August 2020 - Part Three

 August seemed to go on forever, in nice way that is! You know that feeling you got as a kid where the endless summer days were in front of you, and there was no rush to do anything. It was slightly different as I still had to work full time, but that feeling was still there. There seemed to be blackberries everywhere you looked, and we went to the common where we filled these two tubs up! (Don't worry, we left some for other people and the birds). We made blackberry and elderflower jam, which was delicious, if just an incredibly soft set jam, almost to the point of being runny. Perhaps we need more pectin next time.

My parents also dropped off more lavender from their garden, I hung it up in the shed to dry out so I could make some more lavender bags. I'd made a load and took them into work when we had a charity day last year, people chucked in a donation for each one. I was planning to do the same thing this year.

More produce from the garden, does anyone know why our courgettes keep growing in that funny bell shape?

Work was just as busy as ever. There was massive heave around on the shop floor with various departments gaining, losing and swapping space. It was a week long process, and things were being put in random place while everything shifted. Here's my attempt to make a bare wall look nice with scarves. The whole wall should have been coats, but they hadn't arrived yet, and we had this massive gap to fill. Love that I managed to get the colours to flow from hot to cold! When you work in retail, you learn these funny little tricks to make things look fuller when they are empty. I moved the scarves higher up the wall and added a shelf to it, tied some around metal bars I added that came out to make it look fuller. And this was the extent of the women's coat department, that was supposed to be five times that size. This wall and two counters. Now it's just a waiting game for the new stock to come in! 

There was a lot of discussion at work about the redundancies, and the changes to the management structure. I'd had many conversations with the managers, some of whom were obviously very concerned about their jobs. I also sat with a couple of them to discuss the Team Support Manager role. The feedback was that they thought I was capable of it. I needed a bit more development but they would all support me in my application. I tried to silence that voice in the back of my head that kept telling me I wasn't good enough, and that it wouldn't happen. That voice is evil. I don't know how to keep it quiet sometimes, and it gets so loud that it's all I can hear. I filled out the application with a bit of hesitation, wrote my personal statement, found evidence to support it and got it all sent through and submitted. That feeling of nervousness would sit with me until I head what would happen. 

I'd also started learning to drive. I live in Southampton, which is generally quite a well connected city, but working out in Hedge End had made me hate the bus a little. It normally took 45 minutes each way, but traffic and roadworks would make it easily over an hour. Plus covid came, and the bus frequencies were reduced, so I then became limited on what shifts I could work. I also sometimes used the train, but that was even worse, it would take two trains and 90 minutes to get home, including a 30 min walk to the station, and a transfer time in the middle. It made me realise that if I got offered a job further away, I would need to be able to get there on my own. Hence I started driving lessons. It took me 5 lessons to work out how to do clutch control and get to second gear. Driving is terrifying, I hate it. I don't understand the rules of the road, and it's just an all round frightening experience being in charge of a car. God help me each time I get in front of the wheel. My poor driving instructor, I'm constantly sweating with the stress of it all, and I'm sure I'm swearing more than normal as well. And I have to keep reminding myself that I'm doing this to avoid all those public transport delays.

We went up to see my nan & grandad at the end of August. We dropped their shopping off, as they still weren't going out, and they said to go into the garden and pick some apples. They said there was two tools left there to use. One was a funnel taped to two broom handles, the other was a small steak knife again taped to two broom handles, which you could use to cut the apples off. We decided to stick to the funnel, as you just had to knock the apple off and it would fall into the funnel. We decided that a trip to A&E if the steak knife fell on us was not worth it for some apples!

And finally, I saw this beauty on one of the strawberry plants in the garden when I went out to get something. What a stunning creature! According to the Google Image search I did, it's a Red Admiral. We are so lucky to be able to see things like this in the garden. I'd never taken much of an interest in the garden, but the past year and during Covid lockdown, I'd been out there more and more. It was mainly James's domain, but he was happy to have a gardening assistant, even if I spent more time eating the produce and taking photos of things!