more rain and a rare bird

It's been a long day, which means it's going to be a short post.

It rained nearly all day and trade was very quiet.  You can't blame people.  A few of those who came in said that shopping for plants was the only gardening job they could get on with, given that they couldn't work in their gardens, but on the whole when you can scarcely get anything done outside you don't get to the point where you need to buy many plants.  I tidied up the herbaceous section while it was only drizzling, and then had to take refuge in one of the tunnels and spruce up the bedding.  I actually rather enjoy pulling yellow leaves and spent flower heads off pelargoniums, because I like them as plants, and their old flowers and dead leaves part company from the stem with a satisfying snap, but the petunias and impatiens were not so nice.  The petunias had developed fuzzy mould at the bottom from the endless damp and cold weather, while the dead petals of bizzy lizzies stick to the leaves, and it is a sign of a desperately quiet day when you spend half an hour grooming them off with your fingertips.

The dog had four puppies, though I haven't seen them yet, and the peahen hatched one chick.  I haven't seen that either, since I think the boss has put her and the chick in a coop to protect them from foxes.  She sat on the second egg for another three days after the first one hatched, then lost interest in it.  The gardener had his fifth grandchild, so it was a busy week on the procreational front.

The day's treat came when the local RSPB officer rang the boss to say that there was a bittern down on the marshes.  The boss and the owner and the boss's father, who happened to have just called round, and the two members of the plant centre staff who had never seen a bittern before (the manager has, at Minsmere) all piled into the landrover and the boss drove us down to the marsh, and there was the bittern standing in the edge of a reedbed, being admired by two RSPB staff and the leader of the local scout group, who had a telescope.  The bittern was visible with the naked eye, but we were all lent binoculars and allowed goes through the telescope so that we could have a better look.  I can't generally see anything through binoculars, but managed to focus on the bittern using just my dominant eye, and then had a turn through the telescope.  He or she was busy preening itself, rummaging around the undersides of its wings, which are striped, except when a heron flew overhead, and it flung its head back and stood in typical bittern camouflaged pose.  That was really quite exciting, and marks my induction as a twitcher, since I have never before in my life jumped into a vehicle and rushed off to see a bird.

I went straight from work to the beekeepers' committee meeting, since if I'd gone home first I'd only have had to go straight out again.  The Chairman was strict about stopping us talking at once, which was good, but driving home afterwards I did feel as though I'd just been to a masterclass in kicking the ball into the long grass, as we didn't seem to have decided much about anything.  There again, we don't decide much about anything at the music society committee meetings, as the Chair and Bookings Secretary have it all under firm control.  Maybe that's just what committee meetings are like.