When I woke up I could hear the sound of rain on the garden. It is badly needed, and I stepped into my shower in a cheerful mood. By the time I went to let the chickens out into their run the rain had pretty much stopped, as rain, but seemed to have diffused into the air. The Systems Administrator appeared some time later, looking as though suffering from a relapse of the flu, and announced that the relative humidity was 95 per cent while the temperature was 18.5 degrees, meaning that if it had been less than one degree C cooler it would have been foggy. Heat and humidity really do not agree with the SA, who had a raging headache on the back of them, and acquiesced meekly to my suggestion that I could go out later to buy supper.
Just as I was starting to think that I was unduly paranoid about our postal deliveries, what with my tickets for Chelsea, and the SA's for the cricket, arriving safely, the postman brought us a jiffy bag clearly addressed to the lettuce farm. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. I dropped the little parcel off at the farm office on my way to Tesco. I thought the man behind a desk that I gave it to might have tried slightly harder to look pleased and grateful that I'd bothered, since I could easily have left it sitting in the pile of stuff at the end of the kitchen table before discovering it again weeks later, and feeling so guilty that I'd still got it that I dropped it quietly in the bin.
It is difficult to know whether to complain or not. It feels unwise to antagonise one's postman. Sensible decisions to leave parcels on the shelf in the porch could be replaced by a punitive regime of taking everything back to the post office for collection, and birthday cards and magazines could arrive via a mysterious puddle on the floor of the van, for evermore. On the other hand, the Royal Mail is supposed to deliver letters to the address on the envelope, not drop them off at any random house in the vicinity and rely on neighbourly goodwill to get them to their final destination. I complained, stressing that the postman was in other respects very pleasant and helpful, and I did not want him to get into trouble, only to make sure to deliver the post to the place it was addressed to. 'Luke' in customer services thanked me for my words of praise in defence of the postman and promised me that he would not be punished, only reminded that attention to detail was vital. Goodness knows what they'll actually do. I felt bad grassing up the postman, but I also feel bad at not being able to rely on the mail service.
I combined the trip to Tesco with a visit to B&Q to buy compost. I rather hate B&Q, and slightly hate myself for shopping there. They are not proper specialists, they run out of things and cannot be relied on, and they are steadily reducing the number of manned tills in favour of self service points which I find utterly baffling, apart from the fact that I can't put a 125 litre bale of compost on the scales. But they are cheap, and their own-brand compost is currently quite good. I hate myself for not buying peat free compost as well, but after a bad run with revolting mixtures of chopped bark and green waste which seemed actively hostile to plant growth, I pine for compost that actually works.
I have discovered one reason for B&Q's recent poor results. First quarter sales fell by nearly thirty per cent after trading was affected by weak demand and the cold weather. That's the official explanation. Also they have stopped providing trolleys, at least in their Colchester Hythe branch. I hunted around the car park, and eventually had to settle for the only garden centre green plastic trolley I could find, tipping the collected rain water out of it and eyeing the layer of brown sludge in the bottom without enthusiasm. The body of it leaned at a disconcerting angle, one of the back wheels was appreciably off the vertical, and I wondered whether it would stand the weight of a bale of compost. Ideally I'd have liked two bales, having bothered to go to B&Q, but that seemed unwise in the circumstances, and I managed to prop my single bale so that it bypassed the brown sludge. I passed up on the plants as well.
The trolley made it as far as the single manned checkout point, where the girl asked me whether I'd got everything I was looking for. Whether this is a new B&Q standing instruction to staff, or she was psychic, or I was looking particularly disappointed even by B&Q customer standards, I couldn't tell. I said I'd have liked another bale of compost, if I could have found a trolley that worked, then made it half way to the door before the trolley collapsed sideways and the compost crashed to the ground. Instantly a crowd formed around it of several staff members and another customer. Somebody asked if I was hurt, which seemed unlikely since I was still standing. I replied irritably and ungraciously that I was fine, it was just that the only trolley I'd been able to find was buggered. A female member of staff said apologetically that they were low on green trolleys at the moment. The crowd got the trolley upright, and replaced the bag of compost, which was by now covered in slime and burst at one end, then pointed out to each other how the trolley's rear wheels were on the wonk. I requested that a member of staff load the compost for me, since I didn't want to get brown gunk all over my trousers, and was assigned a saturnine young man called Vince, who was instructed to put the trolley round the corner when he'd finished with the other broken ones.
Meanwhile, the Systems Administrator rallied sufficiently to make ice cream. Tonight we'll be trying a cornflour based vanilla gelato with chocolate chips, while I have discovered where Tesco keep their supplies of caramelised evaporated milk.
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