Radio 3 managed to get me through breakfast and to work without breaking out into listeners' e-mails. There was something pastoral and vaguely familiar that turned out to be Delius, something choral and rather splendid by Herbert Sumsion (I never heard of him but that's part of the point of listening to Radio 3), and a nice romantic piece of Johann Strauss. It was a properly civilised start to Sunday, and I hope they keep it up, although that is 'hope' in the sense of 'wish they would' rather than 'expect they will'.
Comparing notes with colleagues in an idle moment this afternoon, it's not just Radio 3 that is alienating its audience though pandering to the idiot element. On Friday evening, after watching Gardeners' World, the Systems Administrator and I stayed tuned for the first part of Autumnwatch. I was fairly sure after the first two minutes that I was not going to like this, and it was a great relief when the Systems Administrator agreed that it really was dire, and we switched to recordings of Michael Portillo's railway journeys. For those of you that didn't see Autumnwatch, two gurning men with bad haircuts and a silly woman with a mirthless smile larked about with zero personal chemistry between them in Westonbirt Arboretum, and an item about horseshoe bats, which should have been jolly interesting and included some fantastic night photography of the bats, was needlessly cut with jumpy camera shots and switches into black and white with dramatic music intended to reference horror films. Why? I mean, really, why? Nature is fascinating, and lots of people like it, as witnessed by the enduring and highly successful career of David Attenborough. Plus people who stay in to watch telly on a Friday evening are probably middle aged or older. They (we) don't need to be jollied along as if we were watching a version of Ceebeebies for grownups. One of my colleagues said that Autumnwatch was dreadful, and she had gone to sleep during in it, and the manager said that it was dreadful, and he had stayed tuned in to the bitter end but wouldn't watch any more episodes. Apparently after we gave up there was a feature about radio tagging migratory birds, and rather than telling him anything sensible about bird migration the presenters had larked about giggling because the tag fell off. After BBC2 Gardeners' World crashed and burned when somebody tried to turn it into an offshoot of light entertainment you'd think the management would have learnt something, but apparently not.
It rained for the first part of the morning, which was not supposed to happen. The forecast said that the rain was due to blow through in the night. Although as one of my colleagues said, this was still the night. Things brightened up later on, and we sold a bit more than we did yesterday, but it was still quiet. I really don't know what to blame. The overall economy? The lack of activity in the housing market? The weather? Gardening going out of fashion? I have a nasty feeling that if people aren't thinking about their gardens by now, they aren't going to until next spring.
My first task was to tidy out the small greenhouse in the corner of the plant centre. It is a lovely greenhouse, I guess Edwardian, with magnificant roof vents and a brick lower half. Some of the glass has been replaced with polycarbonate, but it is still a nice little building. It gets used for putting reserved plants to one side, and overwintering tender plants, and also tends to accumulate junk. The aim was to get rid of the junk, sort out the plants, and have one end dedicated to stock, including things that mustn't be watered too much in the winter or they rot, and the other end for reserved plants. The manager can then water the stuff that needs to be dry himself, and if they rot he has only himself to blame. Unfortunately in the course of removing the dead plants, empty compost bags shoved under the staging and other miscellaneous rubbish, I managed to tip compost laden water down my uniform shirt, so by the time the customers arrived I presented a thoroughly shabby sight. I did have to bite my lip when one person asked me whether I worked here and just say yes, how could I help, rather than yes, it's the uniform shirt with the company logo and compost all over it that's the giveaway.
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