Wasted Weekend, in all the wrong ways.

I am in shock. I have just had an entire weekend where I didn't have to go anywhere or do anything. This is rare for me. I seem to be in my car more than my house and frequently expect to get a council tax bill for a second home. This weekend was the exception. Typically it was repellent weather all weekend. I can't really complain about the whole water situation - at least it means I acutally have some of the vital stuff. I've run out before and the charm of going to the pond with a bucket wears pretty thin after about four minutes.

The last time that it happened I had friends coming to stay from London. Now they already think that Wales is a backwater which probably needs innoculations and a passport to go to. I'm not sure whether they were resigned or astonished when they rang to ask if they could bring anything and I casually said that 8 litres of bottled water could be good. That night, their son was bathed in Evian in the kitchen sink..... The joys of country life.

So, there I was with a free weekend stretching out in front of me like an American Highway (without the bill boards and fast food of course). And what did I do? Pretty much stopped at the first layby, unpacked my tupperware and watched the world go by without achieving much of anything other than a massive calorie intake and a refusal to get wet on Saturday or blown away on Sunday. Pretty perfect really.

Unfortunately, as with all good things, there is a side effect. Guilt. There were all sorts of things I should have got done with those endless hours of playtime. None of it remotely playful. Tackled the wood heap that needs to be stacked so that it can dry in time for the winter, which is probably only a month away knowing this country. Battled with the voracious goosegrass that is taking over the entire garden. I am expecting it to make its way into the house for breakfast soon. Weeded the vegetable patch, where I can't see the vegetables for the miscellany of other plantlife that has made itself at home in that particular 8 square metres of ground. Written all my thank you letters, painted the doors of the house, which I have been promising myself I would do for the last seven months. That is just the highlights of my never ending list. I did none of them. Hence combination pleasure / pain result for the weekend.

Having written that, I am now worried that my life is tragically dull. Should my weekend not have been filled with Sex and the City style dramas? Brief love affairs, Cosmopolitans and Manolo whatever they are called? Ok, so this is Wales, the best I can hope for is a gossip at the bottom gate with the four hundred year old farmer, endless cups of coffee, and a new pair of Wellingtons, but you know what I mean. I've never been a Carrie style girl, and I love my life, but there are moments when you set out your list of chores and realise that things aren't ever going to turn out the way you expected. Life isn't a box of chocolates, it's a freezer in need of defrosting, and a box of paperwork that I haven't any interest in dealing with.