Coffee, Walking and Orchids

Last week I posted a photo of an orchid that I had found at Harold & Odell Country Park, whilst out walking, well I say I ‘found’ in truth we, myself and my wife, were walking round and another couple walking the opposite direction told us of its whereabouts.

Anyhow, the photo that I took is, as far as I am aware, the only evidence that a wild orchid was growing in the country park, I was round there again with one of the pastors from church, he had been in the office this morning and one of our office colleagues (Meryl) who had read about the orchid had told him to ask me where it was! So we set about walking round but also to have another look at/for this orchid.

Major issue!!! When I got to the spot where the orchid stood they had cut the grass and, with it, the orchid, the orchid is no more!! I don’t know enough about orchids, will it come back? Or is it now lost to the world? If there is this one does that not mean there must be others nearby? If there are none nearby how did that one get there?

Anyhow, for now I shall treasure that photo as it is the first, and maybe the only, time that I have ever seen a wild orchid growing in the UK.

Aside from the sad news of the demise of the Wild Orchid in Harold & Odell Country Park, I am having a reasonable, if busy, week, yesterday I meet Chris J, our youth worker, in town for coffee, followed by a rather long and tiring meeting with our family social worker (all families of children with disabilities have to have a social worker appointed if they wish/need to access any social service provision, such as respite care etc) to go through various documents and to see the children.

Today, as previously mentioned, I was out at coffee this morning with David G, one of our pastors, followed by lunch at Joy’s parents.

Tomorrow it’s the turn of the other pastor to take me out to coffee, followed (I think!) by lunch with Chris J and Hannah (his wife) but that really depends on how they get on with packing as they are having a house move this weekend, I say ‘having a house move’ because they are actually going to be away for the weekend, having won a free holiday, so Hannah’s parents and a few others are going to do the actual moving, well at least that was the last I heard but Hannah was getting a bit nervous about that idea and worried that it might all go wrong, so was trying to see if they could move their holiday, I say go for it girl, just go away for the weekend and leave others to sort it, its not very often you will have the chance to sit back and let everyone else do all the work! And its not every day you win a free weekend away.

Then Thursday we, myself and Joy, will have a day out of some sort, as we have made our practice once a week, currently on a Thursday.

And Friday, we have planned to go off for a walk, and probably a drink too I shouldn’t wonder, with Meryl, aforementioned office colleague and very good friend, the idea was to take a walk round HOCP to show her the Wild Orchid, obviously the wild Orchid isn’t there to be seen but I guess I could print a copy of the picture out and put it on the grass where the orchid once was, perhaps make a memorial plaque and have a formal ceremony to mark the spot where Orchids once stood tall and have now been mown to the ground, on the other hand perhaps not J but there is certainly no reason why Meryl cant come out with us, then that’s most of the people I would normally see IN the office that will have seen outside of the office, for coffee, in 1 week!

Talking of the office, I am really not sure that I will have the time to fit that back into my schedule when my period of sick leave ends, so may have to forgo that, do you think that anyone would notice if I just didn’t go back?

So, that’s about how this week is shaping up.

Although there are 2 other things I am mildly excited about, I mentioned Chris & Hannah having a free holiday well the reason is because they have managed to get picked to go and review the setup, Butlins, a bit of a sales thing, give people free holidays in exchange for honest and accurate (they hope positive) reviews of the place, the relevance will be clear in the next few paragraphs.

I have discovered that Tyndale Publishers, Christian book publishers, they are the ones who publish the New Living Translation of the bible, which just happens to be my favourite translation. Well they publish lots of books and they are after book reviewers, basically it works like this, you check out the books they have available, read a brief intro to the book, then decide on which grabs your fancy, you request a copy of it, which is sent out to you free of charge, you read then submit a review, the review has to be posted on your own blog on a book sales site that sells the book in question, e.g. Amazon and, I believe, a copy sent to Tyndale as well, a fair deal to me, I have requested a book and am awaiting its arrival in order that I can read and review it, now to me it will encourage me to read and absorb the info in the book far more, most of what I read I have forgotten about in 10 minutes but I will have to work a bit harder at that, we will have to see how I get on with that as my memory is definitely not helped by the depression but I think it will give me a good focus, they do have a good range of books and I was able to pick one that really fitted where I am at right now so it will be good to see what I get out of the whole experience, it also gives me something a little different to blog about as well. OK so its not like getting a free holiday but its still pretty good, something for nothing.

ALSO, and this is perhaps even better if I get it! I have applied to be the reviewer for a camera, a Digital SLR camera, they wanted to know what experience I had with cameras and how keen a photographer I was as well as having a couple of sample pictures to see the kind of standard of my photography, currently I use a Fuji Finepix f8000 which is like a ‘hybrid’ camera, its not got changeable lens but its much bigger than a compact, it has a bigger photo sensor and larger lense size so it does do a better quality job than the standard compact but its still basically a compact, so I don’t know whether I stand any chance of getting this opportunity, which would entail me being given a free camera in exchange for an honest and fair review of the product. But I thought it was worth a shot (if you will pardon the pun!) because I do enjoy photography and to have the chance to have some really nice kit is nice.

But that has started me thinking, what about other companies? Are there other organisations and companies who are giving stuff away totally free in return for reviews and commentaries on the products/services?

Certainly if there are such companies about I would love to know how you get to hear about them more often as I would be keen on trying stuff out and more than happy to provide feedback on the product, as long as you accept it will be honest.

So, if you are reading this and you happen to be the decision maker at a company who might be looking for people to try out and review your products, why not get in touch with me. J