a fairly busy day at the plant centre

It was another busy day at work, though maybe not so frantically busy as it has been.  I managed to spend a good part of the day putting plants out for sale and helping customers outside in the plant centre, rather than stuck on the till.  The manager had left a note to say I should move some shrubby honeysuckles, Lonicera rupicola var. syringantha, from the shrub beds where they were flowering largely ignored, to the display tables by the entrance.  I moved a couple, and by mid-afternoon both had sold, though so had one left in their original position with the shrubs.  This has soft pink flowers and blueish-green foliage, and is a pretty thing.  I was quite tempted to buy one myself, but desisted.  I wonder if it is drought tolerant.  Lonicera tatarica is a marvellously tough plant, thriving with me and in a colleague's equally dry garden, but I don't know if L. rupicola is equally amenable.  It is supposed to be marvellously scented, according to my researches just now on the internet.  I must admit I didn't smell it, but I have a slight cold and can't smell much at all at the moment.  I've a feeling I could easily talk myself into getting one, as long as it could cope with the sandy soil in the top part of the garden.

On the tills we kept running out of change.  I wish the banks would get on and dispense five pound notes through cashpoint machines, as they have said they are going to do.  Customers tender £20 notes, which you can't blame them for, and we soon run out of fivers and have to use pound coins in their change, so we run out of those too.  Today we even managed to run out of 1p bits at one point.  A woman whose partner had given me twelve pounds for an eleven pound something transaction demanded a five pound note in addition to her thirty-something pence change.  When I said that the plants were over eleven pounds and they'd given me twelve pounds she began to query the price of the plants.  Fortunately she had her itemised (three items) till receipt in her hand.  Her partner shushed her and hurried her away.  I think he was rather embarassed.

Looking on the bright side, I remembered a belt for my trousers, and managed not to water my feet, having changed to plimsolls now that the weather's warming up.  I hate spending all day in damp shoes.