who has seen the wind

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I

But when half the pots in the plant centre fall down

The wind is passing by.

Or so might Christina Rossetti written, if she'd been working in a plant centre in Suffolk, instead of as a reclusive poet in Victorian Bloomsbury.  It was dreadfully windy, the sort of wind that creates mess and chaos, tipping over the plants (which then spill compost everywhere and crush each other) and driving every coherent thought out of my head.

The owners had a new rooster, who arrived yesterday.  This morning he apparently came into their kitchen while they were having breakfast, and later, when I went up to the house with a phone message I'd taken, he was in the office.  He was an amiable, dumpy bird with feathered feet, who looked to be an agreeable addition to the household.  By mid-afternoon he had disappeared, last seen running into the garden pursued by the peacock, so I hope they find him this evening.  Left out overnight he is likely to be fox food, which would be a shame.

My job for the day was to redo a row of display tables, which is generally an amusing task, though less so while it's blowing three quarters of a gale.  Some nice sedums had come in since the last time I was there, plus Callicarpa bodinieri showing a fine display of their purple berries, pale flowered astrantia that were looking very fresh and bandbox-clean, straight out of a glasshouse, and a selection of cultivars of Pittosporum tenuifolium, so I had some material to work with.  Even so I felt as though I were scrabbling around at times for suitable plants to use, but I think that was partly the stressful effects of the wind.

A longstanding customer rang to speak to a colleague, having heard on the grapevine that she'd not been well, and wanting to offer support and sympathy, which was really very nice of her.  One of the pleasures of working in a small firm where people tend to stay for a long time, is that we get to know some of the regular customers as people, not just as punters that we relieve of money in exchange for goods.

The manager was charging about compiling lists of big orders for the autumn, and I discovered with pleasure that we should be getting some more ginger-scented rosemary, and the extra-tender, extra-blue form of Teucrium, neither of which we've had since spring, and then they were only a few sad specimens held over from last season.  I tried the rosemary, and it died.