Tag Archives: weather

Dancing in the Rain

5 Replies

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”
― Vivian Greene

We’ve had rain today, and plenty of it. Compared to yesterday, which was like a misplaced June day, we have had November come early.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I’ve churned out more paperwork, sent out more newsletters, pressed a small amount of juice as a demonstration (though the washing up afterwards was still full scale), added some apple pictures to our new webpage (I live on the edge, don’t I?) and arranged a refund from ASDA. I’ve also developed a hatred of internet shopping. Actually, that’s not true; I’ve reinforced my hatred of internet shopping.

Two weeks ago I ordered some air fresheners with the cafe shopping. I didn’t want them but some other centre-users appear to have more sensitive noses than I do. At no time did the internet site inform me that they came without refills. Last week I ten had to order refills – they fit all Air Wick fresheners according to the internet. All except mine…

Anyway, because I’d left it four days I couldn’t do it via the web and had to ring them. I spent 13 minutes waiting to be connected to someone who couldn’t hear me because we had a poor connection. The customer service desk at ASDA Newark failed to live up to its name when nobody picked up the phone. Finally I got someone at my third attempt. They proved to be efficient but overly friendly. I know it seems harsh, but I can do without it.

Group dynamics have been interesting today, with a new member of the group joining us from a local school. He doesn’t have learning difficulties, more family issues< and although he like the farm, having been here before, he was finding the group a bit wearing, particularly as he wants to get on and get some work done. The others mostly accepted him, but one of them didn’t like someone else being the centre of attention. Cue tears.

That’s how it goes. Most of the progress we make is by taking people out of their comfort zone and this is one way to do it.

At least it diverted attention from last week’s big news – that Social Services expects four of the others to share a taxi. When the original two were joined by a third last year they didn’t like it. Now that they’ve been joined by a fourth, they are all complaining about him. Well, they were last week. This week they were distracted by someone new.

So we’ve all had to adjust, as I’ve had to admit that internet shopping is here to stay, and it does beat going out after work to shop. I’m sure I can get used to it, and if it isn’t quite as romantic as dancing in the rain, I can still adapt to modern ways at my age.

Tantrums and Thunderstorms

4 Replies

It’s been an oppressive day all round, both with temperature, humidity and picky bad temper. We’ve had several arguments amongst members of the group and a variety of bad behaviour. Even so, in keeping with the tetchy atmosphere, it wasn’t that which annoyed me most, it was the reckless use of craft supplies to build Minions. It started with a brief to make an entry for the art competition at Flintham Ploughing Match (theme: Nature). Several hours later (which necessitated not doing any gardening) we ended up with a selection of malformed yellow balls.

You can’t fault the effort that’s gone in, but it’s frustrating to think that it’s all wasted because enthusiasm for Minions seems to have blocked out all mention of “Nature”.

Ah well!

P1010041

The chick is still doing well but yet again the mother seems only able to hatch one chick out of a clutch. It’s a mystery to me what’s happening as you ought to be able to hatch more by accident than the one from 12 she seems to manage. She’s still sitting tight but the absence of another chick after three days isn’t looking good. Truth is that we’re not 100% sure where she gathered all the eggs from so as long as she’s happy we’re going to stay patient.

The farm is harvesting at full pelt, thundering past the centre with trailer loads of grain (always when I didn’t have a camera with me) but fortunately always managing to do it when there is nobody in the way. Theoretically I’ve discharged my Health and Safety duties by reminding farm staff that we have a group in and by reminding the group not to cross the yard without us present. In practice we don’t want a flat client so it’s slightly more stressful than that.

It was a fairly flat butterfly day today until I had a walk round in the middle of the afternoon. I managed to get some poor shots of a Common Blue male. It’s not the biggest of targets and now that cameras only have screens, and those screens are always smeared and subject to glare…

You get the picture.

I’m going to borrow Julia’s Canon tomorrow.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The washing up bowl pond is doing OK, though we keep having to top it up due to the lack of rain. It’s finally got some wildlife in it, though mosquito larvae aren’t really what you want. The water mint is thriving, so that’s another species we have to talk about.

As we walked round the hedge by the allotment we saw what I think was a female Common Blue, which is brown, and then another blue. The latter was by a good growth of ivy, raising hopes that it might be a Holly Blue. I followed, but lost it and got stuck in a patch of thistles whilst a family of wrens tittered at me and a chaffinch looked on in disbelief.

As we got back to the centre my phone rang for the second time of the day (which is unusual, as nobody talks to me unless they really have to). It was the person who had asked me to do the permaculture talk. I’m not needed. I was a little relieved as after agreeing to do it I’d realised that was the weekend we were going to see my cousin in Norfolk. On the other hand my cousin is a doctor and she’s expecting me to have lost weight…

Unfortunately we have a forecast of thunderstorms late tomorrow, which is going to put a stop to combining. Looking on the bright side we may still get some butterfly watching in again.