If we were having coffee…

…We wouldn’t be having coffee. It’s far too late for coffee – I’m working tomorrow. So I’ll have something caffeine-free…hot milk, maybe, or something herbal. Lovely.

So, I’d be telling you that the big news is that my daughter did her first day of work today. Paid work. Waitressing in the village hall. She’s delighted with herself, came home with lots to talk about. She enjoyed it, but she’s got a few grumbles. She’s a worker, after all. She’s allowed to grumble.

My first job was waitressing, too – a summer job, in a tea rooms in a stately home. It seems a long time ago, now. I saved my money from that job and bought a tent – a brown, ridge pole tent – we still have it. We’ll be using it next weekend, when we overfill the house with friends.

Like her, I discovered the strange delight of going through the door marked “Staff Only”. Of being an insider. I do like that. Seeing how it’s done. Being part of it. Belonging.

What else has happened? Sunshine! The bluebells have opened – the banks around here are a mass of blue and  yellow and green. You catch the scent of them as you go past, and it’s amazing. Smells are so basic, so linked in to emotions, all part of that very primitive bit of the brain. A smell can take you directly into a memory, and experience, in a way that nothing else can.

 

In a way, bluebells are to the English what cherry blossoms are to the Japanese. We go out specially to look at them, to feast our senses on them. Autumns are unpredictable, not like the New England extravaganzas. Fruit blossoms are staggered, and we don’t get excited about them. We do get excited about bluebells: we wait for them, we look out for them, we visit bluebell woods at bluebell time, we post on Facebook about them. Our children sing about them. It’s that blue haze across the woodland floor, and that glorious scent, and the amazing abundance of them.

So there you are. The bluebells are out, and I’m working tomorrow. Mwah mwah. Thanks for the tea. Coffee next time!