A Dull Life

A Dull Life

My life was dull, very dull. Well, I suppose I shouldn’t moan, I mean I had a roof over my head, food in the fridge, a job that paid the bills. But I wasn’t happy; I felt like a hamster stuck in its wheel, constantly stuck in a cycle. Sleep, Eat, Work, Eat, Drink, Sleep, before starting all over again and again. I had no time for me, or for love. I was lonely but so tired I didn't have time for relationships. Looking back I shouldn't have complained because my dull life was about to get interesting, very interesting.

I guess in many ways I was lucky, living in an idyllic little village. But small villages are not so great when you are young free and single, not many opportunities to meet Mr Right. My work kept me busy, working as a junior reporter on the local rag. Days interviewing old ladies about lost cats, smelly drains and stolen vegetables from allotments.

The agricultural show was the highlight of the year's calendar. It was one of the only events in the village's calendar. This year I was lucky enough to be given my own section to report on, and it was a good one too, Produce and Flowers. Okay, I know not that exciting, but one of the most prestigious categories after livestock.

Well, this is where it all started, an amazing floral display, with flowers that glowed, no I mean really glowed. At first, the judges thought it was a trick, wanted to disqualify them; it's a shame they didn't. They didn't win but did get a special certificate. My editor was thrilled with my exclusive interview Mrs Jones, she was secretive about the name of her new plant, I suspect she didn't know what it was. But she told me that her son had brought back the seeds from China. I didn't tell the editor, but she gave me some seeds, I dropped the small packet into my handbag, and I must admit forgot all about it, I didn't have time for gardening, and I certainly didn't have green fingers.

*

Agricultural show over I was back to the mundane bread and butter stuff, small adds and birth announcements, school events and Women's Institute cake sales.

While on the allotments researching a piece on gigantic cucumbers, impressive they were too a definite contender for best cucumber in the show if not a World Record. I was amazed at the lack of weeds on George's allotment; he joked that it must be a bad year for weeds as no one had any. Odd I thought, but what did I know, I couldn't even keep a houseplant alive more than a few weeks.  As I walked home I noticed that there were no weeds on the village green either, the council must be doing a good job; that was an idea for a story. I have to admit I soon forgot about the weeds and the whole weed story.

*

It was eight months since the show now. I was beginning to enjoy the company of the local young farmers, the closest the village had to an active nightlife. They were a good bunch, and I often got some interesting gossip that could lead to some half decent stories. I have to admit some of their tales were pretty gruesome, and I didn't always understand them. Talk often revolved around pest control, I'm not talking about a few flies or a house mouse, no this was rats and foxes. The odd thing was they weren't complaining now about how many they had, but how few. No one had seen a rat in months, and now foxes were getting rarer. No one knew why I did my hack bit and interviewed a few farmers and the local pest control firms all agreed that pests were becoming less and less of a problem. I wrote a piece; my editor was impressed, I was thrilled, so much so he gave me a prestige assignment. The Britain in Bloom judges were due in less than a month, everyone in the village was in a frenzy. Floral displays were springing up everywhere, in every spare corner. With Mrs Jones providing her special and much sort after plants. We ran weekly updates, with exclusive interviews, newspaper sales doubled, as people flocked to see the amazing glowing floral displays, night and day they looked amazing. Of course, the Britain in Bloom judges were very impressed, and the village won. My story was picked up by some of the nationals. Of course, the fuss soon died down, and normal life resumed, minus the rats and weeds, which of course no one missed.

*

Another agricultural show came, and nearly all the local contestants had Mrs Jones special flowers, there was also another change, the vegetables were all bigger and healthier than ever before, looking back of course with no weeds and no pests they would be.

*

The local convent ran a homeless shelter, an excellent one, and it was very popular with tramps travelling from all around. The nuns were lovely and looked after their visitors very well. Having been nominated for an award, I was asked to run a piece on the nuns. I was thrilled, mainly as I had heard great things about their homemade goodies, especially the cake.

Arriving at the convent, I was amazed to find beautiful glowing flowers just like Mrs Jones' but bigger and better, apparently well looked after. Sitting with the nuns, eating a delicious Victoria Sponge, made with the Nuns own jam no less. Sister Mary told me that she didn't feel they really deserved the award, as numbers were dropping. She thought maybe that the rehabilitation programme was working and that the tramps were all moving on to better things.

I wrote my story on the nuns and their wonderful shelter, all illustrated with photos. My article appears to have attracted more and more users; Sister Mary was thrilled.

I, however, started to get suspicious, odd things had been happening, and I was starting to put 2 and 2 together. Weeds, Rats, Foxes and now Tramps, all disappearing, yet no one seemed to bother as on the whole as generally, it was making the village a better place. Something else the village now had was flowers lots of flowers, Mrs Jones' Flowers were spreading like wildfire. At night the whole village glowed, street lights turned off, obsolete now.

I suppose it was the journalist in me, but I couldn't just sit back and enjoy the new peaceful village, don't get me wrong it was incredible, but not right. I had to find out what was going on. Was it guerrilla gardeners, rogue rodent catchers or something more sinister, I wondered if maybe the whole parish council had hired a hitman. Silly, of course, they hadn't, they struggled to agree on what colour lights they would put on the annual Christmas tree, part of my job as to attend their meetings, it generally ended up with me helping them in and out of the building. The average age of the parish council was around 96, so unlikely that they were out at night weeding and killing rats.

Right, Google 'Disappearing weeds'.

Oops 'Magician tries to sell weed to cop', wrong sort of weed.

'The Disappearing Dwarf', Nope wrong again.

Think I better try looking up the rat problem instead.

'Disappearing rats'.

Argh that's better results.

'Why Research Mice And Rats Are “Vanishing” Mid-Study', looking good. Oh no, it's all about laboratories misplacing their test animals, I wonder though if some got free they could carry a disease that could wipe out our local rodents. I jotted down some details for further investigation.

'Disappearing testes? Help please... - Goosemoose' Interesting hope that's about rats, maybe another day.

It was getting late so I decided to log onto Facebook, a friend request. Craig McCartney, God, I hadn't seen him in years, I accepted his request and a message popped up almost immediately.

'Hi, how are you? I saw your piece on the glowing flowers, it was great, don't suppose you know what they are?'

I clicked on his profile; Craig had always been the outdoor type; I wondered what he was doing now. Horticulture I should have known, hence the interest in the flowers. I clicked reply and started to type.

'Hi Craig, not bad, hope you are well. I see you did do horticulture then; I always knew you would work outside. I have no idea what the plants are, sorry.'

'Never mind, I'm down your way next week if you want to meet up, catch up, we could have lunch.'

I laughed to myself, Craig had always been direct, but I did like him always had a bit of a soft spot for him., and looking through his photos he was wearing pretty well. Oh single too, well a girl could look.

'Excellent, can't wait' I typed, no too keen, I deleted it and started again 'Sounds good' I sent back.

We chatted for awhile exchanged numbers ad agreed to meet in The Oxford Arms in a neighbouring village for lunch the following Thursday.

*

Thursday came around quickly, and after a casual two hours selecting the perfect outfit, which then turned into a mad panic to just find anything to wear I was finally ready. Why did I feel so nervous? I was just catching up with an old friend.

Walking into The Oxford Arms, Craig spotted me instantly. He had crossed the bar and wrapped his arms around me before I had a chance to speak. I think he was pleased to see me. Craig looked great; his even tanned skin taut over his muscular arms, not the body builder type muscles, no the natural sexy kind that comes from hard work. Craig looked good, better than his photos.

Sitting in a corner, we chatted about old times, our new lives and loves, not that either of us had much success in that department, both too busy. The conversation flowed as freely as the wine, by mid afternoon we were both a bit tipsy, and definitely in no fit state to drive.

"Do you want to come back to mine?" I asked I can show you around the village then. Craig grinned I suspect he had other ideas for what to do when we got back to mine.

Jumping in a taxi, we carried on chatting as we drove through the countryside. I hadn't noticed it before, and it was Craig that first commented on it. As we passed the village marker stone, something changed.

"It's beautiful" he uttered gazing out of the window I had to admit the hedgerows and verges did look pretty good. "Can we walk from here." Craig seemed desperate to get out and look around.

"Sure" it was a nice do, and a walk might clear my head, stop me doing something stupid, which was very likely at the moment. The taxi dropped us off at the opposite end of the village to my house. Walking along the main street, Craig seemed in awe at the floral displays, all the gardens bursting with colourful flora.

"There are no weeds, nowhere, not even on the grass verges, they must have some amazing gardeners." He said. I laughed, I've not seen a weed in ages, not even in my jungle of a garden. I paused, thinking about it, my garden was no longer a jungle, yes the grass needed a cut, but that was it.

"There have been no weeds for ages, nor rats or pests. I started doing some research on it last week; I wondered if it was disease or something."

Well that was how it all started, it seems a long time ago now.