Saturday January 26th 2019

 

Seeing this pop up on the blogging dashboard gave me a start. Have the security services been informed?

 

I took this after a full day volunteering for the National Trust. Despite having a cold. I'm a martyr. This morning I was rota'd as the Membership and Visitor Experience person. In simple terms this involves standing in the ticket office and being the first point of contact for the visitors. In reality as it was a quiet day, it meant standing in the ticket office chatting to paid personages Chloe, Bobbie and Beth, plus some dad dancing thrown in. You had to be there to understand, or maybe not. I love it. Totally different to the paid employ, and as someone who likes to chat to people, it's a role tailor made for me. What the visitors think of me is another story (and we don't dad dance, if anyone is in the office). Then after my egg sandwiches, of which their olfactory aroma brought much comment, Alison, the manager's husband, drove a few of us to nearby Failand for the National Trust's Start of Year presentation. Three hours of heads of departments chatting about what is happening in 2019. Madrid to Tyntesfield is the theme this year, recognising that the first owner of the estate, William Gibbs was born in Spain. Lovely lemon biscuits and a mug of tea consumed, at the end of the day, it was time, at the point this photo was taken, to head home. At which point my cold worsened. I'm a martyr.