Time for a rant

It’s that time of the year again. People can’t wait to leave their every day lives to take a well-earned vacation. The only problem is: what do we do with our pet(s) if we can’t take them with us. We have all heard the horrible stories of morons who just leave their pets at home uncared for, or drop them in the woods somewhere. Just because apparently we all HAVE to go on holiday. The idea that you stay at home to look after your dogs, cats, horses, pigs and chickens for most people is unthinkable and even kind of weird. I’m talking from personal experience now. This is the time of year that people ask us where we will be going and if we tell them we don’t go because of our animals, they look at us as if we are in dire need of therapy.

Sure, we’d like to get away from our daily rut too sometimes, but who will take care of our animals when we are not here? The only people I trust to do that don’t go on holiday themselves, because they have the same problem. Who will take care of their pets when they are away? Can you see why they are the only ones I’d trust taking care of ours? We have chosen to keep all these animals and therefore we don’t have holidays. There are worse things in life. To us it is perfectly acceptable.

When people visit us in summer, they usually say something like: “Oh, well, if I’d live here, I wouldn’t need to go on holiday either.” Words easily uttered when sitting on our vine-shaded patio with a glass of something nice to drink and feeling totally relaxed because hubs and I are taking care of dinner and drinks and so on. I mean, we like to entertain our friends, but… - you know the kind of people who go to… let’s say… Italy for a couple of weeks every year and then decide that their ultimate goal in life is to live in Italy, with the relaxed lifestyle and nice food and wine and whatever else makes holidays in Italy so nice, forgetting that actually living there means that you won’t be on holiday – …if they say that they are forgetting that we actually live here and have lots and lots of work to keep the place looking acceptable and well…have to do all those things they can’t wait to get away from on their holidays. Oh well, you know what I mean. I hope.

This is my daily rut.

For hubs things are different. He’s away during the day and if he’s at home he spends a lot of time in his office. He loves to muck out the stables in the weekends because it makes a change from his daily routine.

Mind you, I’m not complaining at all. I like living here too. We are quite privileged compared to lots of other people. So let that be clear please.

Our neighbours have the perfect solution for their pets when they go on their holidays. They just ask hubs and me to take care of their cat, chickens and rabbits. Or actually, they just ask if we want to take care of the cat. They usually forget that the other furry and feathery creatures need water and food too. Their dog goes with them to their holiday destination. The first couple of years we lived here, they asked us if we wanted to take care of their pets when they were away a good couple of weeks before they actually went. At first hubs and I would take turns, but after a couple of years I said to hubs: “I’m sorry, I don’t know about you, but I’m no longer willing to take care of people’s animals because they so desperately need their vacation. I have enough animals to take care of myself.” Hubs said that for him it wasn’t a problem and that he didn’t mind looking after the cat and the chickens and the rabbits. So when they asked us the following year, I told them they’d have to ask hubs. Which they did. And hubs went to their house every morning and every evening to feed, water and cuddle the cat and the rabbits and the chickens, although I suspect he didn’t cuddle them, but I’m not at all sure. And the year after that, same story.

Last year, one of the other neighbours (for whom hubs always keeps an eye on the place when they are on holiday, they don’t have pets anymore) rang the doorbell and said: “We are going away tomorrow and will be back in about three weeks. Here is the key of our house and this one is of our neighbours’ house (the cat, chickens, rabbits ones). They are already away and will be back in about two weeks. The catfood is in the cupboard above the litter tray. Bye!” So this time they hadn’t even bothered asking us before they went. At that point I think hubs thought that it would be the last year he’d take care of the poor ‘home alone cat’.

So yesterday the doorbell rang. And there was cat-neighbour. In a honey toned voice: “Hi, how are you? Gosh we haven’t seen each other for a long time. I have been so busy busy busy working. Oh I dó need to get away from the rut. We are going away for three weeks tomorrow. I wanted to ask if you could take care of the cat. I do só need to get away from the rut. We are taking the dog with us. And I’m so fed up with only having three weeks of vacation (she works only 2 days a week). I’m used to having four weeks vacation with my former employer. Oh, I’m so looking forward to get away from the rut.

Now, mentioning that to me (of all people, who néver gets away from the daily routine) three times, really pissed me off. Add to that all the cropped up frustration about her complaining to me every Fall that she has sooooo many leaves to rake up. They have two trees and a small garden. We have about two-thousand and a large garden. Normally I count to 10 and say nothing, but now I said: “You know, I’d like to get away for a little while too, get away from the rut as you put it, but I can’t! So please don’t complain to me!” She smiled mildly, looked down, and said: “Oh, but Carolina, if you really want to go away you can of course always find a way to do so.” Now I nearly exploded. “Oh? And who will take care of our animals? Hubs is always there to take care of yours.” ”You can always find someone who wants to take care of them”, she said, still smiling. “L… from next door loves horses. If you plan it so that she’s at home when you are away….” “L….?!?!”, my eyes shot fire. “She’s 12. You can’t expect a 12 year old girl to bring three big horses to the meadow and back to the stables again. We can barely manage that ourselves sometimes.” (Stupid woman!, but I didn’t say that out loud. I think. I hope. Oh, I wish I had. And I know for a fact that she herself is too scared to hold my horse Naloma, because Naloma can be quite jumpy sometimes. And Naloma used to belong to her husband. I’m just saying…!) ”Oh, I don’t see why not. We used to have horses ourselves. We just left them in the meadow and my parents gave them water.” ”That’s nice, but we don’t have a meadow that’s large enough to keep them in day and night. It will be a muddy mess within a couple of days. So that’s not a good plan. And you’ll have to ask hubs if he wants to take care of your animals, because I won’t. As you know.” She turned to hubs, who had just joined us. “Hi, we are going away on our holiday tomorrow. If all goes well we’ll be away for about three weeks. Can you look after our cat? If you don’t have time, it’s no problem. I’ll ask someone else.” So hubs said: “I’d rather you ask someone else. We have enough to do here.” She looked surprised. “Oh? But you only have to let him out in the morning and feed him. And let him in in the evening again.” ”Still, I’d rather you ask someone else. We have very little free time as it is. And you also have chickens and rabbits, don’t you?” ”Yes, but they don’t need much looking after. But it’s no problem. I’ll ask my parents in law.”

We chatted a bit, wished them a nice time and off she went. I suspect she won’t ask us again. She also mentioned that if their cat died, they wouldn’t get another cat. Such a hassle to organize cat-sitters when they wanted to go away for a couple of days. Yeah. Nów it’s a hassle. Now we have turned them down at their last minute request. Uhuh!

I know this wasn’t my best piece of writing, but I feel very relieved now. And that’s worth something too ;-) Hopefully the next post will be more interesting. You can never be sure though. It all depends on which lunatics cross my path or on what the paper writes about. Or on the weather. That has been foul the last couple of days. It has been warm here, about 30 – 35 degrees Celsius, and that usually ends with a big fat thunderstorm. Of which we had one in the night from Saturday-Sunday, and another very loud one last night and just this afternoon we had the third really big thunderstorm. Trains don’t ride anymore because of trees falling on the rails, somewhere the roof of a train station has collapsed, drains couldn’t cope with the amount of rain in a short period of time. It’s a bit of a mess in some parts of this country now. And I’m afraid of thunder and lightning. So you can imagine the state I’m in, hehe (nervous laugh), and the bags under my eyes. Anyway, I’ll do my best to write a better piece next time.

And the photo at the top? Taken from here, where you can find all sorts of free images.