The queue of traffic waiting to cross the railway line at Manningtree was longer than it had been for weeks, and made me feel that the summer holiday season was well and truly over, and the world was back at work. By the end of the day this prediction turned out to be depressingly true, as wherever people were, they weren't buying plants, and the plant centre was desperately quiet.
There was some buzz provided by the start-up of the new cafe. Twenty minutes before the plant centre was due to open, nobody from the cafe had showed up, and I thought that while they surely must be coming, they were cutting it fine. Then I saw that a wooden sign for the cafe had appeared at the front of the shop, and one of the owners came in carrying a box with crockery and food in it. Over the next hour it cranked into life, with more food, the other one of the owners, an artist who arrived to hang pictures on the walls, and assorted relatives and well-wishers who had come for a celebratory coffee or lunch on the new venture's first day. It smelt very nice, and emitted an air of cheerful bustle. A couple of people that I recognised as regular customers of the plant centre turned up, and made straight for the cafe, where they were on first name chatting terms with the owners.
We take pleasure and pride in recognising our regulars, learning their names and circumstances, and welcoming them on each visit as valued guests, so it comes as a slight shock to be reminded that their custom is not exclusively ours, and that they enjoy equally cordial relations, if not more so, with other local businesses. Though I once met one of today's cafe supporters coming out of another garden centre, when several of us went there for a day's training on selling, and she did look embarrassed at being caught patronising the competition.
The cafe food looks great. There was home made (or at least it's made in a small industrial unit, not their kitchen, but they make it) bread, and a quiche which I think contained goat's cheese, and date and walnut tart. My employer was talking about negotiating a staff rate with them, but I had better not get into the habit of having a cafe lunch on working days. Today they gave us a free cheese and vegetable panini to share between the three of us. They brought some fliers for their main operation, and it looks jolly nice. They put on themed evening events, though I can't see the Systems Administrator taking me to the seafood Valentine Day special. They'd like to do breakfasts at the plant centre eventually, which would be a great idea at weekends, as long as breakfast didn't start until ten when we'd finished the watering, or breakfast customers could be persuaded to head straight inside. It's a wealthy village. There must be lots of people who when their chums come to stay for the weekend would like to take them and their hangovers out on a Sunday morning for some freshly squeezed OJ and a handmade croissant.
Apart from gawping at the cafe I stuck price labels on pansies and weeded patches of the herbaceous plants. The manager gave me a choice between them and shrubs, and given that tidying the herbaceous section doesn't involve any heavy lifting or slime and the weeding can be done standing upright with the spine in a neutral position, there's no contest in terms of nursery work. As plants per se I tend to get more excited about shrubs. The designer Russell Page dismissed herbaceous plants as coloured hay, and there's something in that.
Late in the afternoon the peacocks returned from their travels. The boss is rather irritated that they have started wandering, when they have everything they need at home.
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