Flowers in the rain

12 to 16 May 2015

The walk in the park turned out to be my main weekend walk. This wasn’t the plan but, when I set out for my Tuesday walk, I had to pop into the doctors to order a repeat prescription. This should have only taken a moment or two but the lovely receptionist (I don’t mean this sarcastically, she really is lovely) noticed I was due a routine blood test.
“I think I can fit you in now if you like,” she smiled, “if you don’t mind waiting a little while.”
Of course I said yes because it would save me another trip later. Unfortunately, a little while turned out to be quite a long while and, by the time I came out with a brand new plaster on my arm, it was too late for the walk I’d planned.

In the end I had a little wander in Hum Hole. The rhododendrons are out in force there too along with some pretty pale lilac clematis and a good sprinkling of daisies. After that I did some boring food shopping and went home where I did some very thrilling cleaning and bin emptying until Commando got up. What an interesting life I lead. Having said that, when he did get up we did do something really exciting. We went to town and booked our flights for New York and the Toronto marathon.

We used a travel agency because it’s quite a complicated itinerary so it was better to leave it to the experts. Of course I chose an agency I used to work closely with when I was in charge of Agency Sales at Dream Factory. It was a bizarre experience being on the other side of the desk but they were as efficient as I expected and Commando pronounced the whole thing painless and easier than he’d expected. Toronto and New York here were come, well in a few months anyway…

Maybe it was all the blood the nurse took or the excitement of flight booking but I was incredibly tired on Tuesday night and the tiredness carried over into Wednesday morning.  Originally I thought I’d walk over Cobden Bridge to check out the oil situation but it is the longer route so I chose the boardwalk instead. It was cold, on the edge of frosty. A lone swan stood on a half submerged wreck looking like king of the river as I passed by. He appeared to be healthy enough and there didn’t seem to be any oil along the boardwalk which was a relief.

It was a day of meetings. First there was a team leader meeting where we tried to work out a plan of depot visits for all the staff. With the email mountain conquered we have time for these things now. The logistical nightmare of it put me in mind of all those educational trips I used to organise at Dream Factory. It is still a work in progress. Then there was a progress meeting with Riley, who is coming to the end of his probationary period. The afternoon was spent training Terri on social medial and the bus tracker.

By the time I left work the sun had warmed up and my thin mac was an encumbrance. The swans were basking on the corner by the stones. On the embankment the white beam buds I thought I saw on Sunday have burst into greenish white flowers a haze of stamens and anthers. Finally it felt like May.

It was all change on Thursday, at least weather wise. Rain and lots of it meant a head down March to work and wet feet by the time I got there. The bad weather left a rash of accidents all over the South of England, some of them serious. It was not a pleasant day. When five o’clock came I was glad to see the back off it but not quite so glad to see the rain outside. It was a wet walk home, the only upside as far as I could tell, being the lack of oil on the river as I walked behind the Millenium Flats to the slipway. Maybe the rain has washed it all away.

My coat was still on the damp side when I left for work on Friday morning but it was drizzle rather than rain outside which was at least an improvement, though I discovered it was cold, not at all May like. This led to me scurrying along as fast as I could to get to the shelter and warmth of the office.

There were no swans along the boardwalk for a change but I did stop long enough to admire the wild flowers growing in the scruffy grass beside it. People moan about these unkempt little areas around the city. People like to moan about things I think but if they took the time to really look they’d see these are marvellous little ecosystems where Mother Nature displays her bounty.  Right now the bladder campion are coming out. Each bladder like calyx is a work of art in mottled pink and cream and the white petals hang their heads shyly.

There are a few open flowers on the ox eye daisies and, splashed with raindrops, they looked at their most beautiful. They flower so profusely and for so long I actually collected seed last year because I wanted some to brighten my own garden. There were more than enough to spare after all. The whole area is filled with the button like buds, petals folded like the spokes of a wheel preparing to make me smile for months to come. Close by the guelder rose is beginning to open, trying to pretend it’s a lacecap hydrangea. Personally I’d rather see these wild flowers than more concrete and metal but what do I know?

Mostly the day was spent training Terri on the phones. She’s listened in to calls a few times but now it was time for her to actually answer some, with me listening in and helping of course. She was, understandably, nervous but three calls in she was doing brilliantly. She’d had two tough ones too, a missing person last seen on one of our buses and a passenger who’d sat in some dog poo another kind passenger had wiped on a seat (we really do have the classiest people on our buses and we can only hope it actually was dog poo). An hour later I was bored out of my mind just sitting there like a spare part so I  went back to my own desk and left her to it.

Ssturday had the makings of a beautiful day. For a change I decided on the Cobden Bridge route because the road was quiet and easily crossed. Besides, I wanted to see the wisteria on Monks Walk. The scent alone was worth the extra distance. Then there were the mallow flowers popping up all along the edge of the path. They’re easy to overlook but the dark purple veins remind me of butterfly wings.

The gardens between there and the river provided more flowers to make me smile, bright rhododendrons with leopard spots, white lilac a little past its best and pale pink weigela beginning to open. Spring is imperceptibly moving towards summer day by day. The flowers seem to be getting bigger and brighter, going from  blue, purple and yellow to orange and red.

With Sabrina still on holiday it was a lonely first couple of hours. Usually I get a lot done between seven and nine when the phones start to ring but this Saturday there were problems. The email system was down so I spent a long, unfruitful time talking to the IT department trying to get it sorted out. With no emails a lot of what I wanted to do had to wait. It wasn’t fixed until eleven just as Mia arrived.

Then there were a series of longwinded calls. One man spent half an hour grumbling about  bus timetables. An elderly lady waffled for ages about where she was going and why when all she wanted was a journey plan but she was quite sweet and obviously lonely so I didn’t mind too much. When she called back a few minutes later to apologise for taking up so much of our time and check all the details I’d given her before she seemed slightly less sweet as she chatted away. Then there was the young woman with the suede boots.

This call was escalated to me because the woman demanded to speak to a manager and she was obviously angry.
“You owe me two hundred pounds and I want to know what you’re going to do about it?” she shouted. Given that the average bus ticket costs about two pounds this seemed a little excessive and I was intrigued. Eventually she calmed down enough to explain. Apparently, in the monsoon conditions on Thursday a bus had driven through a puddle and soaked her and her brand new suede boots. Said boots were now ruined and she wanted us to pay for new ones. Seriously, who wears brand new suede boots in the pouring rain?

There was no point in arguing with her so I asked her to send in photographs of the boots with receipts and told her I’d get CCTV footage from the bus.
“If this shows our driver was at fault for the damage to your boots then we will look into a gesture of goodwill,” I told her, “but I can’t make any promises because it was very wet on Thursday, I got soaked myself coming home from work.”
She went very quiet for a while and then said, “I’m not sure I have a receipt.”
“We would need one before we’d make any kind of offer,” I told her, “but a credit or debit card statement would do.”
“They weren’t actually brand new…”
“Was the bus going fast?”
“No, it slowed right down because the road was flooded.”
“Was it actually raining at the time?”
“It was pouring down.”
“Do you think this might have made your boots wet even if the bus hadn’t gone past?”
“Oh, just forget about it,” she said and put the phone down.
Why does everyone want to blame someone else for their own stupidity?

Commando was outside waiting for me when I left work. It was a gloriously sunny afternoon, Saints had won six one and we walked home across the boardwalk together with a weekend stretched out ahead of us, looking forward to Match of the Day.