starting to wind down for summer

The first customers to arrive this morning managed to park at ninety degrees to the way they are supposed to leave their car.  Why, with three staff cars already parked to give them a clue which way around to park, they chose to do so at right angle to all the other cars, is a mystery.  Fortunately they didn't stay very long.  She was wearing white trousers which are not what I would choose myself for a serious morning of compost-based retail therapy, and I think they were buying a present while on the way to somewhere else.

My Sunday colleagues had been engaging in a rich mix of cultural activites since the last time we all saw each other.  One had been on a garden society holiday touring north Yorkshire, and had a lovely time but was not as bowled over as I was by Scampston when I visited it last year.  The other had been to see a Brazilian beat mixer at the Roundhouse.

Activity in the plant centre is definitely winding down for the summer.  Sales are ticking along, but not at the level they were, and we are starting to gently destock herbaceous plants.  The season for alpines and herbs is coming to a close, and we are very low on ferns for some reason.  It will all kick back into action in the autumn, when we start restocking with trees and build up supplies of shrubs again.

The boss spent the morning at a beekeeping training day, which he was given as a present.  He said the morning theory session was fascinating, but he couldn't stay for the full afternoon practical as he had to hurry back to help with the garden tour and tea we were laying on for the village pensioner's group.  He seems to have had a lucky escape from the hands-on beekeeping part.  Participants were given veils, but not gloves, so he kept his hands firmly in his pockets, but somebody else who exposed his hands got them badly stung, ended up with bees inside his hood and was stung on the face.  That is not supposed to happen.  It was a rotten day to be opening a beehive anyway, humid and with rumbles of thunder, but that's the trouble with courses arranged in advance.  You can't pick your weather.  The pensioners seem to have had a whale of a time.  My older colleague joined them for tea, being a pensioner herself and resident in the village.  She brought us back some sandwiches (cut on the diagonal, no crusts) and cake (saved for my lunchbox tomorrow) so a good time was had by all.