talk the talk

This is going to be an even shorter blog post, because it is twenty five to ten, I have just got in from the talk, and I haven't had my supper yet.  I don't like talking on a full stomach, too soporific, so I had a bag of crisps and a cup of tea before I went out, and another cup of tea and a biscuit at the garden club, but reheated goulash soup is calling.  I should have used the late start this morning to gather the twigs for my talk, but I could not tear myself away from my porridge and a second mug of tea to rush round the garden in the rain harvesting pieces of native tree, so I had to do that in the dark when I got home, and go through the slides, which I ran out of energy to do last night. It might be diplomatic to spend some of the remainder of the evening speaking with the Systems Administrator, rather than buried in the computer.

Work was quiet.  And damp.  That sums it up pretty well.  The gardener came into the shop at lunchtime and remarked that it was like the Marie Celeste in here, which it was, so it's just as well he spent the morning delivering a van load of trees to Norfolk.  At least we'll be able to invoice for those.  I like the gardener, who smiled as I remarked Very flat, Norfolk, in my best Dame Celia Molestrangler voice.

The weather is forecast to turn much colder, and so we were busy moving more plants under cover. The standard hollies had to come in, and the Ilex crenata clipped balls, and the evergreen Euonymus.  They stayed outside last winter, but dropped a lot of leaves and looked terrible for months afterwards.

The garden club was quite local, so I didn't have a long drive up the A12 to contend with.  The meeting was well attended, and I got the equipment set up with plenty of time to spare.  There was a keen volunteer from their local wood in the audience, which I knew before he said anything because one of the organisers had come to check that I knew they had a local wood.  I did.  If I hadn't checked that in advance I think I'd have been toast.  As it was, the volunteer was happy I knew about it, and by the end of the evening I'd given him my e-mail address so that next year he can take me on a guided tour of the bluebells and orchids.

Sitting quietly in a corner and waiting for the proceedings to start, the proceedings principally consisting of me, I wondered what it would be like to lose my nerve.  I worry about the equipment not working, if I press a wrong button and lose my way in the digital projector's tiny electronic brain, or if the lamp goes.  I have never yet had an attack of stage fright, but suppose I did?  I decided it was best not to think about the projector breaking down, and reminded myself that earlier tonight when I tested it on the dining table it had worked perfectly, and that so far my memory and wits had worked OK as well.

I think I covered most of what I meant to say about the slides.  There are bits of the presentation that don't flow particularly smoothly, but that's down to the way it was written.  Not my fault, I didn't write it.  The audience seemed to enjoy it, and I didn't notice anyone drop off.  I had one combative questioner who queried the entire philosophical basis of conservation, but the rest of the room seemed happy with my answer that yes, species had always died out and new ones evolved, but the difficulty at the moment seemed to be the pace at which the dying out bit was happening, wrapped up in a joke about how I was not lying in bed crying at night because the woolly mammoth had vanished.

I'd rather forgotten I'd promised to do that talk, and it slipped in under the radar when I was convinced I didn't have another until March.  I think that now I really don't have another until then. That's good.  And now I am going to have some goulash.

Addendum  The boss made it clear to me that he does not burn coal on his fire.  The black smoke was just him adjusting the damper.