Slightly different worries...

I like to look at my blogger statistics occasionally (now that I know how to), though it tends to cause me more puzzlement than anything else. 

At the moment I'm rather puzzled to find that a lot of people have been looking at this post recently.  It dates back about two years, and was basically a prolonged whinge about work; to be precise, about feeling overworked. At the time, the whole team I was in was under pressure, and it was beginning to tell on all of us; I was venting my tiredness and frustration.  I didn't think, when I wrote it, that there was anything wrong in having a grumble about the situation and how tired and stressed we all were.  But now I'm having a wee moment of panic, in case someone at work has been reading it and I am going to be ticked off for unprofessionalism, bringing Kew into disrepute, etc. 

I'm really not sure what the correct etiquette is on such matters.  Is it unprofessional to say where I work at all? - should I instead be referring heavy-handedly to having a job in a "world-famous botanical garden in west London"? (Hmm - the acronym for that is wfbgwl.  I rather like wfbgwl.  It sounds welsh, and possibly rather rude).  But seriously, that seems a ludicrous piece of overkill.  I love this place and I'm proud of working here.  Yes; proud.  My battered Kew staff fleece is the only uniform I've ever had that I have been proud to wear (I'm not the sort that would have joined the armed forces anyway).  The last thing I want to do is bring Kew into disrepute. 

On the other hand, another of the last things I want is to get a bollocking at work.

>sigh<  Let's hope I'm just being silly and paranoid.  Am more than capable of both, goodness knows.

Tea-stains and drama queens

Oof, it's been a hectic Friday.

I'm not quite sure why, but we've had a solid streamm of bizarre enquiries coming in to the office - the sort where one puts the 'phone down and says "God, poor woman!", and the sort where one puts the 'phone down and says "Good grief, what a weird question!", in about equal quantities. We're short-staffed, and it has all seemed a bit frantic at times.

To add to this, first thing this morning I had a message from my stepmum saying Baby Bro had been admitted to hospital with something gone wrong following his recent kidney op - it later turned out he was okay, but it gave us all a couple of hours worrying. Not to put too fine a point on it, he was panicking unecessarily after waking up in pain. It's not actually that unnatural a reaction, when you think about it, but apparently this is par for the course; it's going to happen for the next few weeks and he is just going to have to put up with it. Lucky lad; not only in pain but having the casualty doctor imply he's a drama queen as well... I bet he enjoyed that. NOT.

Have made an interesting discovery, after making a cup of tea in a hurry without washing my mug (yes, I know that's disgusting). The previous cup of tea had been ordinary black china tea - I never have milk (why spoil good tea?) - and I shoved a cranberry tea bag in on top and added the boiling water.

By the time I came to drink it, the tannin stains from the China tea, which normally require plenty of soap and scrubbing to shift, had almost completely vanished. One is always reading about the acidic properties of fruit-based herbal teas, and I think I may have just demonstrated it (& then drunk the evidence - ooh, lovely, tasty tannins, delicious...). Another Science Experiment You Can Eat, perhaps?

But at least the sun shone and the crocuses and snowdrops, and the very first daffodils, are looking beautiful... It's possibly my favourite time of year - from Imbolc to Beltane, the Wakening Quarter.