From the Centre Manager’s Desk …

I headed up Brankenwall again this lunch time … only this time, I Went Equipped. The puddle had all but dried up … and I thought the remainder of the taddlers were history, until I spotted the movement in the wet mud in the middle. I scooped them out, put them in the bucket … and to my amazement, nearly all of them were still alive.

I tipped a little water on the rest of the mud in the puddle, and a few more swum to the surface - so I waited around a little while longer until I was quite sure I’d got all the live ones, then returned, bearing my bucket in triumph. Of course, it’s odds on that all I’m doing is feeding the newts in my pond … but it’s got to be better than dying in hot mud, surely?

This time, of course, I was properly dressed for my little adventure. I looked like a proper naturalist. (Think Kate Humble here rather than Bill Oddie, please …).  So, guess how many people passed me in the 30 minutes I was there?

Right.

None.

It’s a nice day, so I thought I’d take myself out for a little saunter at lunch time, down Brankenwall, the wooded valley that runs alongside the Centre. My plan was to take a few leafy, bucolic photos, perhaps stroll up as far as the bluebell woods … chill out … you know … stuff like that.

Part way up the path, I get to a boggy bit. I notice that a small, rapidly drying puddle appears to be moving. When I look more closely, there are tadpoles in it.

Cursing the stupidity of toads (for they it is who spawn in puddles, being the World’s Worst Mothers) I ponder my position. I’d like to go on and look at the bluebells … but I know perfectly well that the suffocating tadpoles are going to haunt me. So … I turn around, walk all the way down to the Police House, get a bucket of water, then walk all the way up Brankenwalls again, where I set about scooping up as many tadpoles as I can catch.

While I’m engaged in this (admittedly slightly odd) occupation, I’m passed by no less than 4 sets of walkers. Being British, only ONE of them expresses any interest at all in what I’m doing. The others greet me politely and carry on … behaving for all the world as if they come across neatly dressed middle-aged women scooping mud from puddles and putting it in buckets every day of the week. Perhaps they thought it was some bizarre local custom?

Anyway … ignoring the peculiarities of the walking fraternity, I lugged the bucket back up the hill to the Centre.

It now stands outside the back door, ready to be transported home to my wildlife pond.

Those tadpoles will never know how lucky they were … or how many people thought they saw the local fruitloop that day.

It was like this: Gretchen was taking a ‘phone call and I was perusing my emails (you know … the ones from those nice Nigerian gentlemen …). It being warm and sunny, we had the Centre’s windows and doors open to take advantage of the dust and tree pollen.

Gretchen was just warming to the subject of why we weren’t interested in changing our telecoms supplier/buying double glazing/stocking up on dodgy inkjet cartridges when her Centre Manager (that would be me) galloped from her office and hurtled down the front steps like a one-woman elephant stampede.

When Gretchen finally managed to hang up on the cold caller, she appeared at the front door and gazed in some bemusement at her Centre Manager, who by that time was in the shrubbery up to her armpits in a magnolia bush.

“You flew out of the door”, she said, stating the obvious.

“That’s because Singing Games flew out of the window” was the somewhat breathless retort as said Centre Manager retrieved pages 10 to 14 of the songsheet …

One day, I’ll probably put Singing Games on eBay, but for the moment, I’m just too fond of it …

The Attack of the Singing Clones …

A local charitable organization very kindly bought us a sit-on mower the other day.

I say ‘very kindly’ but I’m not convinced that it was an entirely good idea.  The thing is, you see, that our gardener - let’s call him Richard (mostly because that’s his name …) - is now like a dog with two tails.  (There’s a less couth expression than that, but for the sake of propriety, we’ll stick with the two tails.)  He LOVES his little tractor mower.  It seems to my (admittedly fevered) imagination that every time I look out of the window, there’s Richard, chugging round the garden mowing stuff.

I fear for our lawn.

This is nothing to do with work … except insofar as it probably tells you a lot about the psyche of the Centre’s Manager …

When did Marmite get to be so RUNNY? Time was that it was so thick you could stand the pot upside down and the contents wouldn’t shift. When you thought you’d got to the bottom of the jar, you could get several more meals out of it by scraping a curved dinner knife around the inside at the top - just below the neck.

Now? The stuff’s so bloody liquid it barely stays on the knife.

Cut it out! I will NOT be softened up. I don’t WANT to buy your wretched squeezable pots and if you DARE take the glass jars off the market, I’ll stop buying it completely.

More than that, I’ll bombard you with hate mail.

I know where you live.

I’ve just spent the major part of today trying to downsize our splendid display posters to fit on A4 sheets, on the grounds that they’d make wonderful handouts and flyers …

My first attempt looked great … and Gretchen asked me to email them to her.

Two hours later, and the bloody things were still loading. I looked at the file size. 30mb in total. Oops.

Okay … No problem. The pictures needed shrinking, you fool.

So far, so simple. Trouble is, no matter how much I shrunk the *@~&$%! pictures one of the sheets - the Garden Project one - resolutely remained absolutely enormous. It took me forever (and then some) to identify the culprit (although Sod’s Law being fully operational in this corner of West Cumbria I really SHOULD have known to start with the smallest photo on the sheet). It was no more than a thumbnail, but it accounted for a whopping great 5mbs all by its little self.

I’ve battered the three sheets into submission so that they’re now no more that about 3mbs each and therefore manageable by email.

My “To Do” list for today, however, remains virtually untouched.

B*gger technology.

Isn’t it beautiful? Carduelis carduelis - the European Goldfinch.

We have dozens of them in the garden. The collective noun is a charm.

They’re enchantingly pretty little things with their pale coffee-coloured jackets, white bibs, bright yellow wing flashes and brilliant scarlet faces. They look too exotic to be found in an English garden … but they are, and I can see them from my window: clinging acrobatically to the feeders, hopping daintily on the bird-table … trying to rip each other’s wings off …

‘Aggressive’ doesn’t even BEGIN to cover it. I’m firmly convinced their cute little faces are red so that the blood doesn’t show.

(Photo credit - Gudgeon on Flickr.)

… you find a name and a time written in your Filofax and they mean nothing to you.

That happened to me today, When I was checking what it was I had in store for myself (I write myself lists, you see …). I found “10.00am: Janet Matthews”.

I frowned up at Gretchen, who was standing beside me at the time.

“Who the hell is Janet Matthews and why is she coming to see me at 10 o’clock?”

She had no idea. The name meant nothing to her. She checked the Centre diary. Nothing. She checked the telephone message book. Nothing.

10 o’clock came and went and nobody answering to the name of Janet Matthews showed up.

I told myself that I’d obviously had a mental aberration or something, and forgot about it … until, a few hours later, a small piece of white paper fluttered to the floor from my Filofax. I picked it up and looked at it.

It was an appointment slip. To be precise, it was an appointment for me with the Dental Hygienist in Cockermouth.

I don’t need to tell you when the appointment was, do I?  Or what the name of the hygienist is?

Sorry, Janet.

There must have been upwards of 300 delegates at the Forum. Thing is, they were mostly only interested in talking to each other …. like this …

and this ….

and the gentleman on the left was moving so fast past our display that he’s just a fuzzy blur (that’s not a punter Gretchen and Andrea are talking to … that’s the faithful Catherine … volunteer extraordinaire …)

Of course, we were tucked a bit into a corner and easy to by-pass…

…and we weren’t ENTIRELY ignored. In fact, when we had TWO people talking to us at the same time, I felt I had to grab my camera to record the moment for posterity …

… but mostly, I was just took the opportunity to practise my candid portrait shots on unsuspecting victims

…

Which are really quite good, even if DO say so myself …

And we DID make some useful contacts … so … it probably WAS worth the effort.

The finished product - almost.

Blame Sellafield Visitors’ Centre for the quality of the photo. It’s hot and murky in there.

If they don’t turn up the lights tomorrow, they’d better be hiring out guide dogs and torches.