I left home ten minutes early this morning, because there were signs up over the weekend on the route to work warning that this road was going to be closed for resurfacing for two days from 2 July. As I got to the end of the road that was supposed to be shut I was puzzled not to see any Diversion in place, but took my planned detour anyway, and got to work slightly early. The gardener arrived just after me, and looked surprised, though pleased, to be offered a box of eggs. The new little hens are really getting into the swing of laying, though some of their efforts are still quite miniature, and I'm having to cast my net of recipients wider. I'm nervous that too-frequent unsolicited offerings might have the effect of seeming to create an obligation, and I don't want to do that, just to stop the fridge from filling up completely with eggs.
In the car park was a car with Netherlands number plates and a Dutchman, a sales rep from a Boskoop nursery, also bearing gifts, a tin of Van Vliet's Siroopwafelen. He was there to see the manager, and we were a little anxious in case the manager didn't turn up, since the boss is at Hampton Court. The manager when he did arrive was slightly nonplussed to see the Dutchman, who was not due for another two hours, so the visitor had to wait for quarter of an hour until the manager had reconciled one till. It was out by £22.70 of vouchers, which means either that one of us deducted that amount from a voucher that the customer hasn't finished spending, and forgot to make a note of it (quite likely) or that one of us falsely put through a cash sale as a voucher transaction and pocketed the money (not very likely). The manager never said anything more about it, so maybe once he wasn't under the time pressure of having a sales rep waiting he found the thing worked out after all, or maybe he is waiting to ask the other person who was in yesterday whether they did any voucher transactions. I made polite conversation for a moment while the Dutchman was waiting, telling him how much I liked the Netherlands and that I'd been to Boskoop. Afterwards I remembered that Boskoop had the most peculiar pub, where the gender of each of the two loos was indicated by the pants tacked to the doors, but that wouldn't really have been appropriate small talk for a conversation with a stranger at quarter past eight in the morning.
The watering took a long time, again, although not so bad as yesterday, partly because the manager didn't help with any of it in the plant centre because he was taken up with the Dutchman. When that was finished I volunteered myself to tidy up the irises, since nobody seemed inclined to tell me to do anything in particular. Some of the pots had a thick layer of algae on the surface, indicating they'd been around for a while. Algae growing on a pot does tell you something about its age, whereas fast growing weeds like hairy bittercress tell you nothing useful. There is a handy fork that hangs around the greenhouse which I managed to find to use as a dibbling implement. It is hallmarked silver with the family's initials on the handle.
In the afternoon I took a phone call from the owner's son at boarding school, who wanted me to take his bags out of the horsebox, since one of them held his camera and he was afraid it would be stolen. I have absolutely no idea why his luggage was in the horsebox, but removed the bags from it plus a small trunk with his name stencilled on the lid. I don't understand why, if he is at school, his luggage is at home. Still, mine not to reason why. Later on I took a call from a staff member at the boy's school, who wanted to leave a message for the owner, but the message turned out to be another request that she remove his luggage from the horsebox. I said in some confusion that I'd already done that, and could hear the boy being gently scolded for fussing. An Oxford graduate weeding potted iris with a silver fork takes a message from a boarding school to rescue a child's luggage from a horsebox.
The goldfinches never used their nest in the plant centre. I'd been discreetly watching for signs of activity and never seen a single finch, after the week when they built it, and when I had a look in it yesterday it was full of dead leaves, so today I took it carefully out of the standard Eleagnus where they'd built it, and took it home. It is a work of art. It is 8cm wide at its broadest point, narrowing slightly towards the top, and 6cm deep. The hollow inside is 4cm across and 3cm in depth. The nest is made out of fine twigs, moss, quite a lot of horsehair and a piece of green nylon string, white feathers, what looks like a bit of mashed up paper, and white fluffy stuff that could be sheep wool or might be some sort of man-made fibre. I would need a forensic analyst to be sure. Pieces of horsehair up to 15cm long are sticking out, suggesting that maybe horsehair isn't very easy to handle. I have made a place for it on the hall dresser, tucked in among the pottery.
The peahen has started bringing her chick into the plant centre. She would like to come into the shop, which is presumably peafowl heaven, being out of the wind, free of predators and with the possibility of crumbs. The manager shooed them both away from the shop door, but later on my colleague fed them on the doorstep with multi-coloured grains of popping corn from a promotional pack one of our suppliers sent us. The dog has taken to coming to see us as well. Apparently after three weeks of motherhood she is bored of the puppies.
On the way home I forgot all about the resurfacing and just took my normal route, and they haven't started work yet.
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