Today was day one of the Open Weekend at work. I've always found it a slightly odd phrase, given that we are a shop and are Open seven days a week, apart from Christmas bank holidays and Easter Sunday. My colleagues had got the place looking very nice, and I was impressed, given how windy it was last week, and how much of a mess strong winds make when you have pots of plants everywhere. At least today was relatively calm, but it was grey and cold, and drizzled from mid afternoon onwards. Not the sort of weather to make people think that what they really wanted to do was walk around slowly outside buying some plants, and maybe sit through a lecture or two in an unheated polytunnel.
The manager gave a talk about pruning, which was very well attended. The audience looked a bit chilly by the time he'd finished, but they said they enjoyed it. Then the manager and the boss talked about ornamental autumn fruits, illustrated with lots of samples of berries gathered from the arboretum. There were Sorbus, and crab apples, Cotoneaster, Berberis, and a strange red magnolia fruit that looked like something the cat might have sicked up. More of a talking point than a thing of beauty, the magnolia seed pod. That was very well attended as well, and they had to take extra chairs into the polytunnel. Then the boss gave guided tour of the garden, which lasted for two hours, and those who stayed with him to the end must have truly deserved a cup of tea. The talks and the guided walk were free, but people visiting the garden under their own steam and not on the walk had to buy a garden ticket at the normal price. I really can't work that one out at all. The tea and cake were not free, but you got twice as much cake for less money than the National Trust charges at Flatford. Staff were given cake, and my piece was so enormous that it did me for lunch and tea.
My role in all of this was largely to operate the till, but occassionally customers wanted some gardening advice, which made it a bit more interesting. Also keeping me on my toes was the October offer of a 15% reduction on clematis and herbaceous plants (as a lure to customers and because we don't want to carry large stocks through the winter) but not anything else. The tills don't do 15% discounts automatically, so that called for a calculator and an organised approach to the order in which items went through the till (discountable items first, subtotal, work out the discount, then all other items). In the quiet spells during the talks I got to stick prices on some coloured string. Interesting that the twine and sundries business we deal with is still based in Dundee, a survivor of the traditional Scottish jute industry. I can recommend coloured raffia, which helps make all sorts of presents and bunches of home grown flowers and produce look more jazzy. Magenta raffia round a bunch of rhubarb, there's a combination.
A former colleague called in on a mission, which was to deliver some smoked salmon for the owner's mother. I knew him via beekeeping, and he stopped working there shortly before I applied for a job. In fact, it was him who introduced me to the plant centre, initially as a customer. Nowadays he runs a successful pub and as a sideline operates a smokehouse, hence the salmon.
The day's takings at the end of all this effort were not especially impressive, but I think the weather was against us. Tomorrow everybody has to do their talks and walks all over again. The weather is forecast to be much warmer, so nil desperandum.
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