with a mandate so the morning has not been wasted.

Drive off west and find another town with a stunning river pounding through the centre. There is only one bar/restaurant open and we have the menu.  Tuna tarte with salad and good dressing followed by hake in tomato sauce with pasta and finishing up with chocolate mousse.  The restaurant was full of workmen, eating the menu and drinking wine or beer.  It is absolutely beyond me how people consume this much food, wash it down with alcohol, and then go back out and do another five hours work.  We got home and had to have a sleep.

All too soon, 2.45 came around and it was back to the dentist to find out why a bit had dropped off my new tooth.  It transpired that the morsel of hard stuff was just glue and that the hole was a slight imperfection in the ceramic crown.  He took the opportunity to take out the stitches.  

It was then back to the car park in my town to meet yesterday's clients.  They had been to see a house in the back of beyond, no relation to what they had said they were looking for, and only 150k.  They showed it to me on the Internet and it was fabulous.  I did some very quick thinking, remembered a house I had seen on a private ad yesterday, and took them to see the outside.  A very confused Swedish man opened the door and he was a renter who was leaving tomorrow.  I made an appointment with the owner for 4 pm tomorrow and then left them to wander around in the fine rain.

Back home and caught up with emails and updated the software.

Spoke to the seller of the town house where there are two buyers and it transpires that there may be a legal loophole because the offer document used by the other agent doesn't have a date beyond which the offer is no longer valid.  She will know next week.

Had toast for tea.  Still raining.

What is marriage?

Sunday 22 February 2015

Brilliant blue skies with cloud later
9 degrees

Wake early and write.  There is something blissful about having the whole day ahead of you, with no work obligations, and the freedom to express your thoughts.  Writing is happiness, as is gardening.  No one knows who I am when I write.  No one tells me what to do in my garden.  Leads me to wonder how much of our time do we spend, being who we actually are and doing what our hearts wish.  As a child of the 50's, I was raised to be polite and obedient, not to be pushy or aggressive, not to expect too much, not to talk back, not to be too visible.  I dont remember ever being told what I should be, other than 'good'.  My mother was brought up on a mantra of 'children should be seen and not heard', and to some extent passed that onto her children.  I have not deliberately done this with mine but wonder to what extent, subconsciously or otherwise, I have passed my upbringing onto them?

When I was young and dating, I presented a very acceptable form of me to my dates.  It all fell apart when I started being the real me and not the very compliant me.  I was then crushed.  On reflection, I was being dishonest and this led to problems at work, as the me I was presenting was oceans apart from the real me.  I spent a lot of time smiling and nodding and not 'talking back' whilst under the surface was a frothing rage of emotions and frustration.  Passive aggressive, that was me.

In my experience, men dont fall for this 'being not themselves' thing.  They are what they are and they keep looking for someone who fits with them and when they think they have the right person, then they form a long term relationship.  OH and I have now been together nearly thirty years and got married relatively early in our relationship.  We must have spent a good 18 months knocking the edges of one another until we achieved a compromise which worked for both of us.  

He had the surprise that I was not the always sunny character I promoted during our courtship (especially when it came to the question of having bridesmaids foisted on me by his mother) and I discovered he expected me to replace his mother.  I expected him to do repairs and home decoration.  He expected me to do all the housework, shopping and cooking and why didnt I know how to darn socks or turn a shirt collar (I am not joking here). We had gone into marriage with a lot of expectations which should have been discussed before we got to arguing about them.  I had lived in a neat and clean environment all of my life and like an ordered home.  OH had spent 27 years throwing things about and his mother had picked them up.  The first 18 months of living together were a baptism of fire where we both established limits and who would do what.  My mother in law was very distressed at my lack of cooking skills (at uni I had only been allowed to do the washing up in our communal kitchen) which consisted of lentil lasagna and curry.  I also did not wash windows (along with many other things).  I remember coming home from work and it was raining (in Preston in rains virtually every day of the year) and my mother in law was up a ladder, in an anorak, and cleaning the big plate glass windows.  I invited her in for a cup of tea and heart attack when she saw the state of the place.

After nearly 30 years, OH is a lot tidier because if he doesnt put stuff away, then I do and often dont remember what I have done with it.  He does a lot of the cooking and is much more interested in the activity than I am.  I still do most of the housework.  We have grown together and got around the tough bits.  And that is what marriage is about.

Feel free to comment.  If you are out there.   If you are listening....