![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Working at Swanage Folk Festival
It was windy today.
It was very windy.
It was even windier on the coast at Swanage...
When we set up the Wildlife Trusts gazebo, I noticed that all the other stalls were using 'market' style stands. Normally at an event there'll be several people with gazebos. One of the other stall holders told us that the wind here is enough to carry away even an industrial quality gazebo. We tied ours down very tightly, added extra guys and removed some of the side panels so as to reduce the wind pressure (in the end, we lowered some of the sides we'd left to spill some of the wind through). We had to have some of the panels as the books and leaflets on the tables would have ended up in Swanage bay otherwise.
We didn't do too badly in spite of the wind. The sun was a lot kinder than the weather forcast had predicted and the foretold rain stayed away.
How well I do at this is one measure of my mental health. I know I'm still not totally back to normal. Several times in the morning, I'd catch myself hesitating and not knowing what to say to someone. By the afternoon, I was doing a lot better and had relaxed back into my normal habit of cheefully rambing on about anything from dormice to dragonflies. There's nothing like personal experience. You can sell the wildlife trusts through paper facts, and some people do. You can sell them a lot better if you know and love them youselves. I can say 'the Trust works to preserve dormice' or I can say what it was actually like when I went around with one of the wardens checking new dormice boxes to see if any dormice had moved in. (Domice boxes are the other way round to bird boxes, the holes face the trunk so that the dormice find them when climbing up and down the trees)
By the afternoon, my brain was reminding me why I love things. It was given a little help by chatting to people who'd been orchid spotting in a reserve near Swanage. The Dorset Trust's emblem is the early spider orchid and though it is very rare, it can be found in this particular reserve along with pyramidal orchids.
And that's the way I tend to work when I'm in the flow. I ramble on from dormice to orchids to orchid pollination (spider orchids are pollinated by male spiders who are decieved by the appearance and smell of the flower into thinking that it's a female spider. They attempt to, erm, shag the flower and thus pick up the pollen and move onto the next 'female spider'. Truth, as they say, is every bit as much fun as fiction)
With a bit of luck, the person I'm chatting to will end up wanting to join one of the county Wildlife Trusts. If they don't - well, hopefully they've gone away knowing something that they didn't before.
Incidentally, if anyone reading this ever wants to know more about the Wildlife Trusts, just ask. I'm a keen waffler and I have a drawer full of membership forms for all parts of Britain.
Anyway, for those of you who are wondering, the gazebo survived - barely. We got it down in the late afternoon when the wind got even worse with the aid of a couple of passing volunteers, went into Swanage for a meal and then came back for the celidh and had a very enjoyable dance.
Let's see what tomorrow's weather brings...
It was very windy.
It was even windier on the coast at Swanage...
When we set up the Wildlife Trusts gazebo, I noticed that all the other stalls were using 'market' style stands. Normally at an event there'll be several people with gazebos. One of the other stall holders told us that the wind here is enough to carry away even an industrial quality gazebo. We tied ours down very tightly, added extra guys and removed some of the side panels so as to reduce the wind pressure (in the end, we lowered some of the sides we'd left to spill some of the wind through). We had to have some of the panels as the books and leaflets on the tables would have ended up in Swanage bay otherwise.
We didn't do too badly in spite of the wind. The sun was a lot kinder than the weather forcast had predicted and the foretold rain stayed away.
How well I do at this is one measure of my mental health. I know I'm still not totally back to normal. Several times in the morning, I'd catch myself hesitating and not knowing what to say to someone. By the afternoon, I was doing a lot better and had relaxed back into my normal habit of cheefully rambing on about anything from dormice to dragonflies. There's nothing like personal experience. You can sell the wildlife trusts through paper facts, and some people do. You can sell them a lot better if you know and love them youselves. I can say 'the Trust works to preserve dormice' or I can say what it was actually like when I went around with one of the wardens checking new dormice boxes to see if any dormice had moved in. (Domice boxes are the other way round to bird boxes, the holes face the trunk so that the dormice find them when climbing up and down the trees)
By the afternoon, my brain was reminding me why I love things. It was given a little help by chatting to people who'd been orchid spotting in a reserve near Swanage. The Dorset Trust's emblem is the early spider orchid and though it is very rare, it can be found in this particular reserve along with pyramidal orchids.
And that's the way I tend to work when I'm in the flow. I ramble on from dormice to orchids to orchid pollination (spider orchids are pollinated by male spiders who are decieved by the appearance and smell of the flower into thinking that it's a female spider. They attempt to, erm, shag the flower and thus pick up the pollen and move onto the next 'female spider'. Truth, as they say, is every bit as much fun as fiction)
With a bit of luck, the person I'm chatting to will end up wanting to join one of the county Wildlife Trusts. If they don't - well, hopefully they've gone away knowing something that they didn't before.
Incidentally, if anyone reading this ever wants to know more about the Wildlife Trusts, just ask. I'm a keen waffler and I have a drawer full of membership forms for all parts of Britain.
Anyway, for those of you who are wondering, the gazebo survived - barely. We got it down in the late afternoon when the wind got even worse with the aid of a couple of passing volunteers, went into Swanage for a meal and then came back for the celidh and had a very enjoyable dance.
Let's see what tomorrow's weather brings...
no subject
who'll chase the waltzing gazebos with me?"