Is this a test?

Tomorrow starts the first longer work trip since G left and I'm alone with the cats. So far so good: house/cat sitter has been found and checked (the furry crew thought she was OK too, though I'm still not sure what she'll make of Brixton downtown), frozen meat packets have been stacked, raw dinner stains removed...
And then the boiler died. Frantic efforts today for a same day repair came to nothing in the end - by 7pm there was yet another part missing. Never mind the heating, but I just can't ask a house sitter to spend a week without a shower. So now I have the choice of either abandoning my cats, or abandoning my musicians. The decision is obvious: no way I can travel tomorrow. But feeling very frustrated for being forced to look unprofessional. Is this a test??

Had enough of travelling...

I'm away on a tour again for a few days... and finding I have left a number of vital bits behind... my laptop charger, for example, and even my spectacles! No wonder, considering that I spent the few hours before departure not thinking of my trip but trying to make every minute with the cats last longer... and it really broke my heart to leave them again. I need a change - the signals are piling up!

Away and torn

So I left the furry gang for a few days to join a gang of musicians for a festival in the Southwest of France (I do this for a living). It's a warm welcome - the sort of festival that once a year takes over a tiny village and involves the entire community, including long communal lunches and staying in a stone-built medieval chateau. My windows look out over the river and I feel like in another world and another time.
Yet everything is reminding me of my new 'family' I left back home: I find cat cookies in my jeans pocket, cat hair in my suitcase (and in my face cream...) and my shoelace has chew marks... Travelling around the world with musicians has been great fun for the last 10 years (even if you don't get to stay in a chateau every time) but suddenly I'm just not so sure any more where I'd rather be. Maybe it's time for a change.