I went in to work today. I don't normally, on Thursdays, but trade is so busy that we're doing extra shifts to try and keep up. After the dreadfully quiet winter we need to make the most of it while customers want to buy plants. It will start tailing off soon, though, if we don't get some rain. The Met Office have been saying it was the dryest March for 40 years, and now it is unseasonally hot. One of our customers, who has a large garden and opens under the Yellow Book scheme, was saying that it was much too dry to plant, and that was ten days ago. I was watering at home last night for over two hours, not just newly planted areas but established plants like the pulmonarias, which had begun to flag badly. I try not to water unless essential, given our water is the most expensive in all England and we're on a meter, so when I'm reduced to watering the borders in the first week of April that shows it really is dry.
I have changed into my summer work clothes, as it's so hot. This has thrown up a couple of problems, now that I'm not wearing my coat and uniform fleece. I shoved my phone and radio into the pockets of the hideous water-repellent trousers instead, and discovered that under their weight the trousers had a marked tendency to fall down. I don't think the pants showing above the trousers look is a good one in any circumstances, but especially not for middle aged people working in upmarket horticultural retailing. I daresay I have a suitable belt somewhere.
The other problem is the uniform shirt. We used not to have a uniform for years, which suited me fine. I wore my old office shirts to work, since I wasn't going to wear them anywhere else, and they had long sleeves and collars to prevent sunburn, and were made of good quality cotton. Clothes are an expression of personality, and I like expressing my personality, and wearing shirts that actually fit. The uniform shirts and fleeces were introduced so that customers could identify members of staff from fellow customers, which makes perfect sense, though the kit we carry does give them a clue. Most people don't go shopping carrying a telephone handset, radio and secateurs. The uniform didn't extend to waterproof coats, so customers couldn't see it anyway if it was cold, or raining. The problem with the uniform shirts, apart from the fact that they are shapeless and made out of polycotton, is that I only have two of them. Two is not enough if you are working three days on the trot in warm weather, so I end up wearing my old office shirts anyway. There is an additional problem with one of the shirts, in that a while back I wore it while cutting down irises for the winter. Something in the iris sap reacted with the polycotton in the wash, and the shirt came out of the washing machine with brown spatters up the front and sleeves. They have faded with time, but still look as though I had worn it to commit an axe murder. In the winter it is hidden under other layers of clothing and doesn't really show, but it is now on full display.
My colleagues are about as disorganised with their uniforms as I am, so overall it is a half-hearted effort.
Addendum I had to write this on my other computer, because my laptop refused to let me sign in to Blogspot on the grounds of inability to receive cookies. It was fine up to yesterday. The Systems Administrator has gone to London to catch up with old colleagues and eat curry, so I can't ask why the laptop's stance on cookies has suddenly changed. I haven't missed a day posting yet, but if I do it will probably be down to technical failure, and any of my friends and relations reading Cardunculus on a real-time basis should not worry unduly (unlikely they are or would anyway).
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