Saturday 31 October 2009

Weeds


Jodie Foster's character (agent Starling?) put it pretty well in Silence of the Lambs (overrated apart fae Foster) when she said, "If you assume, you make an ass of u and me." Or somethin like that. Twas a visionary aphorism, spesh given it was dished in the dim and distant pre-text message era.

I've always assumed that a weed was simply any plant growing where it's not wanted. Well it is that of course, but according to the best English dictionary in the world, it's also "a skinny, feeble or ineffectual man".

During the long, damp summer of underemployment just passed i've no been very skinny but have often felt feeble and ineffectual. In any other recent week, that feeling mighta been reinforced by the other type o weed.

While removing unwanted items from a vast, tangled gravel path i spotted 3 alpine lookin plants which i reckoned would look okay planted up among a few winter pansies, violas and erm....other stuff. So i duly planked them into half an old whisky barrel only to be telt by my horticultural guru that the one pictured above is mos def a weed and the sooner i bin it the better. Part o me thinks sod it, i like it, it should stay but frankly, i'm still a gairdnin learner and it has to go.

So aye, that weed info woulda been a right bummer had it not followed hot on the heels of news that i've earned masel a proper non min wage, part time job. After a ridiculously complicated application form, full on psycho babble interview, drivin test and recommendation fae Cupar Debs (love you, honey) i've been accepted to start as a Customer Deliveries Assistant (delivery driver) for erm....one o the big bad supermarket companies.

Probs (def) wouldnae have been ma first choice but the future boss seems sound as a pound, the money's no bad, Debs digs it and the hours'll fit neatly wi the other activities i wanna develop. Oh - and beggars cannae be choosers. So next (first?) time you order groceries on-line get ready for a big Naldo sized chap on yer front door. You nivir know.

By the way, whatever happened to Jodie Foster?

11 comments:

  1. Will you be doin the Forfar run?
    Quid pro quo, Miss Starling!

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  2. congratulations, despite the reputation some of the big supermarkets can be good to work for esp if your boss is decent. What are these mysterious projects though?

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  3. Interesting looking weeds.

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  4. Chers, Scunnert. I'll be busier in future so you'll probably see less of my same old comments on your own blog now. A double blessing.

    Neil, i'll mainly be covering West Embra and the very fringes o West Lothan. Forfar's too far for sure.

    J, i'm sure you're right - reckon i'm gonna enjoy this particulare gig, def got a good feeling about the people their. My other projects arenae as excitin as they might sound - more gardening, landscaping (maybe dry stane dyking) and come the Spring, tour bus driver/guide for backpacker types.

    Thank you, Jelly. I'm still debating wi masel whether to get shot of those weeds or leave them to grow. Hmmm...i'll decide when i'm back there on Wed.

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  5. Great news Naldo :-) And would like to be on the tour that you were guiding too!

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  6. Nae bother, J.J. As long as you bring some of those entertaining family members i've read about. Guaranteed to give the punters a good laugh.

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  7. Jodie Foster? They don't treat middle-aged women very well in Hollywood, except for Meryl Streep.

    They have crab grass everywhere here in the West, which is a weed and everyone tries to get rid of it. I kind of like the way it looks - if it wants to grow, let it grow. But apparently it's bad for the rest of the garden - I say, let the plants duke it out.

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  8. Duke it out? That's good, Wolynski. As in "get yer jooks up!"?

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  9. Great news there Naldo!

    I can't believe that you could imagine yersel as a weed! Your blog post right before your went out to sea... I printed that off and pinned it up on my wall as an example of how I want to be able to deal with my fears... how you weighed the pros and cons and went for it! It was and is very inspiring to me.

    Ditto JJ's comment. If you're tour guiding, I want to take that tour... but please send me a phonetic glossary at least a month before hand, eh? ;-)

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