Today I Learned Something New

The streamers from party poppers, when dampened with certain beverages, leave brightly coloured stains on flagstones.

The Big Clean Up

One of the major perks of living on the job is the fact that I can hold private functions in the house. I have hired out the Hall for several birthday parties, lunches, wine tasting evenings and the like, and I always enjoy seeing the place being used as it should be. After all, a medieval Great Hall was built for feasting and merriment. It was never meant to be a room to tiptoe in and out of reverentially. Its purpose is to provide a perfect place to party, and this is what it did over the weekend. Better still, this was my party, rather than one for the public.

Well, by "my party" I actually mean "my daughter's party". She has reached the official state of adulthood and the occasion was marked in style. The only request she made with regards to the festivities was that there should be balloons. I duly obliged, hence the wondrous balloon model I subsequently fashioned as a conversation piece.

Admittedly, many of the balloons were ones I had left over from children's events. I appraised the logo and iconic hedgehog emblazoned across them and set to work with a black marker pen. Brilliant. No one would ever guess that they were not professional, shop bought balloons. Well, given the dim lighting and a few drinks, anyway.

I feel that my quality balloon decorations, hand crafted banner, and assorted novelty items were a key factor in the success of the party.

The only downside is that now I have to face the clearing up. The food and drink were consumed on the night, with glasses and plates brought through to the kitchen the morning after. The now wrinkled balloons still hang forlornly from the rafters though, and hundreds of little metallic "18"s and "Happy Birthday"s are stuck in every crevice. The multicoloured streamers from countless party poppers languish under tables, waiting to snag on any passing heel to be tracked further through the house. I need to take down the disco lights and move the big speakers from the Minstrel's Gallery. Part of me is reluctant. After most functions and events I have to get the house back in order by 12 noon the following day, preferably before the volunteers and visitors arrive. There is still another month to go before we open to the public again. Surely I can think of another party opportunity before then?

I Have a New Skill

I tried to make a giraffe or a poodle, but they went bang.

I have made this instead. It is my creation and even I am disturbed.

Decipher This

I have been away for the last few days, refreshing those skills which enable me to facilitate my modules with confidence and enthusiasm. I am now more enthused and motivated to develop and promote the six standards of customer care.

Yes, that's the way I have had to speak. That is the language of the print-outs and Powerpoint Presentations.

Can you work out, from that morass of management-speak above, what I have actually been up to?

A Breed Apart

"Could I just have a cup of hot water, please?"

There are certain gatherings where this always occurs. Having taken pains to set up the tea and coffee well in advance, with insulated jugs of beverages on a tray, there will always be one person who wants something which involves another trip back to the kitchen.

"I'll just have to go and put the kettle on again. Biscuit?"

"Are they gluten free?"

"Um......no."

The location here is such that just providing the hot drinks at meetings can be a struggle. Mains water has only recently made it here and is currently disconnected anyway, due to an, as yet, unfound leak. The house is supplied with water from a spring, with a nifty filter unit built into the kitchen. So to make tea and coffee for more than a few people involves repeated boilings of the kettle and transporting the fruits of my labour to elsewhere in the building.

There is also no convenient place to just pop out and buy lunch. If we're making a day of it people have to bring their own supplies. So, when lunchtime comes around and everyone is rummaging in their bags for their sandwiches, there will always be that breed apart asking for "a bowl, a spoon and some boiling water for my couscous."

It's a conservator thing. Over the years I have noticed that conservators and curators have certain culinary tendencies. You could go round the table at lunch time and know which ones they are just from the food in front of them. A typical table in the staff room in winter would have the following:

• sandwiches
• sandwiches
• pastie
• sandwiches
• two oatcakes and some grapes
• pot noodle

Spot the conservator.

That's Entertainment

"...extreme weather conditions mean that our engineers are unable to give a time for restoration of supply. Further updates will be given as they become available, otherwise this message will be updated at 8am. Thank you for your patience."

I sat, in the flickering candlelight, and reflected how useful it was that at least the office phone was still working. I also reflected on how useful it was that we had recently had a candlelit event in the house.

The high winds had caused another bout of devastation. The lights had flickered gamely for a while and then the power failed altogether.

"Woohoo!" I cried as the computer monitor went blank before my eyes, taking with it all those annoying emails asking me to do things.

"Yes!" I exclaimed as my mobile phone lost all signal, presumably as a mast died somewhere. "I am incommunicado!"

The office phone rang. "Damn." It was my boss, advising me to switch my two-way radio to the special channel, reserved for such situations. I was partially communicado. It would do.

Once it got too dark to see comfortably in the office I decided to take a walk with the dog and see what had detonated in the storms. The orchards did not disappoint. As I took Blair Witch Style footage of the broken trees I had a brief moment of health and safety angst, but it soon passed. No bits of tree fell upon me, I am happy to report.

The most fortunate aspect of living where I do during a lengthy power cut is that the house was created for a time without electricity. We lit the wood burner, stoked up the Rayburn, and were all set for hot water, hot food, hot drinks and heat. We ate as a family around the big kitchen table, surrounded by my selection of candles, from tiny tealights to enormous church-style pillars of wax. Conversation flowed. Then ebbed. Flowed again. Ebbed.

"Hey! We could watch a DVD on the laptop!"

Fantastic. Trying to read my book by candlelight had been making my eyes hurt anyway. And Radio 4 was not holding my interest. So, we gathered around the miraculously fully-charged laptop and got our fix of pretty colours on a screen. Modern living is addictive.

Paws and Effect

Look at this! That bloody cat has been in the office, marching up and down my paperwork with his muddy paws, chewing up my pencils, stealing elastic bands and knocking as much onto the floor as he can.

What makes it worse is that this is exactly what used to make me Very Annoyed when I worked at the Big House, where my then-boss, Dorian, would allow her cats to roam freely in the office. I used to fume at the ruined letters, the cat hair in the printer and the dead animals left on the mat. Not to mention the strategically timed puking-and-poo-fests her feline friends would engage in whenever we were trying to impress anyone. I used to boot them, unceremoniously, out of the office whenever she wasn't looking.

But now, here I am, with my own office, with my own cats. I picked up the muddy paw-printed paper this morning and wailed "My god, have I turned into Dorian? Will I become orange and lose all my friends?" I had to boot the cat out, and fast, before I started down that slippery slope.

That was a close one. I settled down in my chair and began the serious business of the day. After an hour or so I became aware of a low purring. It dawned on me I had been absently stroking a small furry body for some time. That cat was back, on my lap, and I am officially one of those mad women.

Power Cut

I stepped out of my car and crossed the car park to the darkened office. My boss stood outside, smoking his bedraggled roll-up.

“The power’s gone,” he said, as I walked towards him. “Went off about ten minutes ago.”

Inside the office things were gloomy. No computers glowing, no fluorescent lights humming, no phones ringing. One by one everyone left their respective desks and gathered in the open space, near the door. It was dark. It was getting cold. I kept having a strange mental block about the power being out. No computer, no email – no problem, I thought, I’ll just fax things through instead! (Head – desk – thud!) Ok, scrub that. I’ll just get this photocopying done. (Arg! How can I be this much of a doofus?) Eventually I began to get the concept of “power cut” and joined the others for a bit of cheering banter.

“How long,” I asked them, “before we go feral, Lord of the Flies style?”

They reckoned about ninety minutes before the charcoal stripes appeared across our cheeks and we would have to eat one of the wardens.

Fortunately the power came back on again 57 minutes later, I was able to complete my photocopying, the kettle went back on, my colleague had her Cuppa Soup and cannibalism was averted.

Ramblus Interruptus

Upon returning home after a sojourn off the estate it is not unusual to find people near the locked gates, a subject I have discussed before.

They tend to fall into three main categories:

1. Those who have walked down to the gates, seen the closed signs and are about to walk back up again.

2. Those who loiter, hopeful that as you unlock and enter the gates they might enter also.

3. Those who are about to climb over the gates for an illicit free visit (or those who have just done so).

The walkers next to the gates today were particularly funny, as they fell into the “just about to climb over” category.

The amusement factor came from the chap who was in the process of lifting his dog up over the gate. Upon noticing our arrival behind them, the subsequent turning of that movement into a nonchalant, "I-wasn’t-really-in-the-process-of-lifting-this-dog-over-your-gate, this-is just-the-time-of-day-I-do-a-bit-of-dog-lifting, wheeeeee-he-likes-it!" gesture is a joy to behold.

The Joy of Winter Weekends

From March through to November I work every weekend and Bank Holiday. Which is fine by me, as I loathe Sundays, as a rule, and Bank Holidays are simply an extra Sunday equivalent. This time of year is when I revert, for a brief period of time, to a normal working pattern of Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, so I can spend my weekends experiencing those joys that others take for granted all year round.

I have to say, going to the supermarket on a Saturday is not a great deal of fun. The crowds! The children! The screaming! (Bizarre, disembodied, continual screaming from the far reaches of the supermarket - what on earth was that all about? Had someone else realised that shopping on a Saturday was a terrible idea?)

Still, the good thing is I get to enjoy leisurely starts to the day, sleeping in late and then pottering about the place in my nightwear, without having to race against the clock, to get myself, and the house, decent before everyone arrives. I also get to put my wellies on and go and play in the woods - and that can't be bad!

Tales of the Unexpected

Oddest story of the week:

Whilst out in the woods, the wardens found a wooden money box. This was in a location nowhere near where we would ever choose to put a donations box. Upon further investigation they determined the box rattled.

Could an occasional passerby, a lone walker, have actually put money in it from time to time? They opened it. No money. It was full of snails. To be more precise, snail shells. Which were larger than the slot for the money.

That’s odd, isn’t it?

Cluster Flies

Cluster flies are pretty much harmless, as insects go (unless you happen to be an earthworm, but that is another story). They do, however, become a problem in the autumn – and periodically on warm sunny days throughout the winter and early spring – as they enter buildings to hibernate. They get their name from their habit of clustering in vast numbers at such times. They will often return to the same building year after year. In my case, their preferred winter venue is the ticket office. They love it. It has everything a cluster fly needs for that perfect hibernation destination.

This means that every time I enter our ticket office it’s like a scene from the Amityville Horror. The fly clustering scene, most particularly. The windows are black with lazily buzzing flies, the sills and floor covered in drifts of the fallen. These fallen flies should not be confused with dead flies. They are the fallen undead, with randomly reanimated individuals suddenly flying back up toward the light in dozy circles.

Tackling these beasties is problematic. Chemicals are not only ineffective but could well have a detrimental effect on the other friendly creatures that live in the building. Bug zappers can only handle so many bugs at a time. That leaves our method of sucking them up the hoover. This needs to be done daily, as the clusters of flies return, biblical plague-like, within hours. Emptying the hoover afterwards can be a traumatic experience if you haven’t thought it through.

I recall a day last year when I proudly took the ticket office staff a gift of a cordless handheld vacuum cleaner, for fly busting activities. I spent a happy few minutes hoovering up all the cluster flies that had magically reappeared since the last big blitz. The “handy-vac” was by now full and lightly thrumming with the vibrations of innumerable flies. I took it outside to empty it. This was a Stupid Thing to Do. As I took the unit apart hundreds of undead, somewhat dusty, flies swirled upwards to get in my face and hair. The resulting squealing like the great big girl I am and leaping around, frantically brushing out my hair, was witnessed by every visitor walking by on the path at that time.

This year I am going to continue my quest for a better solution to my cluster fly problem. Experiments with super large spiders continue.

Oh Happy Day

It is 8.50am when I look out of the window and see a white van approaching. Not just any white van, either. No, this one has what looks to me to be a very long ladder attached to its roof rack.

With a little whoop of joy I race downstairs and get to the door a nanosecond after the doorbell rings. "Hello," smiles the nice young chap at my door, "I've come to fix your guttering."

We walk round to the side of the house, so I can point at the leaky bit. He unshoulders the ladder, extends and places it against the wall. "Do you need me to the foot the ladder?" I ask, aware he is on his own and very high up. He declines my kind offer. I decide to give him some advice, in order to fulfil my health and safety obligations. "If you do fall, try to roll with it." (This is a variation on my other health and safety briefing, "careful now!")

The job is completed impressively quickly and water now flows through the gutter rather than through my wall. The CDs can move back to their rightful place. Now, how long will it take to get the big damp stain painted over, I wonder?

Best Toy Ever

"There is nothing- absolutely nothing- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in a 6x4, all terrain, off road vehicle. "

As Ratty would have said to Moley, if he'd stopped arsing around on the riverbank and gone for an insane, mud-spattered jaunt through the Wild Wood in a Gator.

Officially the Gator belongs to the wardens. But if they leave it unattended, with the keys in the ignition, they know full well that McColleague and I will be off. Well, if they didn't, they do now.

She Who Waits

I am waiting for the man to come with his long ladder and fix my guttering.

I discovered, while doing the ironing the other day, that water sheets down the corner of my living room, straight into my CD collection, whenever it rains heavily. The water is also slightly foamy, like bubble bath, which I can only assume is something to do with it coming through the timbers. Maybe some chemical thing is happening. Maybe it is ectoplasm and the house is haunted, after all.

I went upstairs and leaned out of the bedroom window to try to discover the source of the problem, but couldn't get close enough to the gutter to work out if it is blocked or corroded. All I could see was a lot of water apparently coming out of the bottom of it and cascading majestically down the side of the house. And the back of my neck. I ducked back inside and closed the window. It was late in the afternoon at the weekend so I sent up my distress flare (a short "help me!" email to Those Who Can Fix Things) and waited.

Yesterday I had two messages - count them, two! - informing me the man with the long ladder would be here some time today.

I waited all day for the man with the long ladder. I even left a useful note on the door just in case he came while I was in the shower this morning. It's dark now. I don't think he's coming. I'm going to move my CDs and hope for dry weather.

Minstrels and Mayhem

Returning to the office after any time away is always trying. The numerous phone messages to pick up, the pages of email to sift through, the post to open; all that catching up before you even start on the actual work in hand. Returning in January also involves many teetering boxes of Christmas decorations to negotiate a pathway through, abandoned packets of mince pies and other festive ephemera strewn across every surface. All of this is manageable. It is expected. I know where I am with it. What has really thrown me this week is the fact that my diary is not in its usual position on the desk. It is the source of all information, the first thing I look at when I sit down. It is where I write my to-do lists and reminders. Foolishly I believed good old ink and paper was a safer bet than the electronic interweb for storing such things. Oblivious to power cuts, immune to viruses, it even repels tea and biscuit crumbs more efficiently. And yet, here I am, with my diary 75 miles away. I never foresaw this turn of events.

This is what happens when you let your office be used as a dressing room by Tudor minstrels. They accidentally pack your desk diary along with their books and music and return to their own place and time.

I am hopeful that, even as I type, the Royal Mail is bringing my diary back to me with all speed. Until it arrives I am in a state of office limbo. Do I have any appointments today? Meetings? Training days? Did I arrange anything? I simply don’t know.

If You'd Like to Leave Your Name and Number After the Tone...

The stilted female voice speaks:

You. Have. Five. New. Messages

To listen to your messages -

I stab the appropriate number on the keypad and listen, rapt, pen poised, for the messages to follow.

First. New. Message. Received. Today. At. One. Thirty. Eight. P. M.

“…[thud]...bloody thing…no, I don’t know…something about –“

Second. New. Message. Received. Today. At. One. Forty. Nine. P. M.

“ – no one ever bloody answers the phone…[rustle]…”

And. So. On.

What is this strange problem that so many people seem to have with answerphones? On any given day, when I pick up my messages, I can be sure of at least one, often more, consisting of ambient background noise and a distant voice moaning about the fact that it's an answerphone. Often the information they seek is contained within my outgoing message, which gives details of our opening times and an alternative number to call should my office be unstaffed. Sadly, human nature being what it is, it appears that as soon as they hear my dulcet tones explaining that “I’m sorry, but there’s no one here to take your call at the moment” they launch into the “it’s a sodding answerphone” tirade, and miss all the salient information. The tail ends of these grumblings are often captured as amusing and entertaining answerphone messages for me to replay and enjoy later.

Some of my volunteers are equally as unwilling to commit their voices to my telephonic recording device. Many’s the time I have answered the phone to be met with “At last! An actual person! I’ve been phoning and phoning and all I ever get is that blasted answerphone!”

“Oh,” I reply, “you should have left a message, and I’d have called you back”.

But, no. They don’t like talking to those things. Rather than brave it with a few choice words – “It’s Derek, can you call me back?” - they instead call a dozen times, becoming increasingly frustrated and annoyed at my failure to sit by the phone 24/7 and then berate me when they finally do get the pleasure of my company.

The absolute mistress of the craft is my mother, though. She will listen to my entire outgoing message and wait for the beep, just to leave a disappointed sigh on my answerphone. It is most eloquent.

Post Christmas Boredom

There are 12 things by Christmas that this place gave to me:

12 cows escaping

11 mince pie mountains

10 ducks debauching

9 bad pics published

8 days of drinking

7 ramblers daily

6 vats of cheap red

5 full bins

4 falling trees

3 dead sheep

2 destroyed marquees

And a cat who got stuck up a tree

So Here It Is...

Pretty much, anyway.

Yesterday was the last official day at work for a goodly while (though, of course, as I am in residence in the house, I am still on duty throughout the festive season) and to celebrate we held a little lunch time gathering.

I left a poster pinned to the filing cabinet in the main office, inviting everyone along for an end of term mince-pie-and-wine-fest, knowing that it was unlikely the majority would bother. Some people prefer to spend their last few days before Christmas doing some shopping, or travelling, or even sorting out a few last minute bits of work before they leave for the week. To me, resisting the offer of free food and drink is unfathomable. Still, I always invite everyone, as I am a sociable sort.

As usual, only McColleague and Lovely Warden turned up, which was fine, as that was who I had expected and catered for. Darling Daughter and Young Warden were also in attendance, but as they live here they had limited choice. Not that they would turn down the offer of food and drink, being so young and voracious.

I piled the table high with mince pies, and, as predicted, there they remained, untouched. The mince pies are now for decorative purposes only it seems. The wine went very well though. So well we decided it would be a Good Idea to melt a whole camembert to make fondue. Which, actually, was a pretty good idea, even in the cold light of sobriety a day later. It shouldn't have worked, yet it did. I love it when that happens.

So, here I am, pretty much ready for the whole onslaught of festivity. The turkey was delivered this morning by my Boss. He raises free range turkeys all year and then spends a frenzied couple of weeks in December getting them ready for the oven and delivered to all those who ordered one. I mentioned my Boss and his turkeys to my Best Friend earlier this week.

"Oh, right, " she said. She is very kind to all living creatures and does not eat turkeys herself. "And is he nice to his turkeys?"

"Um...well, yes, up to about a week or so before Christmas. Then he isn't as nice to them, I suppose".

Anyway, my turkey - who had a very nice time until quite recently, when he stopped having any kind of time at all - is now taking up a lot of space in the pantry (too big for the fridge). As that's the only drawback to ordering a turkey from the Boss. No matter what you ask for, what you will receive is something the size of a small dog and so heavy you have to transport it on a sack trolley. Luckily I am fond of turkey sandwiches. For a while. After a day or two I can see myself having to offload them onto anyone who strays my way. My "Excuse me..." conversations will have a twist, where I end by saying "and please accept this complimentary turkey bap and mince pie as you climb back over the gate".

What a Performance

My recent events and, as it turns out, positive experiences with performers led to a bit of retrospective musing on encounters past. In this business we hire lots of professional people for everything from in house training courses to open air theatre productions and every manner of workshop and activity in between.

I’ve had lots of wonderful experiences with some very talented people. Re-enactors, for example, are excellent company, enthusiastic about what they do and always keen to share a tankard or two around the camp fire of an evening. They also tend to have guns and fun costumes to play with. I shall be writing much more about them as we progress through the year.

Three of the best less-than-professional performances are:

The Outdoor Theatre Production

During an outdoor production of Peter Pan the lead actor became vexed that some of the children in the audience were not sitting still, rapt by his performance. They were running about, playing, and pretty much ignoring his theatrics. My best friend and colleague was stood at the back of the audience, on duty. When an opportune moment arose he strode over to her and hissed his displeasure at the situation. Couldn’t she do something to control this unruly crowd of toddlers? She gazed back steadily at Peter Pan and retorted, “Oh grow up”.

He did not laugh like I did, it has to be said.

Paper Hat Maker

I can’t even remember now why we thought this would be a fun thing to do. How specialised an entertainer you must be, to corner the paper hat making business. So, he spent the afternoon making cardboard bonnets with the public, getting a little bit narky if you didn’t take his craft seriously and put too many curly ribbons on your creation, and trying, very hard, to persuade my best friend and colleague to come up and see his collection of paper headgear some time. This situation led to a humorous reworking of that Beatles classic “Paperback Writer” (Paper Hat Maker) that I have yet to tire of.

Trainer Trash

Hired to deliver a series of training days, Trainer Trash had the appearance of a gameshow host and exuded sleaze. He was another one who could not resist wrecking his precarious dignity on the rocks of female attraction, ie my best friend and colleague. To be fair, she is gorgeous and funny and being attracted to her demonstrates excellent taste. There was a strange irrational optimism prompting Paper Hat Maker and Trainer Trash to make their respective moves, though. A blind belief that, despite all we know of the laws of attraction and selection, this lovely young girl would want to hook up with a married man with bouffant ginger hair and shiny slacks. Or one who makes and wears bonnets constructed from coloured tissue paper and glue. Still, I digress. Trainer Trash had finished his session and was relaxing in that laid back, legs crossed pose, while we girlies went to put the kettle on for a post-learning cup of tea. Myself and another, older female colleague were in the kitchen while our lovely young colleague took Trainer Trash his brew. We listened in wonder at the kitchen door as he attempting to lure her back to his hotel for dinner. As she made her excuses we couldn’t resist opening the door and walking into the room, with matching questioning smiles. At this point Trainer Trash was forced into extending his offer to all three of us, making out that was at he’d meant all along, of course. It was delightful. He had to retrieve his monogrammed hanky from his top pocket to mop his brow while we pretended to seriously consider the offer. You could almost hear his inner anguish. I think I could smell it. Finally we relented. Regretfully we declined his kind offer of dinner. I like to think he may have been genuinely pleased to go home to his wife that night.