the worst day

The alarm clock went off this morning.  I lay in bed for a while, grumbling that I had to go and be fumigated with creosote, and that it was not fair, when I was a small fluffy person who ought to be fed ice cream with a spoon, but then I had to get up.  According to the Daily Telegraph, the third Monday in January is the most depressing day of the year, as the joyous effects of the Christmas break have completely worn off and people contemplate their credit card bills, the yawning distance until their next holiday, the cold, the dark, and the failure of their New Year Resolutions.  Being gassed with creosote didn't make it into the equation.

I pretty much gave up with resolutions a long time ago, though I have so far kept my one modest one for this year, which is only to eat cakes and biscuits made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour and other ingredients I would use if I were making a cake myself, and pass on those containing unidentified vegetable oils, palm oil, whey powder, stabilisers and so on.  This policy should be gently slimming in the long run while not depriving me of anything genuinely delicious, though I think I will make an exception for the Tate's muffins on days out in London.

There was a mild air of panic and chaos when I arrived at work.  The boss's horse is suffering from some horsey ailment, and is supposed to be resting in its stable.  When the owner opened the stable first thing this morning to give it whatever it is that horses eat for breakfast, the horse bolted.  And was very reluctant to be caught again and the owner had to summon the boss to help her chase it round the field.  By the time they had got it safely locked up again nerves were a little jangled.

This didn't stop us having an impromptu meeting about the garden guide.  I think we're working on the right lines now.  I wrote the text as a tour around the garden, but the map had numbered areas.  The numbered areas all have names, which I used as section headings  (the names are descriptive, and most are quite charming, like Primrose Hill.  The furthest part of the garden is known for historic reasons as Knicker Alley, and I did change that to The Lower Garden).  The round tour of the garden goes through some areas twice, on the out and back legs, and the tour narrative sat awkwardly with the descriptions of the block areas.  We've now agreed to drop the section headings (which will also save space in the printed version) and the block areas on the map, and just describe it as a tour, with the suggested route on the map.  It is essentially like writing reports in the City, only more flowery.  The difficulty is never really in finding the words, but in deciding what it is that you want to say.  Once you've established that, the words come.

The poor gardener spent all day creosoting, apart from fetching in some logs first thing, so it probably was the worst day of his year.  There were very few customers, so maybe they were having a bad day as well.  I'd expected to be scribing for the manager while he started the stock take, but the boss hadn't produced any of the paperwork, so we couldn't do that, and I spent the day cleaning up iris and messing around with fruit netting and bamboo canes in the relative warmth of the shop, instead of sitting in a plastic chair in a polytunnel with an ambient temperature of 5 degrees C.  So I didn't do badly at all, for the worst day of the year.

Addendum  Happy Birthday Liz xxx