Lavender lady

Feeling a bit whingy, felt rough as old boots last night. Headache, sore throat, tiredness and coughing fit after coughing fit. Worried that I won’t be in top form for the party… although I’m sure I will be! We ordered the booze for the party last Saturday and this Saturday the food will be arriving. We’ve spent a fortune! We don’t begrudge a penny but what with having the carpet cleaned as well, this is proving to be a wee bit expensive. If only three people turn up (the perennial worry when one is hosting a social affair of any kind), at least we won’t starve – or sober up – for the next four weeks.
The picture on today’s entry is – from right to left – Ed, me and my partner. Great picture taken at a great party (the one with the religious theme!).
My plans for today? Rest. More rest, and then if I can fit it in, rest. I managed to do a bit of work yesterday inasmuch as I’m responsible for designing (on paper) and contracting someone to build a brand new website for our organisation. This I thought I had done, until they turned round and said we’re too busy, we can’t do it. I’m paraphrasing but not much! So back to the drawing board. My Chief Exec not unreasonably wants this sorted, he’s not peed off at me, far from it, but I would like to stay ahead of this situation and get it sorted ASAP. So yesterday I fielded 8 phone calls from various web companies. One of whom said, can I give you some examples of websites to look at, to which I naturally said yes and one of them was a new gay website. He gave a very nervous laugh, squirmed a little (yes I could actually hear him squirming) and then said, ‘it just goes to show we’re a… liberal company.’ And then gave another nervous chuckle. I said in my best headmistress impression, “well I wouldn’t engage any company that didn’t have a robust equal opportunity policy and I will be checking!” To be honest the fact that he got uncomfortable saying the words ‘gay website’ isn’t exactly putting a tick in the box for me, but I will judge them on their quote, examples of work and indeed, whether they have a good equal ops policy! (No, I wasn’t joking.)
I prefer to do everything by text or email. I don’t like the phone. I don’t hate it, but if I could avoid it, I would be a much happier sausage. There are probably only two people I can talk to on the phone my mum (sometimes!) and my partner and seeing as my partner and I now live together, my skills are getting rusty. I’m actually really good on the phone; business calls and the like, but I just really, really, don’t like using the phone. Anyway, I suspect I will have more business calls today, so I’m just going to have to suck it up.
We didn’t put in the new lavender plants yesterday but hopefully I’ll be up to it this evening when it gets cool, and my partner is off tomorrow so that should give her a bit of extra energy. I never thought I’d like lavender because of its association with old ladies (not that there is ANYTHING wrong with old ladies!) but how can you fail to be stirred by that glorious smell, and the long bobbing creamy green stems topped with a splodge of bright purple! I’m a complete convert!
I’m rather enjoying my ‘How to be a Gardener’ book. Alan Titchmarsh seems to have a rare talent: keeping it really, really simple without making you feel like a complete idiot! He installs a healthy ethos early on; mistakes will be made, and nothing will ever be “finished” – it’s a work in progress, and finally, the garden works faster than you do! It puts everything in perspective really.
Well, you can tell I’m not at work because I’ve rambled on for ages. So I should do the decent thing and take the dog for a gentle perambulation. (Gentle for me, he’ll be charging round like a loon, as usual).