I wouldn't say the day started well. Or at least it started well enough, in that my alarm clock went off at the right time, I remembered to take a teazel stalk and a sunflower seed head as props for my wildlife talk, and to pack my script, and my mother's birthday present which I'd arranged to take round to her house after work. I remembered my packed lunch, and even to stop at the post box to drop off a friend's birthday card, to be sure it would arrive by Tuesday.
Things only began to go downhill when I got to work. The manager, who does not normally work at weekends, was in for his sixth successive day, as he was due to give a talk on Planting Up Your Containers. He had stayed at the plant centre getting things ready until gone seven the previous evening, and was tired, stressed and scratchy. The owner gave the three of us our instructions in the office, to sell lots, and wafted off, announcing that she had to make Phil's lunch. Phil is a professional landscaper who always comes in to help the boss with the guided tour of the garden. I presume the boss likes the moral support, while Phil hopes to pick up some useful contacts that might lead to future work.
As soon as the three of us got out into the plant centre, the manager gave my co-worker a ticking off for failing to empty his wheelbarrow yesterday evening. I myself have had a few stand-offs with the same chap over his tendency to leave his hose snaked across the plant centre when he has finished watering, instead of putting it away safely before the customers arrive. However, I don't suppose the manager's recent management course included razzing up your staff on the morning of what is supposed to be a big sales push. Gloomily reflecting as did my share of the watering that although I was doing a talk unaided, I would be lunching off a packet of oatcakes and an old end of parmesan I found in the fridge, and not something freshly prepared by the owner's fair hands, I rather wished that I was somewhere else, and not dragging a heavy hose around in an atmosphere of mutual recrimination at half past eight on a Saturday morning.
The talk, when it came, went well. Surprisingly well, really, given that there wasn't any sort of rehearsal, so it was the world live premiere, and I had the owner standing in on it. Afterwards I remembered a few extra points I'd meant to include, and forgotten to mention in the excitement of the moment, but most of it came out of my mouth as planned last Thursday afternoon. There were almost no empty chairs, the audience smiled, and at the end there were questions, the opening one coming from an extremely cute and serious small girl about eight years old, which developed into a small spontaneous group discussion about wildlife. I decided I had earned myself a piece of cake, and bought a large piece of coffee and walnut from the tea shop girl. Sitting drinking tea and eating the cake in our staff room while my adrenaline levels began to subside, I was interrupted a couple of minutes later by the owner, who said that she owed me some money, and I didn't have to pay for the cake.
A couple who had sat through the talk appeared later at the till with their purchases, and asked me how I did the talk, and whether I got nervous or did my enthusiasm carry me through. It was a good question, and I told them truthfully that I had not been nervous, because I did a lot of talks one way and another, but that this one had been technically difficult, because it was a new script and I'd had to work hard to try and remember to cover everything. They might have noticed that on the table behind me I'd had some pieces of paper with cue words and phrases, among the plants and the bird food. They said that they had noticed. I added that in my previous life I'd worked in the City, where I'd had some very expensive presentation training, and they smiled at each other.
I didn't get a paying gig off it, though. One woman who said it was very good would have liked me to do a woodland conservation talk for her Inner Wheel, but she was from Stowmarket. I had to explain that I couldn't trespass into the Suffolk speaker's territory, and gave her the name of the volunteer co-ordinator at the charity.
Later on someone came in who still wanted the Prunus tenella 'Fire Hill' she'd ordered in April of last year, and which I'd rung her about. It was such a long time ago, and so embarrassing, that I was quite glad when I only got her voicemail and didn't have to explain what I was ringing about in person.
Tomorrow I have to do it all over again. By then it should be really slick.
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