The Time of My Life - home alone

J is off down to London (again!) tomorrow to work the London Golf Show. The van is loaded with his “Caddy Covers” and he is staying with our friends G and O, who are now back home following A’s funeral.

O will fuss over him like no-one’s business! She is an amazing cook and he will come home at least a stone heavier from homemade apple pie or sticky toffee pudding every night. He doesn’t get that here! I say it’s because I’m watching his waistline and cholesterol level, but really it’s because I just couldn’t compete. I struggle with pastry – my hands are a bit affected by my Scleroderma; enough to find it hard going, but I have made it and can hold my head up high to a homemade lemon meringue pie the other week!

And so I will be torn away from this site to do the “jobs” J does when he’s about. A good thing methinks, as I am in danger of losing my focus this week, what with damp weather forecast for these parts over the next few days. Otherwise, it would be a perfect excuse to stay indoors and nurse the laptop and a cup of tea, instead of my raised beds!

Mum is coming for a girlie overnighter on Wednesday, so we will eat scrummy food and gossip like girls over a glass or two of wine, and then she will demand Ovaltine to take off to bed for her bit of a read before lights out. I have bought one of those whizzy things to froth it up (off good old eBay of course) so it’s just like the way she does it at home. It’s a surprise, and I can’t wait to see her face!

J will be home late on Sunday night and I will stay up to wait for him. The dogs will only go ballistic anyway when they hear the van reverse on the drive, meaning sleep will be out of the question until he gets in safe. I always worry when he comes home from an event or show, because he has been up at the crack of dawn, worked all day, loaded the van and driven all the way home; totally dead on his feet. It’s a hard life, working on the road, and I’m glad he doesn’t do it so often these days, since he has got his website up and running.

The next one is Bakewell Show in August, and I always work that one with him. We stay in a B&B up at Monsal Head and make a weekend of it; enjoying the scenery of the Peak District and it’s usually good weather (although that’s NOT great when you’re selling brollies, like us!). But I love this particular show because they have livestock, horticultural areas, heavy horse shows, crafts and local produce – a proper old fashioned “country” show. These “Ag Shows” are getting fewer and far between, as the countryside is tweaked and pruned to within an inch of its life. They are changing into glorified markets and the traders, like J, who sell handmade items like walking sticks etc., and offer a good old fashioned service, are being replaced by those that sell disposable, plastic goods that won’t see the year out. But this is the changing face of the world and we are lucky to have the few remaining shows that we work.

I hate it when he goes away. I always think that I’ll enjoy the “me time” and try and plan to do things I wouldn’t if he were here. But the site of the bag on the landing, getting ever fatter, makes me really morose and I flit around aimlessly, totally without focus. When he pulls off the drive, the girls whine for a while (Alfie is an old hand by now) at the emptiness that seems to descend on our home. But then I become a little brisk, for want of a better expression, and tackle things I have put off or take them out for a really long walk. The upside is the lack of mess! How can one man create so much disarray? But by Sunday, I will be eager (ok, so slight exaggeration there) for abandoned shoes and paperwork strewn over the kitchen table – homely mess, as he likes to call it!