I went to investigate the birds nest in the greenhouse, to see if I'd scared whatever it was off the nest. A belligerent and beady eye looked back at me, over a red breast. A robin, then, not a wren. Probably the same robin that was there last year, in which case it knows the form and will just have to put up with my working in the greenhouse, as I will have to put up with it. Starlings in the roof, Black and White Alsatian Killer Cat in the garden, Our Ginger on the kitchen table, a large and inconvenient spider plant in the en-suite bathroom and now robins in the greenhouse. I sometimes feel we just squeeze in at the edges.
The day was so horribly windy that I decided to count it as honorary rain, even though it was not raining very much, and get on with some of the long list of tasks I've been saving for a wet day. As a prelude to tackling my first draft of special ticket offers for the music society, I put in an order to John Lewis for sheets and a bath towel. One of my towels is so worn it has frayed along the edges, and I have always been envious of the Systems Administrator's ones, which are much larger and fluffier than mine. Apparently Egyptian cotton is the thing to go for, and a bath sheet, not a mere towel. Then I ordered myself some more vests while Boden were offering me thirty per cent off and free delivery.
The music society offers took some thinking about. In our discussions on how to increase ticket sales we came up with two ideas, to offer gift vouchers for people to buy for their friends and relations, and to give season ticket holders one set of free tickets per season for them to bring new people along, who might turn into regular supporters if they enjoyed themselves. The treasurer was slightly suspicious of the latter idea, in case it cannibalised existing sales, but I though our regular supporters were mostly too nice to take advantage of us. The deep-seated middle class capacity for social embarrassment does sometimes have its uses. Both marketing initiatives needed appropriate blurb, which it is terribly difficult to write without sounding like the Boden catalogue (that is why so much you receive does sound like the Boden catalogue) plus admin and record keeping systems that need to be as simple as possible, both for the public and for the person who has nobly volunteered to take on ticket sales.
Lunch was delayed by a quarter of an hour, but I came up with something and sent it off to the rest of the committee. I will now see if I get bouquets, brickbats, or a resounding silence.
Then as an antidote to my efforts on behalf of the music society I finished my Peter Nyssen order, which has been making slow progress in the evenings, generally because I go to sleep over it. The price of tulip bulbs has gone up terribly in the past few years. I checked my e-mails, and whereas in 2009 I paid £3.00 for 25 'Ballerina', by last year it had gone up to £3.75 for 25, and this year I have just paid £2.60 for 10 (which translates to £6.50 for 25, to save you the maths). I wondered whether Peter Nyssen were adjusting their prices for the retail market, having started off as wholesalers, but looking at other suppliers, everyone is charging more. The excellent Broadleigh Gardens' 'Ballerina' now come in at 40 pence per bulb, while they are 48 pence each from Bloms. I suppose costs have increased, the oil price pushing up the price of transport and fertiliser, and the expense of lifting the bulbs. It is a mystery to me how Tesco can sell me a bunch of tulips, harvested, flown in from abroad, and about to open, for less than I have to pay to buy the same number of dry bulbs.
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