Spring is springing

Ye Gods, but it’s warm today. Even when I left the house at 8.10 this morning, it was on the upper side of mild. I’d say that we’re well past it being a warm winter’s day and have moved into the realms of cool summer’s day. Certainly by this afternoon, unless an unexpected cold from come in, it will be far too warm to wear the coat I have with me.

There are signs of life returning to the garden (actually, there have been signs of it since late December, but the cold snap literally froze it in place), with large buds appearing on everything and the crocus, tulip and daffodil bulbs sprouting merrily. In fact, one of the crocuses in the huge bucket that contains the black lace plant (Sambucus nigra)* has flowered. Admittedly this is a very sheltered corner of the garden, but still…

At the weekend I really must plant my early crop potatoes. I have them in the cupboard and they are chitting nicely. Very nicely, in fact: if they chit much more they will be all root and no potato… We have various other plants ready to be planted, too. Trouble is, we shoved so many bulbs in the ground in the autumn and not all of them are yet sprouting. It’s not clear which bits of the garden we can dig up to plant in; we may have fallen foul of our own enthusiasm.

In unrelated news, I have just received an email informing me that I have fourteen days to respond to a complaint against me by one of my clients alleging tax fraud, or my Accountant License (sic) will be suspended.

How rude.


*stop showing off – Ed

Fused

There is something odd about the wiring in this part of the building.

At lunchtime there was a sudden blip as all the lights went off and then we lost the computers. The lights came back on and immediately the fire alarm made its dreary strangled-cat noise and we were emptied out of the building in the brief hope that it might just burn down.

Half an hour or so later we were back in, of course, but the power to the computers was still down. There is a bank of about forty desks of which mine is one, where if anything goes wrong, we lose all electricity. There is one PC in the block that doesn’t and all in the adjoining blocks life goes on uninterrupted. It’s just our area. Every time.

You’d think that Facilities Management, the people formerly known as Office Services and before that Establishments, would have looked into this, but they don’t seem to have done so. I am convinced that the entire bank of desks is wired into a single 13amp plug somewhere and the fuse blows every time there is a problem.

Either that or the place was wired up by a baboon using bogies and string.

Either explanation is equally plausible as far as I can see.