When I wound the bathroom blind up this morning I was greeted by a thick wall of fog. Dimly in the middle distance I could just make out the shape of the top of the Metasequoia (that was supposed to be a swamp cypress) at the bottom of the garden, but the blades of the wind turbine on the next farm were shrouded from view. Later, as I drove to work, I began to think that I should have allowed myself some extra time to get there.
At nine I got a phone call from the woman who works in the office, to warn us that the owners' peacocks were in her garden. She said she was very happy to have them there, but supposed the owners might want them back. The owners went to a party in Cambridgeshire last night, returning home at three, and when they surfaced did not seem disposed to set off on a peacock hunt. The woman who works in the office lives a little way away, so the birds have not merely strayed next door. Goodness knows what prompted them to make a move en masse. Did they walk, or fly?
Once the fog burnt off it was a hot day, too warm for most customers, and we were pretty quiet. I grabbed myself a space inside the shop near the till to clean up herbaceous plants, and through the course of the day worked through Veronica, Veronicastrum and Viola. My brave colleague stood out in the sun weeding Campanula until mid afternoon, when she had to pack some into a trolley and seek shelter to work on them, but I don't know how she managed it. It was really too hot to stand working outside, especially on gravel, which seems to reflect sunlight back up at your face even when you're wearing a hat, as well as absorbing heat and becoming very warm itself.
The pleasant couple from Dedham came in, and we had a long discussion about the merits and demerits of various evergreen large shrubs and small trees, as they need something to mask a view of their neighbour's new and hideous shed. They went away with half a dozen names of plants to look up and think about, and I thought I had better re-read Sean Hogan's Broadleaved Evergreens for Temperate Climates. The spot they wanted to fill was in full light and on good soil, but in a wind tunnel, which raised a question mark over some potential candidates. The customers were slightly caught in the trap of wanting something that would grow quickly, while not wanting to commit themselves to too much regular pruning. Alas, there aren't that many evergreens which obligingly rush up to three or four metres, and then stop growing. I was relieved to hear that they had discovered the reason why a rose we supplied had not initially done at all well, and that it was not that we had sold them a dud plant, but because a rabbit had been hopping down their drive and chewing bits off.
My involvement in the tea room was limited to extracting two chilled cans of coke from the fridge. Tomorrow the new people take over, it is a separate business, and while I'm happy to extend a spirit of friendly co-operation to my fellow workers, I need never set foot in their kitchen again. I suggested to the owner that we'd need to find out what time they normally packed up, and she agreed that if it was later than the plant centre staff they would need a shop key so that they could lock up when they finished, as we aren't going to want to hang around for them regularly. We'll also need a procedure for their customers to pay by card, since the cafe doesn't yet have its own credit card terminal. And doubtless there will be other issues and glitches that nobody has thought of, but never mind.
The puppy is still not house trained. I gather it was widdling on the carpets this morning.
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