A Bad Wind...

Oh, Dear Readers, I'm hardly upright this morning after yesterday's events at the allotment. We had barely got to the office where we meet up where we were told that a 'promotional video' was going to be made of our activities that morning. Of course, some of us were a little unhappy about this, as, having been given no warning whatsoever, we'd had no time either to dress for the occasion or learn appropriate dance routines. We were told this wouldn't matter. When we arrived at the allotment, we were told they wanted to film a variety of activities. So all our plans of last week went out the window. I was left planting....guess what? ONION SETS!!! Imagine, dear readers, my humiliation, I'm actually filmed for posterity planting my unfavourite crop of all time...Of course, it could only go downhill from that point. After finishing planting, I was told to set up the tea things so we could be filmed having a pretend planning meeting! Oh, yes, let's go into fantasy land shall we, with a bunch of people suffering from severe mental health conditions? Good idea! Anyway, I started getting all the chairs etc out, when suddenly I saw our leader a few yards away mouthing to me, 'Me back's gone again!' He couldn't move an inch, so I went over to him and started to massage the affected area. At this point the cameraman came towards us filming the whole thing...That was the point at which I lost it. I told him our leader was in pain and needed a chair AND TO BLOODY WELL HELP ME!!! Luckily, at that point we had a new client arrive who had some paracetemol so we were able to help with the pain a bit. So then we continued with the filming of our 'meeting'. I should say at this point that there was a gale force wind blowing straight from the Arctic yesterday. You may have heard about it on the news. Then the pr people ooh'd and aah'd at their lovely photos in our shed...We eventually managed to get our leader back to his car, clear up the mess, and go home...If this doesn't stop you volunteering in your community nothing will.

A New Broom...

It's been a tough week. For a start there was Hallowe'en. Guess where I was at 3.00am? Yes out in the back garden (naked!) putting a screaming frog back in the pond. I'll be riding around on a broomstick next...Then there was trouble in psychology class. I've found it increasingly difficult to get my students into the classroom, so much so that I now have to go out on the street where they congregate and pull them in by their hoods. Hence,we usually start at least 15 minutes late. I just about get going on the topic on the lesson, when they're demanding a break. I'm supposed to sit there with them for two and a half hours! You'll recall that before half-term I just had the three students, well now we've been joined by two Nigerian girls. Great, it's a year long class, and they missed half a term....this is private education, where you never say no as this means loss of income all round (well, actually not for me, as I get paid the same, to do 40% more work...hey, wait a minute..). So, having had a week of disorganisation and indiscipline, I decided we'd have a 'planning meeting' with the allotment group. It's the usual muddle. The group leader wants to grow nothing but potatoes and onion sets. One of the clients wants her own plot so she can grow different varieties of beetroot. Another wants to grow nothing but carnations...Finally we had an intricate explanation about why we are not being allowed, under any circumstances, to grow peas...Oh well, I made a plan of the allotment, and stuck lots of things on it. I also wrote an article for the newsletter which I hope I can get posted up for you.