Wednesday 28th August - My Last Blog, Chilly Mornings and The Garden Centre on Facebook

With meteorological autumn starting this Sunday (1st September) this is my last blog for August as well as for the summer and what a summer it hasn’t been.  Compared to 2022, which was warm and often hot, the last two years summers have been less than impressive.  There has been an improvement this month but nowhere near warm enough to be able to pull back the blankets and sleep at night with just a sheet covering us.  The early mornings now have a definite chill, something you wouldn’t be aware of if you prefer to rise later.  This may sound a bit odd, but the air has a different sound to it, a sound that denotes autumn is just around the corner.  Over the past week, the days, have been nigh on perfect; if only the whole summer could have been like this.

It was sad to read on the Garden Centre’s Facebook page that they had to close their gates early on Friday.  Rather than precis down their post, here it is as posted – ‘We have made the decision to close the gates to the centre with immediate effect for the rest of the day. This will ensure the safety of our staff against members of the public who seem to think it’s OK to fill trolleys to the brim and then complain about queues to pay and to get their cars into the centre. A sad state of affairs.’  And a similar scenario on Saturday which resulted in this post ‘Well what a day, we had to close gates mid-afternoon to keep our brilliant staff sane and safe. Again a few individuals spoilt it for the majority. Our fantastic team are actually lovely human beings and to witness the way they have been treated by "customers" over the past 2 days has been unreal. SO tomorrow we open at 10am as usual BUT the gates will be manned and cars will be allowed in as and when space allows. Anyone abusing or being generally rude will be asked to leave and will not be served. This week has been stressful and sad enough for all staff without this behaviour.  Rant over....we love all our regular customers and consider you our friends and family’  How incredibly sad it was to read these posts.  Why do people have to behave in such an unfeeling and inconsiderate way?

We probably have too many pigeons in the village.  They most certainly can be a pest in gardens and we try to discourage them from ours, without much success I should add.  However, I did have to smile the other morning when I spotted one nesting at the back of a satellite dish.  The photo was taken, zoomed in on my phone, so not that well focused.