The Good Life
Greg Dixon
Do you want to see my blister? No? Michele didn’t either. I showed it to her anyway because it’s very rare for me to have physical evidence that I’ve actually been working; the shabby business of journalism typically occasions only bruised egos or metaphorical stabs in the back rather than a good, honest blister.
Michele wasn’t much impressed all the same. However, her indifference didn’t discourage her from asking Miles the sheep farmer whether he might like to form an opinion on my blister when he popped over the following day.
Miles and his wife, Janet, have not long returned from a blissful week in Australia, where one of their three smart and beautiful daughters had married her handsome bloke.
As we stood chatting about electric fences and the new grass in the south paddock, Michele, quite unhelpfully, wondered aloud whether Miles might like to see my blister? His mouth twitched a little, as it often does around Michele, before he politely declined. Would we, he countered, like to see a wedding cake made with several of his delicious cheeses instead? We would, we said, and he got out his phone, so I was spared the blushes.
This blister of mine may have been small but it was certainly well earnt. For four or so hours over four or so days I had been out in our paddocks with one of my newest acquisitions, a grubber.
The grubber – a tool with a wooden handle and a weighty metal head – is the non-chemical approach to ridding your fields, if only temporarily, of that bane of the country landholder, the thistle.
What wretched fellows thistles are. Ugly, spiky and completely unappetising to even the hungriest animal, the Scotch thistle will, if left to its own devices, make your pleasingly tidy paddocks look like they’ve broken out in a bad case of Highland acne. And it isn’t just the common old Scotch. Cotton thistles will grow as tall as triffids and are almost as dangerous when approached.
So I had set myself the task, before autumn’s fine, cool days ended, of clearing the property of these green, prickly menaces. Hour after hour, I wandered our paddock, spotting thistles and dispatching them with a swing of the grubber and a satisfying “thwack!”.
Now, if you are wondering why in God’s name I haven’t simply sprayed the buggers and spared myself the hard graft and the tiny blister, well, I need to introduce you to Greg Dixon’s Philosophy of Life.
For the most part, it’s all about making sure you never miss an opportunity for a lie-down. It dictates that you should not sweat the small stuff, but it actually requires you to sweat the small stuff. By which I mean that, since coming to the country, I have taught myself to enjoy doing chores.
This is why the 100-plus hours I’ve spent mowing lawns on my ride-on simply flew past. This is why I enjoy ironing pillowcases, or taking rubbish to the tip, or trimming hedges, or stacking wood.
If you have a dishwasher that needs stacking or emptying, or hobs and a splash-back that need a good clean, then I’m your man.
You can spend your whole life trying to avoid dull, repetitive tasks that make you feel like Sisyphus. Fear of boredom is the modern disease, of course. This is why Greg Dixon’s Philosophy of Life teaches us that we need to think of all those goddamn chores as an opportunity to simply empty the mind and to find inner peace and contentment through perfection of the task itself.
Some might call it mindfulness. I call it the best way to earn yourself a blister. Now, do you want to see it?
If you have a dishwasher that needs stacking or hobs that need a clean, I’m your man.