day two of open weekend

Radio 3 managed to get me through breakfast and to work without breaking out into listeners' e-mails.  There was something pastoral and vaguely familiar that turned out to be Delius, something choral and rather splendid by Herbert Sumsion (I never heard of him but that's part of the point of listening to Radio 3), and a nice romantic piece of Johann Strauss.  It was a properly civilised start to Sunday, and I hope they keep it up, although that is 'hope' in the sense of 'wish they would' rather than 'expect they will'.

Comparing notes with colleagues in an idle moment this afternoon, it's not just Radio 3 that is alienating its audience though pandering to the idiot element.  On Friday evening, after watching Gardeners' World, the Systems Administrator and I stayed tuned for the first part of Autumnwatch.  I was fairly sure after the first two minutes that I was not going to like this, and it was a great relief when the Systems Administrator agreed that it really was dire, and we switched to recordings of Michael Portillo's railway journeys.  For those of you that didn't see Autumnwatch, two gurning men with bad haircuts and a silly woman with a mirthless smile larked about with zero personal chemistry between them in Westonbirt Arboretum, and an item about horseshoe bats, which should have been jolly interesting and included some fantastic night photography of the bats, was needlessly cut with jumpy camera shots and switches into black and white with dramatic music intended to reference horror films.  Why?  I mean, really, why?  Nature is fascinating, and lots of people like it, as witnessed by the enduring and highly successful career of David Attenborough.  Plus people who stay in to watch telly on a Friday evening are probably middle aged or older.  They (we) don't need to be jollied along as if we were watching a version of Ceebeebies for grownups.  One of my colleagues said that Autumnwatch was dreadful, and she had gone to sleep during in it, and the manager said that it was dreadful, and he had stayed tuned in to the bitter end but wouldn't watch any more episodes.  Apparently after we gave up there was a feature about radio tagging migratory birds, and rather than telling him anything sensible about bird migration the presenters had larked about giggling because the tag fell off.  After BBC2 Gardeners' World crashed and burned when somebody tried to turn it into an offshoot of light entertainment you'd think the management would have learnt something, but apparently not.

It rained for the first part of the morning, which was not supposed to happen.  The forecast said that the rain was due to blow through in the night.  Although as one of my colleagues said, this was still the night.  Things brightened up later on, and we sold a bit more than we did yesterday, but it was still quiet.  I really don't know what to blame.  The overall economy?  The lack of activity in the housing market?  The weather?  Gardening going out of fashion?  I have a nasty feeling that if people aren't thinking about their gardens by now, they aren't going to until next spring.

My first task was to tidy out the small greenhouse in the corner of the plant centre.  It is a lovely greenhouse, I guess Edwardian, with magnificant roof vents and a brick lower half.  Some of the glass has been replaced with polycarbonate, but it is still a nice little building.  It gets used for putting reserved plants to one side, and overwintering tender plants, and also tends to accumulate junk.  The aim was to get rid of the junk, sort out the plants, and have one end dedicated to stock, including things that mustn't be watered too much in the winter or they rot, and the other end for reserved plants.  The manager can then water the stuff that needs to be dry himself, and if they rot he has only himself to blame.  Unfortunately in the course of removing the dead plants, empty compost bags shoved under the staging and other miscellaneous rubbish, I managed to tip compost laden water down my uniform shirt, so by the time the customers arrived I presented a thoroughly shabby sight.  I did have to bite my lip when one person asked me whether I worked here and just say yes, how could I help, rather than yes, it's the uniform shirt with the company logo and compost all over it that's the giveaway.

pootling in late sunshine

The unseasonably warm weather is very beautiful, but it does slow you down.  I gave the bees some more sugar syrup, recharged the wasp traps, took a car load of rubbish to the dump, moved some empty pots into the shed, watered the pots with plants in and moved more of them into the greenhouse for the winter, and that was the day done.  Doesn't sound like a full day's work.

It is a terrible year for wasps (or a highly successful one, from the wasp's point of view).  They were hanging around the beehives in greater numbers than I've ever seen.  I managed to squash four against the side of one hive.  The extra trap I put out a couple of days ago, using the last of a pot of strawberry jam, hadn't caught any at all, so I strengthened the bait with a teaspoon of blackcurrant jelly left over from 2009.  In fact it still seemed quite soft and jelly like, and not at all rubbery or crystallised, and it almost seemed a waste to use it, but I do have three drawers of a large iron filing cabinet full of homemade jam, some dating back to 2008, so must be able to spare a teaspoonful.

One of the full size colonies seems to be losing interest in sugar syrup, and still haven't emptied their last bucket, though hefting the hive it doesn't feel especially heavy.  I hope they have sufficient stores in there, but I have to trust them to know what they're doing.  The others are still hoovering the stuff down at an impressive rate.  After making up too little syrup at a time all autumn, and finding I have to heat a second batch, I have finally over-compensated and now have a pudding basin of the stuff left over, tucked away in a corner of the kitchen with a plate over it.  I ought to do some basic calculations, like measuring the capacity of the feeders, and discovering what the volume of 2lb sugar disolved in 1pint water is, then I would actually know how much syrup to make up, instead of relying on guesswork, a hazy memory of what I did last time, and the conviction that it wasn't enough.

The dump was busy.  There's a lot of autumn garden tidying going on, to judge from the waste arriving this morning, and quite a lot of conscientious recycling, with bits of timber, metal and glass finding their way to the right skips.  It is going to be such a nuisance if it shuts.  I don't know if that decision has been taken yet.

The greenhouse is filling up.  I think everything will fit in, as the dahlia pots will go under the staging, as soon as their tops have been blackened by the first frost and I've cut them down.  Each year is a challenge to try and improve on last year, and not put pots in places where they block my view of other plants, which always ends in things being over or under-watered.  I leave narrow tracks along the floor, like animal paths in a forest, so that I can reach all parts to water and weed.  Part of me itches for a larger greenhouse, which is silly, since I don't have time to care for any more pots than I already have.

A useful job that didn't take long was to glue the broken halves of a couple of terracotta pots back together.  I use Evo-stik impact adhesive, and while I wouldn't depend on the mended pots to stand outdoors all year round with permanent planting, they do well enough for summer displays, or in the shelter of the conservatory, as long as their occupant doesn't have too expansionist a root system to force the broken halves apart again.  It is worth wiping the nozzle of the glue carefully after use before replacing the lid, as once I managed to glue the lid to the tube.  That was the end of that tube of glue, as I utterly failed ever to get the lid off again.

The least good part of this beautiful day was Radio 3.  This week's Sunday morning show was as painful as last week's Breakfast show.  After listening to a (very crackly) pre-war recording of a Czech performance of Smetana's Blanik, followed by tumultous applause and the singing of the Czech national anthem, Rob Cowan read out a handful of listeners' e-mails and texts about it.  I really wish he wouldn't (or rather, that the R3 bosses wouldn't make him.  I can't believe he wants to.)  One of the reasons why I have never joined a book club is that I am dourly convinced that discussions would be couched at the level of which characters in the book the other members of the group liked.  Hearing how assorted random strangers felt listening to the Czech Philharmonic's rendition of Czech patriotic music as the Nazi menace tore across Europe is about equally dull.  I was so disheartened I gave up with the radio until after lunch, and then settled for Classic FM as being much less cheesy than R3 trying to be Classic FM.

Sunday working

So there is no respite from the R3 Breakfast show on Sundays.  This morning we were told that somebody was an under-rated composer, and invited to contact the programme saying whether we agreed, and that somebody else had possibly reinstated the guitar as the equal of the violin or cello.  Did we consider this to be the case?  Do please let R3 know via their website, and at 8.30am there will be a phone-in.  The tough choice facing us this evening between Downton Abbey and Spooks was mentioned (no, I won't be watching either programme) which led clunkily into the intro for a piece of Elgar.  Some Mendelssohn was said to be wonderful.  I never heard of Clemency Burton-Hill until yesterday, and her chirpy, determinedly let's not be elitist and instead make classical music accessible to the masses tones have already joined those of Ed Balls, Patricia Hewitt (nowadays mercifully silent), David Starkey and Nicholas Parsons introducing Just a Minute, as something to be avoided at almost all costs.  Except that the alternative at 7.30 on a Sunday morning driving to work is assorted dreary theologians.  And I used to really like R3 first thing on a Sunday.  Bother. Indeed B****r.

Work was moderately busy, as was yesterday.  Trade overall is rather subdued, and very lumpy.  Watering is a challenge as some plants are sopping wet, while others are bone dry.  We did our best to cater to each according to its needs, but inevitably some dry pots slipped past us.  I had left my wellingtons in the hall at home, which I realised as I got out of the car at work and couldn't find them.  Fortunately I avoided watering my feet.  I normally do water them, so wonder if there is an element of risk compensation when I have boots on, and if I am more careful when I don't have boots, or any dry shoes to change into.  But it might have been a matter of luck, and which lance I had.  I have got new Wellingtons, since the left boot of the old ones split over the toe and allowed water to pour in, even just walking through wet grass.  The new boots have got rather meaty treads, which seem to pick up a lot of gravel, mud, and anything else that's going.

I finished weeding and tidying the hostas and epimediums, and made a start on the hardy geraniums.  It's amazing how quickly they get weedy.  I remember doing all of them, not so many weeks ago.  It will soon be incorrect to compare weeding them to painting the Forth Bridge, since I saw on the news recently that they have painted that with a new weather resistant paint which is expected to last for ages between applications, so we will have to think of a new cliche.  By the end of the working day I had a large circle of mud on my stomach, from resting the bases of pots against it, and back-ache, from working at a bench that is critically too low.  My colleagues equally reported back-ache, though we all seemed to have it in different places.  I'm a low back sufferer myself.

There have been a lot of regular customers in over the weekend.  One of them today (with the ailing brother in London, who is stone deaf without her hearing aids but today she had them in) said how much she enjoyed the whole experience of visiting us.  It's good to hear that.  The contrasting cases of the two old ladies who called in yesterday is a fascinating study.  One of them is tiny, with visible osteoporosis, and is always extremely polite and very grateful for any help.  She has charmed all the staff, and gets a great deal of help.  If she wants a particular plant and the ones we have in stock are not awfully nice, we will order a few new ones rather than try to flog her an old one, and if she wants anything that might be hidden away behind the scenes we will run and look for her.  Her enquiry about plants with particular names, for a memorial garden, sent somebody trotting up to the office to consult the on-line Plantfinder.  Beyond being scrupulously polite, she never gives the impression that she wants us to like her.  The other old lady is about equally tiny, though less fragile.  She has the habit of buying things, taking them home, not liking them when she sees them in situ, and bringing them back.  She somehow gives the impression of being lonely, and wanting to be liked, while not always behaving like a proper customer, going and finding her own plants on the reserve bed, and trying to queue jump with queries.  The unfortunate result of her apparent neediness plus failure to quite observe the boundaries is that she is not liked, and members of staff try to leave somebody else to serve her.  One former colleague was reduced to going and hiding in the staff room.

dumbing down

I left early for work this morning, to allow time to unpack the plants from the car.  I clicked the radio on, as I generally do when driving, and found it was tuned to Radio 3.  Normally I'm a current affairs junkie first thing in the morning, but the music was something stately on the piano, which I liked, so I left it there.  Then we got to the end of the piece, and I discovered that it was by Handel, and I began to learn what Max Davidson was on about in Thurday's Telegraph.  I'd already found the new format Essential Classics not to my taste, but this was the first time I'd sampled the new-sound Breakfast programme.  I have no quarrel with the music, but the continuity is quite toe-curlingly awful.

I know very little about classical music.  I can't read music, and I didn't play an instrument at school. Or at least, I didn't learn to play an instrument.  Aged nine or ten, I had one or two year's piano lessons with an elderly nun, who told me to bring my fingers down like little hammers, while I practiced some piece purporting to be about little Indians.  My parents bought a piano, an upright with a couple of stuck notes and candle sconces that rattled when it was played, which never saw a piano tuner after entering our house, and probably not for some time before that.  The piano was installed in an unheated room that was used as a combination of workshop and junk store, known as 'the first room' to distinguish it from 'the far room', which was even colder and equally full of junk.  Piano practice didn't go very well, and the lessons soon stopped.  My grandmother lamented that I would regret not being able to play an instrument when I was grown up, but appealing to a nine year old's future regrets is not an effective form of motivation.  As a teenager I learnt to play the guitar slightly, and by my twenties had worked out that I was totally devoid of the talent I admired in, say, Martin Simpson or The Police, and that it would be better all round if I desisted from guitar playing.  Likewise I taught myself to play tunes on the English concertina, as long as they weren't too fast, and to put in some basic harmonies, but when I heard people jeering at musicians that only ever used three chords, I was pretty sure I was such a one.  I have a folkie's ear for a tune, but I couldn't identify a dominant fifth if it jumped up and bit me.

Nonetheless I like classical music, and I like being able to listen to the whole of a piece, without advertisements for Specsavers.  I like being told something about the music, and the circumstances in which it was written.  If the composer is blissfully in love, or crushed by the death of his children, or oppressed by awareness of the coming war in Europe, that's quite interesting.  Likewise if he recycled bits of a piece he'd alread flogged to another patron, or was using the new possibilities opened up by advances in instrument design, that's good to know.  Or if the composer was influenced by another musician, or paying homage to them, or making a musical reference or joke, I like to be told.  I love the programme that takes a piece of music and dissects it in not too technical terms, pointing out how the theme played by the violins in the first movement has returned in the third movement but given to the woodwind section, or whatever.  I really like all that stuff.

We didn't get that in the Breakfast programme.  Instead we got repeated invitations to e-mail, or tweet, or even write, with our thoughts on bits of music related to weddings that meant something to us, and nominate which classic recordings we would pay a lot of money for (this introduced by some waffle about Pink Floyd).  We got exhortations to follow the programme on Facebook.  The Essential Classics is as bad, with the presenter repeatedly assuring us that she loves receiving all of our e-mails.  It's cringe making.  It's not just the content that's awful, it's the delivery.  I have noticed when I happen to see telly aimed at young children, or overhear a school group at a garden or museum, that many adults talking to groups of primary age children adopt a special voice of overdone enthusiasm.  I don't know if children like it, but I find it dreadfully embarassing, and I suspect I would have when I was nine.  Radio 3 has started talking to their audience in that tone, and it is so, so cringe-making.  I'm quite happy with a bit of chat from presenters who know how to do it, Radcliffe and Maconie being prime examples, but when they do it they sound natural.  I could believe that if they were down in the pub, or sat in each other's kitchens, they would still pooter on in that vein.  The poor wretched R3 presenters just sound phoney.

Of course radio stations have to move with the times.  My uncle was a R3 producer, back in the days before digital recording, when a lot of R3 output was of specially commissioned concerts.  He is a proper musician, with a first class honours in music, who can play the piano.  He considers the current reliance on CDs a retrograde step, whereas I'm quite happy with them.  If I hear something I like I can go and get my own copy.  I have just bought a Stephen Hough recording of Chopin's waltzes on the basis that I heard one on the way to work the other week, and liked it, plus I wanted the one used in the soundtrack of Waltz with Bashir anyway.  A few years ago one of the Radio 4 satirical sketch shows did a very cruel piss-take of Radio 3 along the lines of 'Somebody got up and made a cup of tea in the middle.  There's always someone who has to ruin it for everybody.  Now we'll start again from the beginning and listen, very quietly'.  Radio 3 shouldn't be pompous, or stuffy, and it sometimes has been.  But couldn't the audience be given some credit for simply wanting to hear some good music, intelligently explained.  Spare us the phone-ins and the cheerleading.