(Not) Working from Home

Working from home is never easy, but today looks as if it will be even worse than usual as it is 11.49 and so far I have done just 35 minutes work.  I try to keep the balance right by designating certain days as ‘work’ days, and on those days I aim to be smartly dressed (scruffy jeans for ‘home’ days only), and if I have no appointments, am at my desk by 9am.  My ‘office’ is a room in the back part of the house, just the other side of the living room, next to the laundry/boiler room area. I only mention this so you know that I have the minimum of distractions there (far from the coffee machine and no view of the pool), and that my commute to work is not too arduous.

09.00 - At desk, raring to go.

09.15 - Finish catching up on the gossip on Facebook and Twitter and open email page.

09.25 - Finish deleting all the spam (I don’t want my loft insulating, or to help Reverend Mbawe get his millions out of Nigeria, or have my penis enlarged (?!)), and finally open an enquiry from a client who asks…

09.26 - Dogs want to go outside.

09.27 -  Dogs want to come back inside.

09.31 - Cat appears on window-sill wanting to come in.  Apparently not.  Maybe later.

09.32 - Pick up all the papers that have blown onto the floor when window was opened.  Back to the email from the client who wants to know if…. 

09.34 - Cat reappears and seems to be starving to death.  Apparently his bowl is not completely full.  I remedy the situation.

09.37 - Back to desk and the client who wants to know if I can help with renting out his holiday villa.  Google the address and it looks a good property so I start typing a reply with the list of….  

09.45 - Doorbell rings and I fight my way past the dogs who still believe they can get out through a door before it is fully opened.  Postman is at the gate and needs a signature for a parcel delivery.

09.47 - In bathroom running arm under cold water until the bleeding stops and then applying a plaster to the scratch I received when a dog managed to push me into the rose-bush so he could be first to greet the postman.  NB. Possibly not deliberate.

09.55 - Back to the enquiry and I manage to send the reply, ask for a convenient time to visit, send a list of questions, and also to…. 

10.15 -  Partner turns up as he was ‘just passing’ en route to another appointment and thought it would be nice to have coffee together.

10.25 - Spend 30 minutes sitting in the garden having coffee together (see my Blogpost of 12th Jan re not drinking coffee at desks).

10.55 - Partner leaves, informs me that he will be back for lunch.  How nice.

11.00 - Delete two more spam emails then spend several minutes trying to work out how to block them, discover an important email in ‘Junk Mail’ folder, write apologetic email explaining the delay, continue replying to…

11.17 - Go outside to see why dogs are barking crazily.  Remove frog from pool and return it to pond.

11.29 - Finish last email then print out a document ready for a visit this afternoon.  Google ‘Why is my printer not responding’.  Do not understand explanation.  Unplug printer.  Plug printer back in.  Print document.

11.43 - Telephone call.  Apparently it is my lucky day - a technician is in my area and can give me a quote for loft insulation.  I teach them a few English words they may not have heard before.

11.49 - Give up and write blogpost.

A 'Cat'astrophic Day...

I recently wrote a blog entry about how much I loved living here because no two days are ever the same and I detailed strange events that had happened during a 5 day period.  All that pales into insignificance compared to a recent set of very strange experiences that happened over a 24 hour period – and I apologise for the length of this blog but it was a very ‘full’ day!

It started on Sunday evening when my new kitten vanished into the dark and windy night.  Luckily no cars were passing at midnight or they would have seen a lunatic woman in a hideous pink dressing gown standing in the road shaking a bag of cat biscuits and calling his name!  I left the outside lights on and the kitchen door open all night and didn’t sleep very well – mainly imagining what other strange animals might try to come into the house.  The next morning, fearing the worst (although actually the dog looked quite pleased) Loulou and I walked up and down the road looking for a dead body in the hedge, then I prodded the murky depths of the pond with a stick, then grappled with the pool cover imagining that he must have fallen in chasing a lizard and drowned, but luckily found nothing.  We then went to ask the neighbours to keep their eyes open – they are in their 80s, very fit and healthy and are out gardening in all weathers, but I was still rather shocked  to see Madame squatting over a bucket next to the water butt as I approached.  I hid behind a large cactus plant until she had finished and she didn’t seem at all embarrassed to be pulling up her tracksuit bottoms as I greeted her (happily we are on kissing terms not handshakes)   I was almost convinced I had been hallucinating but I googled it later and apparently fresh urine makes perfect compost accelerator, but it has made me wary of accepting their gifts of home-grown vegetables...

My friend Vicky then arrived to carry on painting the living room and I had to leave for work – although the fact she had brought the 5 dogs again made it unlikely that the cat would be brave enough to return while I was out.  At 3pm I received a phone call from the plumber saying that he was at the rubbish tip and that he could see smoke on the top of the hill near my house.  I explained that although I was out there was no problem as my friends were at the house and hung up.  About 30 minutes later I rang Vicky to make sure that everything was OK, only to find that she had left 2 hours earlier.  On a positive note, it took my mind off the missing cat but I then had to ring the incontinent/eco-friendly neighbours just to make sure that my house wasn’t on fire.  It took a fair amount of explaining but they reassured me that everything was OK.  (Later I heard that the Mayor’s vineyard had been on fire but luckily it is not that close to the house). 

Shortly after that I was driving back down one mountain on the way to the second viewing, with the clients following in the car behind, when I heard a motorbike behind me – but when I looked in the mirror there was nothing there.  I then realised the noise was coming from the back of the car so I pulled in to the side of the road but could see nothing (nor could the bemused clients) so I explained to them that I thought I had a stone in the tyre so not to be surprised by any strange manoeuvres I might make once we got to the straight bit of road.  I then proceeded to wiggle the wheel and stamp on the brakes occasionally but nothing would dislodge it so I carried on driving to the next rendezvous almost convinced that I had a wasps nest in the boot but arrived safely in Cassagnes, 20 kilometres up another twisty mountain road.  When we had finished viewing the final property we all spotted that the back tyre was now completely flat.  The clients just happened to have a very handy electronic tyre inflator so they very kindly helped me – but to no avail, the tyre just would not inflate.  I then faced the embarrassing situation of having to unpack the entire boot area (bag of dog toys/dish/water bottles, supermarket shopping, beach towels, christmas decorations (?)) only to find that my car was the type that only came with a puncture repair kit and not a spare tyre. The breakdown service said they would send someone out within 45 minutes.  The policy here is that they get you to the nearest garage, not necessarily a tyre specialist and not necessarily near to where you want to be so the fact I was in a remote village miles from anywhere didn’t bode well.  There was obviously some event going on in the village that afternoon as well-dressed people carrying flowers and/or glasses of wine drifted in and out of the Mairie where I was parked so at least there was something to look at to pass the time, and when at last the breakdown truck arrived, everybody came out to watch, and who could blame them as it was an enormous black and yellow ex-army type vehicle with flags and flashing lights everywhere.   The mechanic found a huge piece of metal in the tyre and couldn’t repair it so was then thrilled to entertain the assembled crowd by using a remote control to engage the gadgets to raise and lower my car several times before towing it off to the garage.

The garage was in Ille-sur-Tet, a town slightly more in the direction of my village (which was a bonus) but by this time it was 7pm and the garage was closing so they would see what they could do to the tyre in the morning, and called for a taxi to take me home (paid for by the insurance company).  I was relieved to know that I would be home within 20 minutes but my hopes were dashed when the taxi driver then announced that he would be picking up another fare from Perpignan ‘on the way’ (local residents will understand my rage at this detour!).  It turned out that he was picking up an elderly person from the Clinic and taking him back to his home in Prats-de-Mollo, a village at the top of the Tech Valley.  Despite the fact that the patient seemed to be still suffering mild effects from the sedatives, he was aware enough to question the route that the driver was taking and had to be reassured several times that taking the ‘wine-route’ and dropping me off on the way would be a short cut!

I finally got home at 8pm, completely stressed and exhausted, to be greeted by an extremely excited dog who managed to convince me that what I really wanted to do was to play with her in the garden, rather than dive into a bottle of wine and relax.  Eventually, with my guilt at leaving her for so long assuaged by an epic game of football and double-portions in her food-bowl I was able to pour myself a generous glass of wine and sat out on the terrace while my Pizza cooked.  I half-heartedly called the cat’s name and heard a rustling sound from the bottom of the hedge.  Given the fact that I have seen a snake under there I thought it was pretty brave of me to investigate but, armed with a tennis racket, I managed to pull some branches aside and peer in and found an extremely shocked and exhausted kitten staring up at me.  It took quite some time to manoeuvre him out from his hiding place as I was terrified of hurting him even more as he was obviously injured, but I was so pleased to hear him purr as I held him in my arms. I had not had him for long and he was usually pretty wary of me - perhaps due to the fact that I had him castrated within a week of his arrival... 

So, apart from the fact that my pizza was burnt to a crisp, my bizarre day ended happily.  And the cat is now doing well – the vet had to operate on some pretty horrible internal injuries and said that he had been run over by a car – but he is now back home with a shaved side and a plastic bucket tied round his head and looks so scary that the dog hides when he appears!