another talk

I did another woodland charity talk this afternoon.  Talks are sometimes like buses, you wait for ages and then three come along at once.  I did one a fortnight ago, and have a third in another couple of weeks time, then my diary is a complete blank when it comes to woodland talks for the rest of the year.  I did have an enquiry for November from a group in Romford, but when I made a counter offer of next summer because I didn't fancy the drive down the A12 in the dark and potential November weather they replied saying that it was too far to ask anyone to come at all, and rescinded their invitation.

Today's was a repeat booking, which is always gently reassuring.  I can't remember exactly when I saw them before but it was several years ago, before ash dieback disease hit the UK.  I am puzzled in that I recognised the hall, but remembered the meeting being held in an upstairs room.  My hosts denied having ever used the upstairs room, and said they used to meet somewhere else anyway, which left me wondering whether I'd spoken to some other group in that hall, or muddled it up with a different one.

I was so focused on the talk that I'd completely forgotten that I had a beekeeping show committee meeting this evening.  Luckily the Systems Administrator had remembered, replying when I asked whether the pizza in today's shopping was for his supper tomorrow when he got back from the cricket that no, it was for his supper tonight because I was going out.  I'm not sure that I contribute a great deal to the show committee.  I have never entered the honey show, and have no strong feelings about tent layout, but thought that as Treasurer I'd better show moral support, and be ready to chip in on any subjects with financial ramifications.

So that leaves me with an odd little bit of time, not enough to get stuck into any major task or for it to be worth changing back into my gardening clothes, too long to spend all of it looking at pictures of surfing dogs and tiger kittens on the Telegraph website.  I doubt if I shall renew my online subscription this autumn when it runs out.  Their news content seems to get thinner while their analysis gets more biased.  One of their journalists kept insisting yesterday that the charmless column of ceramic tulips in the great pavilion at Chelsea was eight feet tall, when I knew it was much taller than that because I'd just seen it myself.  Only in the picture caption was it revealed that they meant eight metres.  I'd miss Dan Hodges, on the other hand I could probably summarise his articles for the next two years in the phrase 'Labour is still useless'.  And think of all the other things I could do with my time if I wasn't looking at photographs of tiger cubs and reading articles about how to wear trousers.