the smell of poplar buds

Interesting how things change and how contrasts emerge. Yesterday early in the day I was working in a garden clearing dead stems etc away from a rough area. Suddenly I noticed a smell which literally stuck with me all day until the washing machine door opened. Fox.

This morning, I was walking around a piece of land where I am doing some voluntary survey work and a different smell struck me, much more pleasant and almost addictive. Poplar buds. They are perhaps one of my favourite spring smells, the buds get sticky and the smell is addictive. If you have never smelt them search one out.

1 in 10 of us

Just watching a programme ont telly, its about celebrities and there ancestors in workhouses. Interesting little statement just made, 1 in 10 of us have ancestors who were in the workhouse at some stage. I know I am one those, my paternal grandad was born in one and never forgot it or the need to work to stay out of debt.

hhmmnn european workers an example to ponder on

So at a garden I work in there is a livein carer who is from an eastern european country. This lady, Carer A, works or should that be is available for 20 odd hours a day to care for the person she is there for, all there needs. The remaining few hours a day she can leave the house and oh yes mustn't forget that's for 7 days a week. What is her renumeration for this work, about £1300ish a month. I have a lot of time for this person given what she does for that amount.

Carer A has just had a weekish away so the company that employs her got in another lady of eastern european origin, Carer B, she flew in from her country especially for this cover period. Every day she was speaking to them asking if there would be more work when her cover was over, every day she was told we cannot promise anything.

I took Carer B to the railway station in Cambridge yesterday after her cover finished, I asked her what she is going to do next, she said I dont know I have no work, I am sleeping at a friends house tonight in London but then I dont know what I will do.

She came here looking for a better life than she has at home and I have to wonder why she was taken on and encouraged to come here if there was no guarantee of work, or am I too soft!

a lovely lady

Got some sad news yesterday, the first client I had when I started gardening in 2010 passed away last weekend. She was a lovely lady with a strong christian belief and a love of gardening. In her small garden there were flower and shrub beds, a couple of lawns and her pride and joy a vegetable patch the produce of which she loved to receive.

May she now have rest and peace she deserves it, the world will be a poorer place for her loss.

the cambridge witches

As you leave Cambridge on the A 14 going East these days you see on the horizon the Cambridge Witches waving there arms about.

But how many are there eh, some days there are 12 some days there are 13, its a bit like the Rollright Stones I think you have to see them in the right light, at the right time of day...............

So how many can you see?

got this postcard of a pauper

So I got this postcard of a pauper yesterday from an old boss of mine, the best old boss I ever had. Good old Michael from my days in Ipswich Parks.

After the usual good wishes he gets to the picture which is a National Trust postcard from Southwell Workhouse, it proclaims that the pauper is a volunteer reeneactor. As Michael rightly points out why a volunteer is needed when this govt is creating hundreds every day.

Looking closer at the aforementioned pauper, you notice nice he is a bit overweight wearing clean clothes and a gold signet ring.

Realistic I dont think so.

East of England Ambulance Service

Heard a piece this evening on the news about the new person in charge , he acknowledged there are problems.

Not half is my comment. Two sundays ago the new next door 80 plus year old neighbour tripped in her hall, her husband came asking for help to get her up. Decided not to and called ambulance.

How long did it take for one to reach Burwell just what 10 miles from Addenbrookes, 2 and a half hours thats how long, yes a paramedic was there in two hours but!