My Writer's Retreat

A friend had to go away unexpectedly and she asked if I’d like to use her old farmhouse as a writer’s retreat for several days in her absence. Hey, sounded good to me. I only had to feed her two cats and let Merlin, the dog out to do his thing a couple times a day. Other than that the house would be all mine.

I’d been juggling work, family and writing for years and the prospect of getting away for a few uninterrupted writing days sounded like heaven. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my share of private time with husband and kids leaving me closed up in a room to write throughout the day, and I’ve even had a couple of weekends where I’ve had the house to myself overnight. But this was going to be three days all by myself. I eagerly packed up a few clothes and printed out the novel that I’d been laboring over for almost a year.

I carried in provisions with every intention of cloistering myself away with my writing. The back of the house had a beautiful sunroom with three full walls of windows that looked out onto a horse barn and the rolling Berkshire Hills.

Arriving late in the evening, I gave the cats a bit more food, poured fresh water for the dog and went up stairs to unpack. I got up early that next day and set up a small table in the sunroom for paper, pens, and cup of tea. It was perfect. The sky was a bit overcast, but I put more wood in the stove and prepared to settle in.

But early in the afternoon I realized that something was terribly wrong. Actually one of the cats tipped me off. She sat in the window and kept pawing as something. I thought how charming and I went to see what she’d been playing with. Well it didn’t take me long to discover that ants were crawling all over the windowsill. I mean big ants, half-inch long ants, and it took no time before a wide stream of them was making its way across the floor. Some ants could fly and soon a swarm of them began to swoop and dive making both cats jump and snap at the insects. I went outside and observed that millions of them were crawling up one side of the house and had found the tiniest crack in a windowsill and that was how they were getting into the house.

I had to do something, and I had to be quick about it. So, I ran into the kitchen, filled a bucket with purex, grabbed up a mop and ran upstairs. The only thing that I could think of to do was to slap the purex sopped mop against the side of the house from the upstairs bedroom window. Every hour I’d run up stairs, slosh the mop against the outside of the house where they were swarming up higher and higher, and then come back down and try to work on the novel. It took two days to discourage those critters but they eventually got the message.

The ants taken care of I figured the rest of the time would be a piece of cake. Well, the second day we had a tremendous thunderstorm while Merlin was out doing his thing. The storm freaked him out and he ran away. I got a call from the town clerk that Merlin was found wandering in the middle of the road and someone from the animal shelter would be bringing him home. I’ve never seen such a frightened dog. The poor thing shivered all night.

Ok, the ants are taken care of and Merlin got home safely. Now back to the writing. Well, living in a 100 year old farmhouse and especially if the house is in close proximity to a horse barn, one should expect to see a mouse or two. And that’s where the cats came in. They were mousers extraordinaire. Every night they would bring a mouse into the TV room and ruthlessly throw the poor creature up into the air, or against the wall or onto the couch where I sat. Then when they finished with their dastardly play they’d comp down on the mouse and eat it, usually in three noisy bits.

One night the most playful cat threw a mouse up into the air and it landed on my lap. I quickly brushed the dead thing away, and I had no idea where it landed, but the cat evidently had lost interest in his plaything and she ambled back into the kitchen to get a bit more kibbles. An hour or so later when I got up to go to the bathroom I discovered that the dead mouse had slipped between my legs and I’d been sitting on it while I watched ER. I tossed the dead creature into the dustbin and I wondered, what next.

There was a mystery animal in the house, too, and I assumed that it was a stray cat that had gone feral. My friend told me that her cats had a private entrance in the basement, a flimsy trap door of some kind. But several times when I knew that the two cats that I’d been put in charge of were lounging in the TV room, I’d see something streak across kitchen floor and then dive down into the basement. And don’t let me get started about the basement. Way too creepy for me to even think about going down there.

On my fourth and final night of sleeping alone in that house I was awakened by heavy rain and thunder, but something else made me uneasy in my sleep. I turned on the light and looked at my watch. It was 3:30 A.M. and as far as I’m concerned this hour is still the middle of the night and I had no intensions of staying up. However, when I reached over to turn off the light, I encountered the biggest spider I had ever seen stretched out on its newly constructed web between the nightstand and the wall near my head.

This writer’s retreat had not been for the weak of heart. I got some work done, though the novel still sits in a drawer needing tons of revision. And you ask, was I glad to get home? You bet your sweet patuti I was glad.