Stay of execution

The weather forecast said it would tip down and it wasn't wrong. It says the same for Wednesday and Thursday too. As a rule if you have an animal that requires slaughtering and you aren't going to do it yourself then the slaughterer visits you at home bringing his equipment with him. Usually all he requires you to provide is a good strong tree of appropriate height and some ropes. Oh yes, and some big black bin bags.

Our usual location for this job is the large oak tree in the car-parking area to the west of the house. It's easy enough to walk a live animal there, handy enough for loading dead ones into cars and is out of the way of the dog, who would get upset. However, you can't do this slaughtering malarkey in the open air under a tree when it's tipping down with rain so to be proactive, Spouseman converted the area outside our kitchen window on the east side of our house to a dry-enough and easy-to-hose-down-afterwards space. 

We did tell the slaughterer that we had an undercover space for the job. He didn't turn up. When he was a couple of hours late we phoned him to see what . . .
“I can't do it when it's raining”
“Yes, but we have a space undercover with walls and stuff”
“I can't do it when it's raining”

Spouseman went into the village on other business and whilst in the supermarket he spotted the slaughterer's brother, a builder, buying a very large bottle of wine.

Aha! How silly of us! Most of this community works outside. When the weather is poor they take the day off. Quite a few go round to the carpenter's workshop where there is always a roaring fire and plenty of beer. Others go home to a roaring fire and a cuddly wife. How very thoughtless and British of us to have devised a work-around.