It was a grey morning, but at least that meant there was no watering to do at work, except inside the tunnels, and even they were pretty damp, apart from a few odd things. The manager had left his usual list of jobs to do over the weekend next to the till, and mine was to empty the two double-decker red trolleys, plus three of the silver ones that customers use. That's what he left me to do the last weekend I was working, and I calculated then that it came to around 9.5 square metres of plant pots to put out for sale.
Moving that quantity of plants before left me absolutely shattered by Tuesday, and on Monday when the manager returned to work he didn't say anything encouraging, like gosh, well done for managing to move all those plants, or thank you, so I set about this weekend's trolleys at a more circumspect pace. When I was at infants school I remember writing my first story. The teacher gave me a gold star, and I was inordinately pleased, not withstanding the fact that the star had no value whatsoever. I mean, you couldn't hand it in for sweets or a book or anything. I immediately wrote another story. I didn't get another star, and experienced a massive sense of disillusionment. Managers take note. Even middle aged people have their inner six year old lurking not so very far below the surface, and if they make a considerable effort and you don't recognise it at all, next time they will probably moderate their energies accordingly.
The peacock's tail is vast and resplendent. I saw him perching on one of the finials over the door into the owners' private garden, looking very romantic, and the girl who runs the tea room at weekends found him displaying his tail outside the ladies' loo. She has a reserved attitude to large birds, but her nervousness about approaching the peacock was outweighed by her urgent desire to go to the loo. I heard a great deal of screaming while I was having my morning tea break, which was the peacock calling because it is the mating season, and the owners' child shouting at the peacock because he felt like it. I have never been threatened by the peacock and think it is quite good natured, although it might not stay that way if too many children shout at it.
The manager's schedule of things to do included a long list of plants to be covered with fleece if frost was forecast. One of my colleagues went up to the office to have a look at the weather forecast late in the afternoon, and returned baffled, since the forecast was for a minimum temperature of five degrees C, but with the possibility of frost if there were clear patches. We compromised on fleecing the most tender and succulent herbaceous plants, like the delphiniums, and bringing some under cover in trolleys, while leaving shrubs like the pittosporums, which ought to be able to cope with 5 degrees above zero. Really as a forecast it did not make sense, since if the minimum never dropped below five I wouldn't expect a frost, clear skies or no. It was quite breezy, and some of the plants we were supposed to cover had grown so tall that the fleece wouldn't tuck in all the way round, so most of it will have blown off the plants it is supposed to be covering by the time it gets dark, and it felt rather like a token effort.
The goldfinches had finished their nest, or nearly done so. I didn't like to inspect it too closely, but could see without going right up to the shrub that there was a neat rounded structure inside, where last Monday there had been just a few feathers and some moss. I warned both of my colleagues, and put a Reserved notice on the plant. I never saw a goldfinch in the plant centre all day, and have no idea if they will use the nest or have abandoned it, on the other hand maybe once it is finished they don't need to be in the plant centre. The robins' nest in our greenhouse last year seemed deserted most of the time, once it was finished and she started laying, until the point where she started to sit on the eggs. It is strange the way that most bird books are so geared to identification, without telling you much (or anything) about what the birds are actually doing when you see them. I would like to have the nest, once the goldfinches have finished with it, or if they don't use it, because I would like to install it in the Eriobotrya 'Coppertone' in the conservatory at home, with a toy bird in it, a cheerful kitsch one made out of dyed feathers.
I got home to find that it had drizzled most of the day here, so we had the best of the weather to the north. Not very good weather, but still better than drizzle.
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