Ground Bee(s)

I hd a meeting in Thetford, this morning. One of the first times I went to visit this particular client, I had to start the day with a meeting with the outgoing supplier. I think the client was a bit nervous about it but I figured this supplier and I could both be grown ups about the situation and, anyway, I would be even if he wasn't.

For some reason, this meeting started at 08:30, so I got there in good time, grabbed a coffee and went up to meet 'John'. We shook hands and made ourselves comfortable, and then he asked if I minded if he recorded the meeting. He had this recording pen, which was controlled by patterns on an accompanying pad. I said it was fine, sipped my coffee, and tried not to roll my eyes.

Then he asked where I'd come in from, which is standard meeting small talk, so I replied "Chippenham". He looked up at me suspiciously; "How long did that take?" he asked. "Ah, about twenty minutes or so", I replied. "It can't have done. Chippenham is in Wiltshire." 

At this point I felt myself do a mental double-take. "Maybe there are two Chippenhams." I suggested, now wondering whether just being grown up was going to be enough to get me through the meeting. John said nothing but looked at his pen, perhaps wondering whether he already had enough on record to prove me to be an unfit replacement due to some kind of geographical psychosis.

Happily, every other meeting I've had there has been great. The chief exec is a wonderful woman. Quite apart from being friendly and always cheerful, at every step of the relationship between our companies, she has been quick to praise and wise whenever there has been any contention. I've learnt loads from her. Sadly, the meeting today was for a handover to her successor. As someone who hates goodbyes, I found it quite difficult. 

After that, I went back to Mark's and we strolled over to his allotment. It's a hell of a place. It consists of raised beds with turfed paths in between, plus it has an excellent shed for all the gardening kit, as well as a solar powered beer fridge and optics on the wall. 

There's a weird thing going on there at the moment, with ground bees laying eggs in all of the allotments. Mark thinks the odd summer weather has fooled them and this is the behaviour that they'd normally exhibit in spring. God knows there were hundreds of them, constantly flying around, only a few inches off the ground. 

They aren't aggressive, though, so Mark and I happily sat amongst them  on his garden chairs (magically produced from the wonder shed), drinking beers from his fridge. It was, as you can imagine, quite blissful. 

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