Country Living – One of those days

Have you ever had one of those days when you felt if you didn’t laugh you would cry? I had one the other day that was so fitting of that description I am desperate to share it. What started off as an ordinary day turned into so much custard it curdled! Generally speaking, I am not one to leave my house in an untidy fashion or personally dishevelled, but having just got the kids to school, hair still messy, apron on, cake in the oven and adorned with odd house attire, I got the manic call from my husband that I had to jump in the farm ute, pick him up from Kaiwaka, drive to Wellsford to grab an urgent part for our harvester that was being delivered overnight, and then he would take me home.

All sounded pretty simple, but that day just wasn’t meant to be. So the overnight part didn’t arrive. “Oh, so sorry it’s still in Auckland,” said the courier company. So drive to Auckland. “Whoops sorry,” they said, “it’s in Wellsford.” Drive back to Wellsford. “Whoops, so sorry, it’s in Wellsford but we don’t know where.” Drive all over Wellsford for hours looking for the part. “Whoops, so sorry, it’s not in Wellsford. We have actually lost it,” they said!

Now none of this little series of misfortunate events would have mattered if only: We hadn’t needed the part for the harvester to get our crop off before the big rains came; it wasn’t one of the hottest days of the year and the windows in the ute had wound down fully or the air-conditioning had worked; my three-year-old hadn’t projectile vomited whilst on the motorway with only a dirty rag to clean her up; the radio had worked so as to combat the boredom and the bitter silence; my phone hadn’t gone flat; my husband wasn’t cranky; and I didn’t look and feel like something the cat had dragged in!

So, we finally arrived home from that woefully annoying day (that didn’t need to be) just in time to pick up the kids from the bus stop. The cake I had in the oven had seeped through the spring-form tin and was a gluggy blob on the oven floor, and to my surprise, the house fairies hadn’t come to clean my house whilst I was out either! Yep, that day sure was a “Lemony Snickets” kind of day, a day that was filled with misfortunate events. But I didn’t get mad and I didn’t get sad, I just laughed at myself and thought, “Uuugghhh … perhaps I just shouldn’t have got out of bed!” And as I pen this column, it has rained for days and our barley is sadly still in the paddock.