I passed supermom mode one bar of chocolate ago and am now in a fuzzy, confusing place. This day started way too early ago with my second little darling starting school. Let’s just say my blue-eyed challenging humdinger of a baby has made it out into the real world. To say that he inherited his mommy’s spirited streak does neither of us justice but it is safe to say that around this day, some five years ago he looked into my eyes on his arrival (trust me, this kid could see), and I knew it was going to be an interesting journey, to say the least.

So at nine am, I left him at the classroom and with him my heart for he for all his wildness is the funniest most lovable rogue that a mommy ever had the pleasure to know. He was happy, I was happy-ish. Arriving home, I was intent on making the day perfect (eeek) and started into baking the first-day-at-school-cake while trying to give our third son a bit more attention given that he was now the centre of all my attention. So the cake, think jam and jelly and cream and fruit squashed between two sponge layers. Delicious. But no, why stop there. My eldest was starting into a new class too, why his favorite, he would have to have meatballs. And the third little boy could help. Sigh.

And then I would fold the washing with the third. Then we would play and read stories and chat and have tea and call Daddy for lunch. Dizzy yet? Then we would collect our newest school go-er and chat about his day at school. And then, we would try and fit in another number of jobs and then we would collect Primo. And then we would cook the meatballs. And have a first day at school party with the cake. By now, believe me, we’re tired. And then, we would go to bed for pity sake. We would read. We would eventually fall to sleep. And then, yours truly would go and get organized for the next day. Nope, not over yet.

As the craziness continued, I felt it most necessary to take out the agricultural notes I had spent all summer avoiding and of all nights begin revising them tonight. Tonight. So as I sit here writing a blog post (why not), I am up to my oxters in diagrams on the external features of a Beef animal (I would say a cow), feeling like a bit of a rag. Someone show me the way to go home. We do it though. We go too far. And don’t we know it. And don’t we have to reel it back in. Wherever you are out there, mind yourselves and for God’s sake, don’t be stuck if you need to know what end of beef animal (aka cow) you’re looking at. Sleep tight.

Thursday night I found myself having a takeaway with my lovely sisters in the city. Just like that, we ordered from an Asian cookhouse before leaving the homeplace and collected it on the way to my middliest sister’s house. From the extensive menu, we ordered Asian food and it came to us so easily in the cutest little cartons. And while I tried to focus on my sisters, I couldn’t take my attention away from the food, so fresh and hot and aromatic. I thought, there has to be more, these are very small cartons but on opening them up there appeared just the right amount of food for all. Delicious. Easy. An accessible meal.

Everything consumable in the city is easy.

I was telling my sisters about our attempt to have a Chinese takeaway some weeks back as our eldest indignant that his classmates had all eaten takeaways, would like to try some. Fair enough. Now, I must add, that others may have tried and may have been more successful but it is not an easy task and after one or two attempts, women stronger than I have said to have given up. So I know of a lovely Chinese restaurant in our nearest big town, Listowel. It’s good enough food and reasonable. What more does a seven year old want for his first takeaway experience? It’s about 15 km away. Problem number one, how to keep the hot food hot and tasty. It’s manageable enough. But alas, there is always the problem of directions.

The entrance to our house has red gates, symphony red according to the colour chart and they are a beauty. Aside from being aesthetically lovely, they are a beacon to lost delivery men when looking for our homestead. If you see the red gates, that’s us. Alas, at nighttime, the red gates, in the absence of street lamps or streets in fact are not visible. Problem number two. So having called up and ordered we waited an unusually long time before I got a call from the village from a forlorn delivery man to say that he was lost. Not the best at given directions (reference red gate), I handed the phone to my farmer who explained the way to our house.  Some ten minutes later, I received another call to say that he has been driving up and down the street and village, he just can’t find the turn off to our house. ‘Stay right where you are’ I said and hopped in the car to go and find the lonesome delivery man.

‘I didn’t think that road led anywhere’, the man said shocked that anyone would even think of living up ‘such a lonely road’. ‘Everyroad leads to somewhere’ I said now channelling my inner hungry Buddha. ‘Amazing’ he said and started to chat about living in the country and how he could never do it. Ordinarily, I would have been delighted to engage but I was aware of the luke warm package in my hands that needed feeding to the wide-eyed expectant family. ‘Rightso,’ he waved me off, standing in the village street-light watching me off not quite believing that there was a road beyond the sportsfield; one he had dared not to travel. ‘Townie’ my Buddha whispered while sending him much good tidings for his return journey.

As for his first takeaway experience, my young son ate it up. Not bad he said.

The moral, everything consumable in the countryside is not so easy. But you can curse the darkness or learn to make a very good Chinese meal. Now to find some of those cutesy cartons.