BUDDLEIA

Well that answers that one!
During the summer Charles and I had a weekend in London and travelled by train which was very nice and relaxing. Looking out of the window I was amazed at the number of buddleia plants (you know; the 'butterfly bush') growing in nooks and crannies all along the track. I remember asking him how there could be so many - and he wasn't the least bit interested!
According to The One Show these plants are native to the Himalayas and each plant produces 3 million seeds which embed themselves in the most inhospitable terrain. No wonder there are so many along the railway embankments - they're pretty inhospitable locations!
Talking about travelling by train reminds me of another, by now infamous occasion, when the staff of my last school went to London for a weekend. Again we travelled by train. We were very excited because a) we had a girly weekend to look forward to, b) we were going to see the Lion King and c) well - we were always pretty excited about just about anything really and when we were excited we were NOISY. Not noisy in an intrusive, irritating way, just high spirited - with lots of laughter.
We made our way to our carriage and unloaded croissants, pain au chocolate, champagne, crisps, biscuits, sandwiches and an apple. We all posed for photos as the train pulled away from the station. We settled down to have fun - and then the REAL FUN started. A extremely unpleasant man told us all to be quiet (only he didn't say it as nicely as that) and, in fairness he did have to say it a few times before we heard him and realised he was talking to US and then he called a steward who told us, to our horror, that we had been put in THE QUIET CARRIAGE and if we couldn't pipe down we'd be thrown off the train at Durham!!! (Yeah - all this happened before we even got to Durham!) WHY WOULD ANY TOUR OPERATOR PUT A BUNCH OF WOMEN WO ARE GOING AWAY FOR A JOLLY IN THE QUIET CARRIAGE? So we asked if we could be moved and we ended up sitting next to the buffet car where we provided the in-house entertainment for all those passengers who hadn't had a sense of humour by-pass. In fact one group asked when we were going away again because they'd like to come with us!!!!
Why am I telling you this? Haven't got a clue!!!

Forgot to add: We all phoned home to tell our families that we had been thrown out of our carriage to which our children, without exception all replied, 'Good on ya, Mum!'