At the weekend in the early morning I saw a skunk in our back yard trotting across the yellow-green grass. It looked very awake and ready for action. I didn’t let Roxie, the dog, out there for a while just in case she saw and chased it. The skunk would have the last laugh. On that sunny morning I did not want to be washing a dog in tomato juice to get rid of the putrid smell of skunk spray, I wanted to enjoy the signs of spring coming. My thoughts were on what I’ll plant in my vegetable garden this year, barbecues and summer clothes. All a bit premature.

Three days later spring could not seem further away. A great big snow storm dumped over 30 cm of snow. The children even got a snow day. Although pleased to have the day off they had no desire to play out in the white stuff. The youngest stomped around protesting, ‘It’s the first day of spring, there’s not meant to be snow.’ I suggested making a spring snowman with a sun-hat and sunglasses to accompany the usual carrot nose, but that didn’t go down well. Even the dog looked fed up.

This morning things seemed a bit more hopeful as the sunlight sparkled on the snow. Sunshine helps, but there’s still a lot of the stuff left to melt away.

The weather has a lot to answer for this week.

Tim has had to work nights. With a lack of roofing work due to the obvious above, he’s had to join a team of others working on the renovation of a funeral home which can only be done at night. This provokes much hilarity, but for the family it is strange having him on an opposite timetable to everyone else. We haven’t had to deal with shift work ever and can appreciate a bit better now how tricky it is. As the children head out for school, Tim comes in confused as to what day it is and heads straight to bed. I try to get on with things in the house with difficulty as everything seems to make so much noise. In the evening when I’m tired, he’s packing his ‘lunch’ and getting ready to go. Not ideal, but it is what it is. We need Spring!

I had news at the beginning of the week. After some weeks of taking positive action, getting insurance sorted out, enrolling on a course to improve my cake decorating skills and so on, public health told me that there’s no way I can use our kitchen for the cake business unless I sell at the market. I’d have to build a separate kitchen solely for the business If I want to do anything other than that. Crazy as it’s such a small business. I wanted to shout down the phone that all I want to do is earn some money, that my kitchen is clean and hygienic and…well…how can they be so mean? That wouldn’t have helped, rules are rules. After a long wait at least it’s a definite closed-door answer, but now I need to find the door that is going to open. The right one. I won’t go on about it, I promise…only to update on positive progress.

Next week, we’ll be back to the usual routine. Tim back to working in daylight hours, no snow days in sight and I’ll be working on my resumé. Who knows what’s ahead? God does and that’s enough.