Ordered Chaos

Work was a bit boring today. Not stressful like yesterday though. Mondays is always crazy in the office and I'll tell you why. All the grocery items in the store (basically everything that isn't a fresh food line) are ordered via the order pads. These folders are taken down from the office to the shop floor every day, filled in and then brought back to the office for us Admin clerks to tap onto the system. This order is suppossed to be complete and sent off by 4:30pm (4pm on a Sunday). It almost never is, and it's usually more like 4:45 before it is confirmed.

On Mondays though the department managers have a meeting from 2pm until whenever it finishes. This is usually about 3pm. This wouldn't be a problem, only several of the order pads are filled out by the managers, and they then don't start filling them in until gone 3pm... and there are a lot of these pads, like 20 of them! So filling them in takes some time, as does tapping them on. This almost always results in a frenzied effort after 4pm to tap the bloody things into the system, all the while the phone is ringing and we have the stock counts from the various Fresh departments to tap on also.

So today was a nice change from that. The order pads were still late being sent off today, but things were a lot less hectic in the office. I finished at 5pm and bpught a couple loaves of bread before heading home. Only I didn't go straight home, I detoured to the weirs in Goodland Gardens. This is one of my favourite places in Taunton (and yes I'll take a photo of it and post it here on a Tour article sometime soon), as it is here that ducks can be found in large numbers.

I love ducks and by ducks I mean Mallards. Not Swans and certainly not Geese. I had bread and set to feeding the few that were there, smiling as more and more ducks turned up in short order. I always try to spread the bread around when I throw it as well as doing my best not to throw it near where the thieving bastard seagulls are! Or the pigeons for that matter! I also throw more towards the females, because they need the food more, especialy at this time of year.

With one loaf thrown away and devoured, I headed for home intending to bring the other loaf with me tomorrow and feed the ducks again. I like feeding the ducks, I find it very calming. Still, as I was walking along the Millstream I saw a quartet of male Mallards in the stream and decided to open the other loaf and throw them some bread also. And while they were busy eating that, a female who had been hiding from them on the other bank, flew across to my feet.

She seemed quite tame, either that or desperate for food and she was only a little afraid of me. So I fed her a couple slices of bread, and I fed her by hand. As she was feeding one of the males clambered up the bank towards her and I thought he was going to attack her, because it is that time of year and I'd certainly seen enough of that behaviour whilst feeding the others. Instead he stood back, ate only a couple of the bits I threw to him and he let the female have the rest of the bread. That put a smile on my face that I'm still wearing. I love ducks, they have so much character... and I've still got most of a loaf for tomorrow!