Life here on the farm up in the hills of Wales can be difficult at times. Lambing time is not the least of them. It's always a balancing act to get the timing right. Easter brings the best prices for lambs at market. However, to get enough lambs to market requires planning well in advance. It brings with it many risks. If Easter is early it means lambing at what can be the coldest time of year and the risk of losing many new-born lambs to the weather. We started the lambing in January, bringing the ewes into the lambing sheds and working 24/7 for a few weeks.
It usually falls to me to do the long cold night shifts in the sheds. Some nights it can be easy, other nights it is exhausting work. The simple act of keeping warm out there through the long, often freezing nights can be very tiring alone. It's just the thought of a hot bath and lots of hot tea that keeps me going through the dark, winter nights when I can't even feel my feet anymore. At last the lambing came to an end with remarkably few losses. I was almost on my knees with tiredness. I was simply exhausted.
After the last of the hard nights I was on my old laptop chatting to a few friends and recovering from my tiredness with some social media to remind myself that there is a life and a world away from this farm. One evening I was chatting to a very dear and old friend from my college days. Marie and I go way back to when we shared student accommodation back in London. We have helped each other through some difficult times in our lives. I have confided in her about my hopeless and loveless marriage. I in return was there for her a few years ago when her marriage broke down and her husband left her with two children.
I admire her in so many ways. Yes, as her marriage broke down she did crumble. She lost her confidence. But she soon pulled herself up by her boot straps and almost re-invented herself. She began a diet and going to the gym. She lost her extra pounds, became fit and rather glamorous. Now, with her two children either working away or still at college, she has become a rather wealthy and very attractive woman.
I was telling her just how desperately tired I was after this years lambing, and how my personal life was once again in limbo. It was then that she suggested that I had a break from the farm and go to stay with her for a few days. Not the best time of year to go away as it was still very cold. But the idea of a change of scenery was very appealing. We agreed a long weekend on which I could get away. Almost straight away I was looking forward to seeing her, having a few laughs, spoiling myself a little and yes, getting a bit drunk!
Shortly before I was due to go to London to stay with Marie, the weather took a very bad turn. Extremely cold weather was coming in from the east, what the news media called "The Beast From the East". I contacted Marie and suggested that I put off my visit. She was rather insistent that we went ahead with our plans. I found myself glued to the weather forecast and was horrified to see that "The Beast" was about to clash with a storm coming up from the south west call "Storm Emma". The clash was about to take place across the south of Wales and south west England! The Met Office gave out Red Weather Warnings, meaning a risk to life. That was it, I have to cancel. Marie suggested that I just delayed leaving for 24 hours. So I did. The news was full of reports of snow drifts, road closures and mayhem. However, the motorway was still open. I took the risk, I set off in my old, trusted Land Rover. It took me a very long time to get to the motorway. I drove a speeds of less than 30 mph at times. Once on the motorway it was not so bad. The area around Cardiff was very difficult, but I got through.
Eventually, after 7 hours driving I pulled up onto her driveway in west London. My knuckles were aching from the tight grip my hands had had on the steering wheel for the whole of the drive and my shoulders were painful too. Marie's sporty Audi car made a very different sight to my old, battered Landy. As soon as I pulled up, Marie was there at the open door to welcome me with a huge hug. We sat in her massive kitchen drinking Hot Toddies. The warm whiskey very quickly revived me. She showed me to the guest room. Her house was full of the luxury that my old farmhouse lacked. The bed in the guest room was massive. Added to which it had its own bathroom. I did as she suggested and began a long hot soak in a bath that would have been big enough for a rugby team! I lay there soaking up the warmth and began to relax in the bubbles and hot water. Marie knocked on the bathroom door and asked to come in, which she did bringing with her two very large glasses of wine. Very welcome.
She sat on the toilet seat with her wine as I soaked myself. We chatted and she told me that she had booked us in for a spa day at the place she uses most weekends. The idea of a spoil myself day at the spa was just what I needed. Bless her! After a while she left me to get out of the bath and dress alone. That evening we talked, ate and drank the night away, eventually staggering off to bed around midnight. I slept like a log in that huge, comfortable bed.
The next morning we drove to the spa. I was so amazed at her car. So sleek and sporty, very much like Marie herself. The spa was almost deserted. Many women had cancelled due to the weather. It was so nice to lay there in the sauna and the steam room, quietly talking in hushed voices. We were to have a massage later, and my body was looking forward to that as much as my head.
"So, how are things with you two, still the same?" she asked me, meaning my husband and I.
"Yes, still the same, no sex, no communication, no affection." I informed her. She knew all about my marriage, and indeed she also knew about the little flings I had had from time-to-time. She was the sort of friend I could talk to about that side of my life, knowing that she understood.
"What about you then, any new man in your life?" I asked her.
"Good heavens, no! Well no one permanent anyway." She replied.
"But you look fantastic! You seem to have everything, you telling me that you don't have a man? So why all the spa treatments? Why the hair do every week? You're not telling me that the men of London are not beating a path to your door, and your bed!"
"I didn't say I don't have fun, I just said that there was no permanent man around."
"Well, go on, tell me!"
Marie told me that some time ago she had joined a dating site. She had been on several dates. She was no longer on the site, but she had stayed in touch with several of the men she had met there. I was not exactly shocked, more surprised. She had been a bit of a wild thing back at college, but then we all were. I asked her to expand, giving her a playful nudge.
"Oh it's quite simple, when I want some sex I just phone or text whoever I fancy sleeping with at the time and mostly I get what I want."
"You have sex on speed dial? You lucky sod! You just ring up and get a man!"
"Yes. It works for us both. I get good sex from a variety of men, and they get what they want too."
"I understand the attraction of that, believe me I do, and I am more than a bit envious I can tell you! Just being able to summon up a man at the touch of a button ... lucky, lucky LUCKY you!"
"So, Tess, how long since you last had an orgasm, and I mean one that someone else gave you?"
"Oh God! Months, months and months! I can't just phone for a man!"
"Darling, let me tell you something. Sometimes it's men! Plural!" she said with the broadest smile I have ever seen cross her face.
"What!"
"Oh yes darling, sometimes, just sometimes I like to indulge myself in that way. You never tried it?"
"No! I know I had two boyfriends on the go once, but never did anything like that!"
