Category Archive

We give in.

We know when the Universe is trying to tell us something.

We’ve cancelled “Music for a Summer’s Evening”.

Everywhere is absolutely sodden and there’s more rain forecast for tonight and tomorrow morning. Even if it DOES clear tomorrow afternoon/evening, as they think it will, it’ll be too late - especially as they’re ALSO forecasting 40 mph winds.

We’ve done the “holding onto the gazebos with your teeth” gig. Don’t want to do that again.

So - we’re rescheduling it for October 4th, in a slightly revised form …

Meanwhile, I have caterers, musicians, volunteers, radio stations, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all to contact …

You think you want to work in this idyllic location? Commune with nature in the paradise that is the Centre for Complementary Care?

You do?

Okay … I’ll swop. Whatever it is you do all day … I’ll swop.

This morning saw Gretchen and me trailing around the garden in a deluge working out where the gazebos are going to go for the music evening on Saturday. Two dejected women and a scarcely less-dejected gardener in the rain, huddling under a golf umbrella, peering into the murk and deciding that the Teddy Tombola could go in the Secret Garden and the musicians had better have a gazebo to shelter in, unless we wanted their sound system to kill them.

My first aid is good, but if you think I’m going to touch an electrified corpse, you’re nuts.

Then we got a telephone call from the poor soul who was our midday client. She was lost. We gave her directions. She ‘phoned back five minutes’ later even more lost. In fact, she was halfway up Muncaster Fell on a cart track. We told her to stay put, donned our coats and trekked out into the rain to find her …

Hardly had we got her back to the Centre and assured her that Mountain Rescue comes as part of the service, than Gretchen spotted three sheep on our back lawn. It’s bad enough that people are going to be sinking into the mud on Saturday - we don’t need them sinking into sheep pooh as well … So, Gretchen ‘phoned our friendly neighbourhood farmer and the conversation went something like this:

Gretchen: Hello there, friendly neighbourhood farmer. It’s Gretchen! How are you?!

Friendly Neighbourhood Farmer: I’m fine thank you Gretchen. How many sheep is it this time?

Cue arrival of slightly grumpy looking farmhand in pursuit of three sheep that are perfectly happy where they are …

Then we realized that we’d forgotten all about the necessity of feeding our volunteers on Saturday. I said, rather sourly, that we’ll have to buy sandwiches in because I’m not going to bloody well turn around and MAKE them … which is why I ended up down at the local petrol station sussing out who THEY got THEIR sandwiches from.

I got the information, rang the place, explained the situation, waited for the laughter (”Summer Concert? Saturday? Really??!!”) to die down and ordered 18 rounds of assorted sandwiches on white and brown bread. They’re being delivered to the petrol station on Saturday afternoon so that I can pick them up on my way past.

It’s 4.00pm.

Only another hour to go …

I have a little story to tell you.

We once had a client. Let us call him Tom.

Tom came to us, a long time ago, with his health in tatters through no fault of his own. He hadn’t worked in years. He hardly ever went out anywhere. He was a mess.

He started pottering in our garden. Eventually, we began to pay him for a few hours every week. At length he  was strong enough to take a part-time job at Muncaster Castle (which we were partly instrumental in getting him). At length, he was well enough to take a full time job with the local Council, which is where he is now.

In the latest edition of the council magazine, they ran a two-page feature on him … one of their star pupils. During the interview, he tells us, he made many grateful references to The Centre and what we’d done for him. Again and again, he sang our praises - good lad that he is.

And what did the council magazine article report?

That he was at Muncaster Castle before he went to work for the council.

Er … excuse me!! Coo-ee!! Over here!! Hellooo!!!

As regular readers will know (greetings again, Regular Readers!) in between managing the Centre I help run a book review site call Vulpes Libris.

Part of my reason for saying “Yes” to it in the first place was that I thought it would be an opportunity to drive a little more traffic to the Centre’s website. This has actually worked fairly well … people are curious enough about the opinionated dingbat with weird tastes in reading matter to check out my “About Me” page and follow the links on it. Harry helped, too, of course …

Sometimes, however, a wee gift drops in your lap. Heaven smiles upon you. Or - in this case - Mark Thwaite … who contacted us and asked if one or more of us would like to do a mini-interview for his Editor’s Blog on The Book Depository.

Dear Leena at Vulpes immediately saw it as an opportunity for me to raise the profile of the Centre a bit … and happily Mark left all my links in, even though they were quite blatant plugs (thank you, Mark …!). This was the result:

What on a Wednesday.

Fame at last.

(Oh - and the site stats? Developing nicely, thank you.)

We’ve had confirmation that all three musicians are coming on the 19th.

I looked in the mirror this morning.

I’m sure I wasn’t a wizened old woman LAST Tuesday.

Who can I sue? I must be able to sue someone … (wanders off in a tragically distracted manner …)

Andrea and I have been working on the arrangements today (well, chiefly Andrea, but I like to give the illusion that I earn my keep).  Fizzy plonk, plastic wine glasses, plastic bowls, plastic spoons … No expense spared, I’m telling you.

We haven’t heard from either Andy or the person who’s organizing the music.

I’ve set Andrea on chasing down the latter … We really, really need to know who’s coming, when they’re coming and what they need in the way of power cables, tables, chairs, refreshments …

Gretchen, meantime, is engaged in twitching-at-a-distance. She’s with her younger daughter for the week over the other side of the Pennines, near Newark.

I suppose I could always emigrate … but I’d need to go further than Newark.

I hear New Zealand’s very nice this time of year.

Honestly. 

The one on the 19th of July, with the Indie folk singers?

Teeny-tiny problem.

They don’t seem to know they’re doing it.

The lovely Andy’s last words to me were: “Don’t Panic.”

Okay, okay. I’m trying, I’m trying …

‘Flaming’ isn’t actually the word that I have trundling around in my head, but this is a Family-Friendly blog and I have to pretend that I don’t know any bad words because I’m a nice, middle-class lady and my epithets aren’t supposed to stretch beyond “blast”, or possibly “bother”.

I’ve no sooner managed to pack up and send off the Centre’s books to our accountants than there’s another fundraiser looming up on the horizon … Music For a Summer’s Evening.

We’ve actually done this before … with an opera group.  We pretended we were a mini-Glyndebourne, only instead of champagne we had Lambrusco, so you get the picture.  Think down-market mini-Glyndebourne.

This time, we have  ‘Indie’ folk singers providing the entertainment.

No, I have absolutely no idea what ‘Indie’ means, either, but I’m hoping for the best.  Frankly, I’ll settle for just staying in key.

This year, I’m probably going to have to be present, because we’re a bit short-handed.  The good and faithful Catherine did herself a nasty in her kitchen and has cracked many things in her shoulder, rendering her hors de combat for the foreseeable future.

We’re borrowing gazebos for the event from Muncaster Castle, and last time around they also loaned us the excellent and heroic Stewart, who unfortunately ran into a little trouble with the last gazebo.  I say ‘unfortunately’ because I snigger every time I think about it.  To this day, I can’t imagine how he managed to explain the problem to the Castle without sounding as if he was in a Carry-On film.

You try it:  “I can’t get the gazebo up”.

Damn … there goes the “Family Friendly” tag …

You know Rosie. She’s just coming to the end of a round-the-world run. She finally set foot on British soil again on the 18th of this month, in Scrabster in Scotland.

In a few weeks’ time we’re all trooping over to the other side of the fells to welcome her home and cheer her on her way to Tenby as she passes through Cumbria.

We’ve known Rosie for years. She’s been a friend and supporter of the Centre for as long as it’s been in existence and once - when we were still in our converted barn on the Birkby Road - lead our 10 mile sponsored walk. Only in her case of course, it was less of a walk and more of a gallop. She set off at a cracking pace, nearly killing the poor misguided bloke who tried to keep up with her (terrible thing, male pride - gives you coronaries …), finished the 10 miles almost before the stragglers were leaving, then ran back around the other way, shouting encouragement to people.

If I’d been labouring up over Muncaster Fell, I’d have been anything but encouraged …

Later, she gave an illustrated talk at Outward Bound Eskdale for us. We pitched one of her old tents on the polished oak floor of their august entrance hall … and they’ve never invited us back.

Can’t imagine why.

Anyway, in due course, Rosie will be doing another fundraiser for us, but first, she has to get home to Tenby, and write The Book …

Gretchen opened the back door yesterday morning to find a small Everest of jumble outside.

This happens on a fairly regular basis. It arrives under cover of darkness, like the proverbial thief in the night. We presume some human agency is involved, but on the other hand, given the propensity of jumble to take over the place, I’m not completely convinced that it doesn’t actually have a life and slightly sinister personality of its own.

This batch was intriguing … we suspect that it’s an elderly lady’s house clearance … many perfumed scarves, an unopened bottle of moisturizer, dozens of Mills and Boon romances, a few odds and ends of costume jewellery, an untouched painting-by-numbers set, a new lace tablecloth. A quality collection, really.

We have fun with jumble. (I know, I know, it’s a tragic reflection on our tiny lives — but what can I say? — we takes our fun where we finds it.)

Once, a really racey lady’s thong materialized - you know, a triangle of material on a piece of string. Very tasteful/hygienic/comfy (delete whichever does not apply, which is - of course - all of them, and I use the term ‘lady’ very loosely indeed). We put it out on the “Gifts” table at our Christmas Fair and thereafter kept an eagle eye on it. We had a half-formed plan to blackmail whoever bought it.

No-one did.

West Cumbrians are no fun.

If there’s one thing I really, really hate it’s bookkeeping. I’m lousy with figures. I’d go so far as to say that I’m number-blind. I read one number and write it down with digits transposed. I add up a column of figures and can’t get the same total twice. I have terrible trouble with my 7 and 9 times tables. My mental arithmetic is appalling. I forget what I’m doing halfway through the calculation.

I’d rather have root canal surgery than do bookkeeping. I’ve avoided figurework like the plague all of my adult life. I even turned down a job because they wanted to put me in the accounts department.

When I worked at Outward Bound, I had reciprocal arrangement with the bookkeeper there.  She did my invoices and I did her letters.  I hated numbers and she hated words.  It was a pairing made in heaven.

So - given all of the above - how come I’m sitting here, surrounded by our year’s figures and trying to put them into decent order to send off to the accountants?

How does stuff like that HAPPEN?

They spent all building an acoustic barrier around the pumps and stuffing the gaps with polystyrene.  And they turn off one of the pumps at night … which resulted in the whole site flooding last night.

Oops.

I’m hiding in my office because we’ve been invaded by clergymen. Don’t get me wrong; I’ve nothing against clergymen and these are a particularly nice example of the species, it’s just that I don’t handle invasions well at the best of times and THIS is not the best of times.

To put it plainly - I’m puttered. I got hardly no sleep last night and it’s catching up with me. Thing is, you see, the bridge in my little village is being replaced, which requires the men to work in the river. In order to do that, they have to isolate the relevant bit of river and pump the water out … and keep the pumps running all night.

Our house is not called ‘Bridge End’ for no reason.  We’re right by the bridge works and it sounds like a squadron of Lancaster bombers going over - non-stop.

I went and had a word with the site foreman this morning, after I’d retrieved my eyeballs from halfway down my face, and he promised faithfully he’d do something about it. Switching one of the pumps off overnight and putting acoustic baffles up seemed to be a major part of the plan.

I do so hope it works. Lack of sleep does nothing for my sunny disposish.

By now, regular visitors (Hello, regular visitors!) will know that I help run a book review site as a sort of sideline. It’s becoming ridiculously and terrifyingly successful (11,000 views last month, and likely to be more this month, the way it’s shaping up) and one of the results of that is that publishers start wooing you to review their books. We currently have free run of the catalogues of several large publishers, which is nice, but a not unmixed blessing, as I am currently finding out to my cost.

I am presently trying to review a wildly expensive and glossy book sent to me by a publisher. I need to be honest without actually saying, “It’s a brilliant idea but couched in such horribly convoluted academic twaddle-speak that it’s borderline unreadable, and even the illustrations are - well - meh.” To do so would be unfair on the author and might also discourage the specialist readers to whom it will probably become a definitive work. It would also be a cheap shot.

I recognize, in other words, that it was not written for urchins like me in spite of the fact that the publisher breezily informs us that it’s suitable for the general reader.

I’ll make it. The review will be accurate and fair and informative, and will say all the things it needs to say without actually - well - saying them. It will be and do all those things because 20 years of working in THIS surreal joint have refined my diplomatic skills to the point where they have become second nature.

Somebody brings in a pile of jumble that is so foetid it virtually crawls up the front steps all by itself?

“Gosh - isn’t that an interesting …. metal thing?”

The entire contents of somebody’s grandma’s house arrives just after you’ve spent most of the day clearing the LAST delivery of tat from the front hall:

“Good timing! I’m in jumble-sorting mode today!”

(Don’t get me wrong -  we like and welcome jumble - it’s just that sometimes everybody seems to wake up on the same day and think, “Right!  It’s jumble to the Chase day today!!” - and there we are, hip deep in horsehead ice buckets …)

Twenty-five years’ worth of Pig Farmers’ Weekly magazines are proudly handed over in collapsing cardboard boxes with the sentiment: I was going to throw these out, but then I thought of you …

“Oh that’s wonderful … they always move very quickly.” (Straight out the back door into the wheelie bins …)

Or, of course, the ultimate catch-all that covers a multitude of situations:

“Oh - what a KIND thought …”.

It’s the Diplomatic Corps’ loss, I’m telling you . . .

The end of the financial year was, of course, at the beginning of April. I’ve forgotten the byzantine reasons for this, but that’s when it ends, and it means that I have to get all our accounting bumf off to the accountants to be rendered comprehensible to those who need to comprehend such things (ie: The Charity Commission and the Inland Revenue).

Our book-keeping is done by my brother. As brothers go, he’s one of the better specimens, especially as he does our book-keeping for free.

I was getting the paperwork together ready to send off to said accountants when I discovered that I had a hole in what is usually referred to as The Paper Trail. A four-month shaped hole, to be precise, roughly the size of November, December, January and February. The aforementioned Brother was certain he didn’t still have them, so I spent a large chunk of Friday turning my office upside down in pursuit of November through to February.

Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

In desperation I emailed the Brother asking him to make quite sure that he didn’t have the missing paperwork - because if he didn’t my only other option was suicide.

That evening the ‘phone rang at home. It was the Brother.

“I seem,” he said, with an admirable attempt at insouciance, “to have found a large brown envelope …”

I’m sure I’m in very good company when I say that one of my pet hates is cold callers.

In common with most people, I get them at work and at home . . . and the tenacity of some of them is absolutely breathtaking.

I was visited today - in person - by a very pleasant young man who works for one of the culprits (not the worst by any means … but still capable of being a complete pain in the proverbial).  He was actually trying to sell me an upgrade on what we already have, but as I made it very plain - and I mean VERY plain - even before his bottom hit the comfy chair that we had no money and therefore weren’t in any position to cough up £7.50 a month for a weblink or anything, he just fell to chatting over the coffee I had provided in a rare fit of bonhomie.

In the course of the conversation, he let it slip that if there’s one thing he really, really hates it’s cold callers disturbing him in the evenings and at weekends, just as he’s settling down to his hard-earned sausage and mash . . .

Oh the glamour …

The Centre - for those of you who don’t know - hangs out in a really handsome Victorian vicarage - sweeping staircase, high ceilings, tall windows, panoramic views across lower Eskdale. To the customers, walking in, all is calm and serenity and beauty.

I am, people tell me, so lucky to work somewhere so peaceful and lovely.

Allow me to introduce you to the bits BELOW the waterline … in the aftermath of the Festival of Fools:

The Butler’s Pantry (there’s a floor down there somewhere …):

My Office (legend has it there’s a marble fireplace  lurking somewhere in the area):

Now then people … You were SAYING?

It’s the last day of Muncaster Castle’s Festival of Fools.   It’s the most important day of the Festival, too … when the new Fool of Muncaster is chosen … and is thus the day that attracts the biggest turn out.

Sunday through Wednesday were bleak, windswept, rainswept, drizzle-soaked washouts, basically.  The final and crowning day should be accompanied by raging hurricanes at the very least.  I should be sitting up here in my nice dry office smirking as rain pelts against the glass and gale force winds shake the casements.

It is, in fact, a calm and sunny day.

Be afraid.  Be very afraid.

It has nothing (much) to do with the Centre, but if you cast your eyes to the left, you’ll see a link to ‘Vulpes Libris‘, which is a book review site I’m Co-Admin of. It keeps me off the streets and pretty much out of harm’s way while I’m not at The Chase, or labouring in the garden at home, dontchaknow?

We’ve been bumbling along, amusing ourselves and wittering about books and stuff for about 7 months now, then all of a sudden on Sunday we noticed that our site statistics had gone ballistic.

Why? Check out this link: Chapter 8, paragraph 4 …

Oh help.

Real people are reading the stuff.  Hundreds of them …

They’re all down at Muncaster, holding on to the gazebos with their teeth as a playful breeze plucks at the azaleas and tosses our gaily-coloured craft materials hither and yon. They’re also probably covering everything with polythene on account of the teeny-weeny amount of drizzle that’s pelting down.

From my choice of pronoun the more astute amongst you will gather that I’m not there with them.

Too right.

I’m not daft, I’m not gullible and I’m not going.

As I believe I may have mentioned in passing (or possibly ad nauseam) Gretchen and I are working on funding applications. At least, I say “and I”, but up until today, my part in proceedings was limited to waiting to see how many “Absolutely, totally final, final, FINAL and please delete the others” versions of the application popped up in my email inbox.

It was three when I went home yesterday evening. It had become four by this morning.

Working on the (probably erroneous) assumption that:

(a) She was out shopping and therefore unable to amend anything else.

and

(b) She wouldn’t DARE anyway …

I started tidying the thing up, preparatory to sending it out to its lucky recipients.

That ‘tidying up’ process has taken me MOST OF THE BLOODY DAY - not through anything Gretchen did, but because in moving from her computer to mine, all the formatting was shot to hell and had apparently become indelibly attached to the document. I had to retype large chunks of it, because even copying and pasting just the words resulted in the mysterious transfer of the maverickformatting - specifically big thick horizontal lines that bore no relation to anything on the page, and refused point blank to be deleted.

Is it any wonder I like fountain pens?

Gretchen and I are on the hunt for funding again. We’re always on the hunt for funding. It’s a permanent state of being for us.

No, no … really - no sympathy necessary. We’re used to it and it no longer hurts. Much.

Anyway … further to said pursuit of funding, I’ve been cruising the internet in a forlorn attempt to unravel who is who over at Sellafield, and who are, therefore, the best people to approach with the begging bowl.

In doing so, I stumbled upon a newspaper article from - well, let’s say a town in Texas to avoid possible insult to someone we might want to like us. It’s about one of the senior bods at a big local scientific establishment there who was leaving to take up a position as Managing Director of one of the various bits of Sellafield that’s being hived off. The article said he was moving to Cumbria. It then went on to explain, helpfully, that Cumbria is “north of Wales”.

If I should ever happen to meet this gentleman, I’ll make a point of asking him where he comes from.

When he replies “Texas”, I’ll screw my face up prettily and say,

“Texas … Texas … That’s south of Canada, isn’t it?”

I spent a goodly chunk of the weekend breaking off from thrilling gardening tasks (mowing, digging, weeding …) to peer into the pond in the hope of seeing happy, carefree tadpoles.

I didn’t see any.  Nary a one.

I did, however, see a very fat newt.

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.

8.25pm: I virtually dead-heated with 5.00pm and the arrival of Gretchen’s last client of the day, but I made it. All six posters are done and ready for display.

I finished too late to be able to take a photo of the last three I did … but here are the first three:

… are they not a thing of beauty?

I had the final three posters spread out on the floor of the treatment room, because together they make one big poster and I needed to see them as a whole - which is why I had to get it done before the client arrived. Otherwise there could have been ugly scenes as I barricaded myself in screaming:

“Twenty minutes more! Just twenty minutes more! Feed her parkin and hot tea or something …”

We’ll be setting up on the whole thing on Monday afternoon, and I’ll take photos of the entire display then so that you can tell me how talented I am …

I’m down to FIVE pristine yah-di-dah-di-dah posters, and ONE completed one.

It’s a good job this forum thing isn’t until Tuesday …

The ‘Friends’, by the way, are dear faithful Harry Enfield, his dad Edward, actor David Swift (Henry Davenport in “Drop the Dead Donkey”), Rosie Swale - our wonderfully eccentric travel-writer/adventurer friend who is just coming to the end of a round the world run and will be dropping in at the Centre on her way down from Scotland to Tenby, and finally, there’s Richard Armitage - who has absolutely NO idea he’s our friend, but he keeps sending me signed photographs for our fundraisers, so he only has himself to blame, and in any event it’ll give me something scenic to look at on Tuesday …

(I don’t think Mr Armitage wants me as a publicist - the blurb by his photo says: “He first came to prominence in ‘North and South’. then married the Vicar of Dibley before going on to run Maid Marian through with a VERY big sword …”)

9.30am: I still have six pristine, four foot long blank posters and a brain devoid of inspiration.

Actually … that’s not entirely true … I have six pristine four foot long blank posters, a brain devoid of inspiration and this photograph of me pretending to be a client in the treatment room.

The photo makes me look middle-aged and tragic. Even mushy soft-focus around the edges doesn’t seem to help much. I seem to remember that I was trying desperately hard not to giggle at the time, which probably didn’t help.

I KNOW I actually look like a cross between Michelle Pfieffer and Catherine Deneuve … so why can’t the camera show what’s really there instead of what my mother SAYS is there?

3.20pm: Next Tuesday we’re all going off, mob-handed, to Sellafield Visitors’ Centre to attend a one-day “Suppliers Forum”. Much to our surprise, we were specifically invited. We’ve never been invited before. In fact, we’re seldom invited anywhere because we aren’t the kids anyone cool wants to hang out with. Remember school, where there was a group of popular kids, and everyone wanted to be one of them? Yes? Well, that’s not us.

So, here we are, getting all excited like a kid going to its first party. My main job is producing all the pretty stuff … the posters and displays that are going to attract funders and moneyed persons to us like flies to honey.

At the moment, I have six, pristine, four foot long sheets of paper and a completely blank mind …

9.40am: To a pile of post, a bunch of emails (half of which don’t make much sense at the moment) and a deserted centre because no-one’s here but me. PLUS I have a frost-bitten finger-end. It’s the ring finger on my right hand. I’m not going to tell you how it happened, because I hate people laughing at my expense, but it involved a bag of frozen prawns and a wet hand.

You’re laughing.

It hurts.

4.20pm: and I am downstairs in mine.

She is playing “Take this Job and Shove It” very loudly.

2.30pm: … and I’m going to be on holiday next week. This week, however, is not going to exit without a struggle.

Isn’t it always the same? You settle down for a nice quiet Friday with no interruptions and the next thing you know, you have a bullock in your garden. Or possibly a heifer. It was a bit too far away to make out the precise anatomical details. I said heifer, Gretchen said bullock and neither of us was in a position to argue with the other - however much we might have liked to.

Our next door neighbour Erica was out in the garden in full pursuit of it - trying to keep it off the new planting and - at the same time - away from the road. This, for a lady somewhat beyond her salad days, was quite a feat. In between whiles, she’d managed to ring our back doorbell when passing to issue an animal invasion alert. We’re quite accustomed to finding our farmyard cousins in the garden but they’re usually of the woolly, ovine variety. Something in the cow line was a nice change.

Well, Gretchen got hold the local farmer’s wife on the telephone, then sallied forth to lend a hand … only to find that Erica and her beefy companion had vanished. She searched the garden. She searched the fell lane. She even looked, with some trepidation, on the main road. Moo-cow found she none. Ditto Erica.

She patrolled the garden, plaintively calling Erica’s name. She walked up, she walked down … she looked tragic. (I was watching her from the window … in case you were wondering …). All the time, she was unaware that Farmer, Erica and heifer (for heifer it turned out to be) had been happily reunited and gone their rightful ways. She only found this out when she eventually - after some time - encountered the Farmer shooing the heifer into a trailer up the fell lane. Erica, he announced, had gone home long since …

I’m sure the exercise did her the world of good.

3.50am: … Andrea and Gretchen’s grandson Adam are down at Muncaster Castle controlling the howling mob as they hurl wet sponges, flour bombs and eggs at Peter Frost-Pennington.  It’s all very “Les Miserables” really …

Andrea came back from the morning session absolutely frozen to the marrow, so it’s odds on that Peter will contract pneumonia - especially as they finish off each session by throwing a bucket of cold water over him.  It’s supposedly to clean him off, but in fact they just have a mean streak a mile long and a mile wide.

I, meanwhile, am staying tucked up in my nice warm office.

Daft I’m not.

10.05am:  So watch out for fake news stories. Mind you, when you start looking for fake news stories, so much of the stuff in the papers looks as if it’s been made up … I remember one year I was looking for the spoof story and I decided it had to be the one about the Japanese entrant in an ultra-marathon who had got lost in the UK because all he had to navigate by was a map provided by a petroleum company showing where all its petrol stations were.

It, of course, was absolutely true and the fake story was far less colourful.

For All Fools’ Day, our neighbours and landlords at Muncaster Castle are laying on a special day of events - Tom Fool’s Day. They’re the only castle in the world - as far as they know - still to have a resident Fool.

One of the special events is “Pelt a Pennington” - Peter Frost-Pennington - who will, we hope, get his reward in heaven - sits in the stocks and for a small fee allows himself to be pelted with flour bombs, eggs and wet sponges. We get a share in the takings, in return for which we’re going down to maintain control of proceedings.

It tends to bring out people’s primaeval instincts, somehow …

12.55pm: Yesterday, I decided that just for once I wouldn’t leave it until the last minute to do the end of year tax stuff …

(You know already that this is going to end badly, don’t you?)

So saying, I booted up the old Inland Revenue CD which promises to take all the strain out of your paperwork, followed all the instructions, pressed all the right buttons … and found a discrepancy of £42.53 between what we’ve actually paid them in tax and what we OUGHT to have paid them in tax.

I was still poking buttons crossly when 5.00pm rolled around. So, I shuffled it all to one side with a glad cry of “I’ll think about it tomorrow, after all … tomorrow is another day!” and went home.

Segue to this morning: I go right back to the beginning of the financial year and work it out from Day Zero … National Insurance and Tax for all employees, month by month, starting with April 2007. I find a discrepancy! I am triumphant as I total it all up and …..

… I’m now 9p adrift.

I think I’ll go and check down the back of the chairs in the waiting room.

STOP PRESS - 2.00PM: It’s 39p now …

3.20pm: The photocopier engineer turned up yesterday, when I was at home painting the repair to the back door (I won’t tell you how it was damaged in the first place, but if this was the US, I’d be pleading the Fifth Amendment.)

Anyway, I digress. He had the good sense to be here when I wasn’t, thus avoiding having his unworthy ear bent on the subject of photocopier engineers who naff off on holiday to Ireland when they should be mending photocopiers … Hmph.

The photocopier is fixed.

The newsletter is printed and escaping gradually from the Centre, helped on its way by a motley assortment of family, friends and anyone who makes the mistake of standing still for too long.

The sun is even shining - which it won’t be for much longer, because more bad weather is forecast … so I absconded for half an hour at lunch time and went and disported myself in the garden with my camera … which is why this entry is decorated with jolly and springlike images that have nothing to do with photocopiers and newsletters.

I promise not to mention photocopiers or their engineers again for at least a week.

11.50am: The Newsletter arrived on Good Friday in immaculate order and beautifully printed. We are, therefore, placated. I am especially placated because printing the Newsletter is the bane of my life. Because of the fumes the copier produces, I have to open the windows, which means that I freeze at the best of times. This is not the best of times. There is snow on the hills and the wind is in the north.

I’ll tell you what would have happened …

I’d have shut myself into my sub-zero office and eventually somebody would have realized that they hadn’t seen me for a couple of days …

And there they would find me, frozen to the “Print” button. Death by duplication …

3.30pm: The saga of the photocopier continues.

Yesterday, I was at home and Andrea rang me to say that the photocopier engineer STILL hadn’t arrived. So I asked her to ring the office equipment and supplies company we have our contract with to see what was going on. They replied that he was supposed to have been with us on Tuesday morning, and they were very surprised to hear that he hadn’t shown up.

Especially since he went on holiday that morning.

From what I can gather, they only have ONE engineer qualified to deal with this particular photocopier, so we had a bit of a problem - or rather, THEY had a bit of a problem.

Eventually they came up with a solution. They would send someone down to us with a replacement photocopier for us to use while our own was being repaired. Splendid.

This morning, they telephoned to say that there was another problem … the photocopier they had earmarked wouldn’t actually do what we needed it to do. They also, however, had another solution. Someone would come up and collect the proofs and the paper and THEY would print our Newsletter for us. Great.

One problem.

“I can’t print the proofs because I don’t have a photocopier.” (And there’s a hole in my bucket …)

Ah.

But I can email you the documents.

Excellent. Do that. We’ll send our man up to collect the paper.

I resisted the temptation to suggest that they should have 6 reams of cream A3 somewhere about their corporate personage, being a stationery suppliers and all … and just said that that was fine.

Ten minutes later, they were back on the line again. They’d found some cream A3 paper in their cupboard.

I’m so glad it’s Good Friday tomorrow and I can stay in bed.

2.30pm: Still no engineer.

We’ve had someone come to read the meters, someone come to deliver bird food (yes … more bird food), our gardener is here, taking advantage of the fine spell before Easter’s coming-by-way-of-Siberia weather … but photocopier engineer comes there none.

I did consider asking the man bringing the (several tons) of bird food if he knew anything about photocopiers, but I then I remembered that I’ve given up worrying delivery men for Lent.

We DID have someone ‘phone to ask if we had any use for a couple of seven foot by three foot wall mirrors though. We haven’t really, but how could we say “No” to an offer like that? Ever since then we’ve been thinking of colourful (and mostly improper) things to do with them. We did wonder if we could put one on the ceiling above the treatment couch, so that people could stare up at themselves and be horrified by the site of their spreading avoirdupois, but then we thought perhaps not …

12.20pm: No engineer yet. He’s “working on a project” somewhere at the moment and probably won’t get to us until tomorrow … I’d ring them back again, but I’m pretty certain that neither snivelling nor shouting will make any difference …

Actually, if it was ME on the other end of the ‘phone, shouting - in particular - would just make me drag my heels. It’s what happens when some moron in a bourgemobile tries to intimidate me into driving faster than I want to by breathing down my exhaust. The only effect it has on me is to slow me down to an ultra-slow mooch … Nyah, nyah.

I think I’ll while away the time by trying to sell some of the junk antiques in my office on eBay. Perhaps that’ll make me feel better. Sort of the opposite of retail therapy …

4.30pm: Do you know that expression? No? Well - how about this one: A stitch in time saves nine?

Got me now? Good.

Well … knowing that I was about to launch into print on the Newsletter (3,000 double-sided A3 pages and 3,000 single-sided A4 copies) I decided that it was probably prudent to call the photocopier engineer out to service the printer. It was actually working quite well, but it hadn’t been serviced in a couple of years, and as we pay a substantial amount of money for our maintenance contract, I thought we’d get a bit of value for money.

So - he came, he did mysterious things in its innards, and he left. Splendid.

This afternoon, I started the print run.

Guess what happened.

Go on. Guess.

Right.

The little s*d broke down.

1.00pm:  I took a call from a terribly nice young woman trying to sell us advertising space in a magazine.  When I asked what manner of magazine it was, (only to make her feel wanted - not because I had the slightest intention of actually BUYING any space) she chirpily replied:

“It’s a monthly magazine that comes out every two months …”

11.05am:  Dear Harry … He’s a sweetheart.

In what very little spare time I have, I pretend to be terribly intelligent and write book reviews on a book blog called Vulpes Libris. You’ll see the link to it in the side panel.

Well, on an impulse, I asked Harry (our Patron of many years)  if he’d mind giving an interview to Vulpes - as a sort of plug-at-secondhand for the Centre.  In spite of the fact that he’s tearing around like a demented bluebottle, he said yes … and the end product can be seen here.

We’re waiting for the Solicitor’s letters from Stephen Fry and Russell Brand …

9.30am:  There’s a storm warning out for the North of England.  Again.

Question:  Should I put a call in to Cumbria Roofing NOW, to get to the front of the queue?

4.30pm:  I decided to work from home today on the grounds that we had no clients, and Gretchen was going to be out for part of it, and the Internet is a Wonderful Thing.  Besides which, it was gusting to nearly 70 mph at St Bees Head this morning - and I have the flattened daffodils to prove it.

As it turned out, it was a lovely day.   But as I got half the Newsletter drafted without being interrupted by pesky clients, bosses and telephones, it was a cool move anyway.

The Met Office is now making horrid weather noises again for Tuesday - especially Tuesday night. Not that the Great British media will care.  It only matters if it happens south of Birmingham.

A plague on all their houses.  Mutter, mutter, mutter ….

10.15am: Remember the bird food? I’ve just been and distributed another twenty quids’ worth to the undeserving feathered fiends. No sooner had I deposited my backside on my typing chair to check my emails than I saw them. Rooks. A couple of dozen of them, wolfing the lot - even the seed.

Do you think a rook has any idea how daft it looks trying to eat bird seed with that humongous beak? Do you think it even cares? Probably not.

Hammering on the windows does little good. Your only option is to emulate Aunt Betsy and rush outside screaming like a banshee. The first time I did it this morning, there was a delivery man coming up the steps.

He stared at me in mild, Cumbrian surprise as I stood there, heaving gently like a ship at anchor.

“Rooks.” I said, as if that explained everything.

“Oh.” He said. “Sign here.”

It’s going to be a long day …

4.00pm: We’re a registered charity. We have a Mission Statement, a Child Protection Policy, a Vulnerable Adult Policy, a precisely defined charitable purpose and a whole clutch of dinky little leaflets telling people exactly what it is we do to justify our existence.

Curiously enough, none of them contains the words “Secondhand Booksellers”.

It started in a small way with a few books that turned up in someone’s jumble. They sold quite nicely thank you, so in the next newsletter, we asked people for their unwanted books - which only goes to prove that you should be careful what you pray for … because the end result is this:

… and that’s what it looks like in a TIDY moment after we’ve thrown out everything we suspect of harbouring bubonic plague.

We sometimes pack them into our cars and take them to car boot sales to sell - ruining a good few volunteers in the process. You can always find our book stall by following the trail of broken and bleeding bodies (although - admittedly - that technique could lead you to the cake stall first).

Secondhand books are incredibly popular. Anyone who fears that reading may be a dying art should pop in to the Centre sometime - preferably during one of our fundraisers. Last Christmas Fair, people were staggering out with carrier bags full of books (and cakes). They were also ARRIVING with carrier bags full of them (books, not cakes) … which was a bit depressing, really … but hey, if they buy the books, read them and bring them back for us to sell again, who are we to complain?

Just make sure there’s nothing brown and sticky gluing the pages together, guys.

4.00pm: Twice a year, I produce a Centre Newsletter. Every time I send it out I tell people that if they want to be removed from the mailing list they only have to let me know and it will be done. Hardly anybody ever does ask to be taken off, which is why I’ve just bought 3,000 second class stamps. Thing is you see, the the newsletter’s developed a bit of a cult following.

Once upon a time, it was just your average newsletter - informative, factual and just a smidge dull. It drove me nuts. There was more entertainment value in a return ticket to Euston on Virgin West Coast. So, I started tweaking it - just a tiny bit and not so’s anyone would notice - and before I knew it, the bloody thing had developed a personality of its own. Honest Guv - it was nothing to do with me …

Should you wish to read these pieces of deathless prose, you’ll find them here.

Anyway - it’s time for me to sit down and write the Spring 2008 Newsletter … and my brain has gone walkabout. I don’t seem to have a single creative thought anywhere in my head beyond putting the kettle on.

3.30pm: Gretchen loves snow. She was born in Minnesota, where the state sport is ice fishing, would you believe.

The need for snow is hard-wired into her brain and when she moved to Cumbria from Sussex she was hopeful that she was going to see a lot of it because where’s the first place that always gets snowed up in winter? That’s right. Shap.

Unfortunately for her, the west coast of Cumbria hardly ever sees snow … just the occasional damply white flurry once a year if she’s lucky.

This week, Gretchen is in the USA. Guess what it’s been doing in West Cumbria today?

That’s right.

Snowing.

1.15pm: It’s blowing a gale (quite literally - gusting to about 50mph at the moment) and absolutely chucking it down with rain, and guess what I have to go and do sometime between now and 5.00pm? I have to go and feed the birds.

Gretchen is away at the moment, so it falls to Muggins to don wellies and souwesters and load herself down with food. I mean, the little perishers are sitting out there, in the trees and bushes, tapping their tiny feet in annoyance and pretending to look at minute avian wristwatches. Any minute now one of them (probably a blue tit … blue tits are aggressive devils - don’t let the cute faces fool you) will come and cling to bottom of the office window and stare at me in mute reproach.

And what thanks will I get? They’ll go and poop all over my car, that’s what.

4.45pm: We live on a financial knife-edge and always have done. We long ago reconciled ourselves to the fact that we’ll never be rolling in dosh, and in general we manage to make the proverbial ends meet.

This, however, is NO thanks to the local bird population.

Originally, we started putting out a handful or two of birdseed and some stale bread for them.

As one does.

Then we bought some peanuts for the feeder (which we had also bought). Then we found out that there were different mixes for different types of bird. Then we discovered high energy mixes, spring mixes, winter mixes, naff-off-pigeon mixes, sunflower kernels, bogena mix …

Which is why, come the financial year end, I have to explain to our accountant why we spend enough on birdfood to feed a small third-world country.

… here is the whole of the article I gave you a précis of yesterday:

From the Manchester Evening News -  Last Extra Edition.

Saturday, July 16^th, 1949.

(Price – Three Halfpence)

SEASIDE POLICE SWOOP ON ROCK RACKET

Food Officers Drafted In

An Evening News Reporter.

Police and food enforcement officers swooped on black marketeers in Blackpool today in the first drive this year to smash a rock-stick racket.

It is understood that between 60 and 70 prosecutions for alleged rock-selling offences are pending, many of them the result of inquiries made before today’s pounce.

Food officers from Manchester have been drafted to Blackpool to help the local officials. They aim to stamp out the under-cover rock-selling trade that is sending thousands of sticks into the black market every week.

The food officers hope to trace the rock to its source and prosecute the big suppliers.

Today’s move follows three weeks of detailed planning by Mr E Thornton, Blackpool’s food chief, Mr A L Wood, head of the North-West Enforcement Division in Manchester, Mr H Barnes, Chief Constable of Blackpool and civic heads and confectionery trade leaders.

Toffee apples – 1s 3d.

During the last three weeks, while men and women food officers patrolled the town for evidence for the swoop, they have found:

1. Sixpenny bars of rock offered for sale from 2s 6d to 3s 6d.
2. Small sticks of rock given away to customers who buy toffee apples at 1s 3d.
3. Balloons at 1s 6d, and postcards, shoddy earrings and other trinkets at exorbitant prices.
4. Unlicensed sellers hawking rock from baskets in the street.

Chief operating areas of the racketeers are the three main railway stations, the bus stations, the promenade and the amusement centre.

“We’ll break it”

Mr Thornton said today: “Every year Blackpool has a racket. This is one of the biggest, but we are determined to break it.”

Mr Jack Booth of the Cameron Rock Company, Blackpool, chairman of Blackpool Chocolate, Sugar and Confectionery Association said: “These people are watching for every loophole in the law. Our customers who queue for as long as two hours for rock are asking where the black market goods are coming from.”

—:oOo:—

4.15pm: We take in an awful lot of jumble. People clear out their attics and bring us