The day of our holiday is getting closer. We're off on Friday, to Gloucester, and I have somehow managed to agree to go to a reunion lunch with my team from my last City job on Thursday. I'm not entirely sure how that happened, except that we started trying to plan it about three months ago, and throughout the whole of the summer somebody or other was off on holiday, so it ended up in September. I must have looked in my diary, seen that Thursday 11th was free, and thought That'll be fine, without focusing on the fact that I was due to go away myself the following day.
The housesitter who is coming to look after the cats, the chickens, and the many pots of plants while we are away is nice, and sensible, and has stayed here a couple of times before, so knows what's involved. But I don't think that gardening is one of his hobbies, or ever has been, so I feel I'd better make it obvious which pots are supposed to be cared for, weed them, finish off any odd bits of potting, and generally try and make sure the greenhouse and conservatory are uncluttered and organised. Odd dead things, weeds, pots hidden behind other pots and so on are all very well when they are your own, and you know what the plan is, but not so good when you are supposed to be watering them for somebody else.
I haven't bothered dismantling the Henchman and putting it away by the sheds for the week. Instead it is standing tall in the middle of the turning circle, waiting to be pressed into use as soon as we're back. After all, this isn't the Housesitter's holiday home, and there's no reason why he shouldn't have some lightweight scaffolding in the front garden. But I did feel I should tidy away the floating collection of bins and buckets and put the shovel back in the shed instead of leaving it outside the front door, and that he shouldn't have to climb over a mountain of bags of old leaves to gain access to the patio (or terrace), where there are some pots that will need watering a couple of times. And I thought I'd better finish pruning the shrubs that are growing out over the path to the conservatory, which were beginning to dump water over anybody who walked past on dewy mornings or after rain. It's one thing putting up with it yourself, while thinking that you must get round to cutting back that viburnum, another to inflict it on other people.
Tomorrow we'll have to clean the house. You can't expect a relative stranger to come and live for a week in a miasma of cat fur and odd blobs of syrup left over from feeding the bees. From that point of view having a housesitter is much like inviting guests round, with the added details that he will be using the fridge, and the Systems Administrator's bathroom, and sleeping in the spare bedroom so I'll need to move the boxes containing the beekeepers' library books. And he'll need space cleared in the freezer in case he wants to live on frozen ready meals for his week in the country. He may not, of course, but the agency specifies freezer space should be provided.
It tends to feel like wasted effort, going to so much trouble to make the house clean and tidy and then driving away without getting any of the benefit, if not feeling that we need a holiday to get over the effort of getting ready to go on holiday. But at least we come back to a clean house.
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