That's it then, no more Bank Holidays until August – and that goodness for that.

Every Bank Holiday recently has brought with it typical Bank Holiday weather! Grey, wet and miserable. In fact over here on the sticky out bit of the north-east coast it's so cold and damp we've actually relit the woodstove! So we're all happily ensconced in a warm office battering away at keyboards and CJS is once again up and running with eight new ads on the website so far today. Although there was entertainment at coffee time this afternoon as (from the safe warm office) we watched the local builder and scaffolder wandering about the building taking photos – the roof needs mending and apparently the whole building will have to covered in scaffolding which will cost more than the building repairs! We await the estimate with bated breath and a ready bottle of smelling salts….

Friday again.

It's been a little quieter this week, the pause after the frenzy of producing the Special Edition before launching into the next one which will be a Focus on Training so any thoughts, suggestions, articles or advert get them all to us at the usual address. The upcoming bank holiday has also created a little bit of lull, and don't forget we won't be posting online on Monday but back to normal again on Tuesday. CJS Weekly for 28/5 has gone to press, once again it's 14 sides and this week contains 132 new vacancies of which 43 came direct to CJS. Don't forget postal copies will arrive on Tuesday.

Chelsea Flower Show

On Tuesday K went to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show leaving A in charge – you never noticed did you, well that's only to expected as she did a great job.

The show was wonderful as usual and the digital camera worked over time eating batteries but producing 70something fantastic images. Which we've loaded to picasa so you can see them too. Visit: http://picasaweb.google.com/Humphreys.Goathland/Chelsea07?authkey=JJ87Dty2qfs

Sustainability and resource management was a key feature of the show this year and several of the gardens reflected this including the Marshalls one which we really liked. But we did feel that some of the show gardens were more like a filmset than a garden. The small gardens were very impressive, the attention to detail and amount of stuff (landscaping, plants and props) in such a small area is incredible. We were very tempted by the sculpture, but fell out over whether a 9' silver giraffe or 7' high copper seahorse would be better in the shrubbery but as the seahorse was £21,500 we decided that perhaps not after all and came home with a 30cm dragonfly (for a tenner much more our price range!).

That Friday feeling

It's been a rather hectic week, what with making banners and placards, appearing on TV, Radio and the local paper whilst saving the Post Office (well trying anyway) and producing a Special Edition and the usual Weekly but as usual we met our deadlines and got there.

Apologies to readers who were waiting for online access details yesterday. We had a run-time error with the mailing software, however the techies worked on it and this morning everything seems to be running smoothly again but do contact us if you know differently!

CJS Weekly (with the first colour ad) is rolling off the printers and sitting steaming in great heaps, colour printing would appear to be hotter than boring old mono copies. This week it's 14 side with 143 new paid posts of which 81 came direct to CJS. This week's edition includes the quarterly Special Edition which this time features Wildlife Conservation and Research work, in association with the Wildlife Trust.

Save Goathland Post Office.

We've learnt that Goathland Post Office is one of the 2,500 under threat of closure by the Government. The village has swung into action to try to keep it open. It's been a flurry of activity writing letters, drafting leaflets, painting banners and making placards! This morning we closed the office for an hour so the staff could all take part in a rally of support outside the Post Office. This was photographed by our local paper the Whitby Gazette, filmed by Tyne Tees television for the local news bulletin and interviews (with the boss and some staff!) were recorded by BBC Radio York.

Friday at last.

It's been a bit of chaotic week. Don't know why, just very, very busy…

Anyway we've just about reached the end of the week. CJS weekly is printing, the heaps are growing all we've got to do now is to stuff them all into envelopes. It's quite large again this week, 16 sides with 109 new paid vacancies, 54 direct to CJS. BUT, postal workers are being balloted on strike action so watch this space for how this may affect CJS.

Loads of new ads online this week, not just on Daily Online (and Monthly) but also in the events, on the links pages and in the Classified Directory so there's a load to look at over the weekend. We'll have a bit of R'n'R and be back bright eyed and bushy tailed on Monday.

CJS Monthly, May edition is now online in full.

This month it is nine pages long including three full colour adverts, the new printer is earning its keep already. There are an additional four pages of events. Now all we've got to do is get all those pieces of paper into envelopes ready for the postie at 8.30 tomorrow morning, are you sure you wouldn't prefer to receive your copy electronically?? You'd already have got it instead of waiting until Thursday (or even Friday) morning. If you think you'd prefer to reduce your footprint and go digital then please visit http://www.countryside-jobs.com/cjsmonthly/Page_Eight.htm and read the 'paperless office' article or click on it to go direct to the RSS info pages.

To read the May Monthly edition click here

Meet Councillor Mr Carson!

Congratulations to Niall, he was elected to Whitby Town Council in the elections last week. The ballots from his ward weren't counted until late Friday evening.

The sounds and smells of summer.

Well that's it summer's arrived. On Sunday the first swifts were first heard screaming overhead and then a few minutes later the squadron (of three so far) did a low level fly past to say, "we've arrived, summer starts here." Yesterday at tea time we had the first rain for nearly a month and it smelt like August, rain on hot dry earth – lovely. We may have had grey, cold, miserable weather for the last few weeks but no real rain. The ground has drunk it up but still looks parched we could do with a bit more.

Friday news

Our new printer really is super fast, even faster than the other one has now been nicknamed 'Zippy' – don’t ask it's probably best not to! Copies of CJS Weekly are now falling into the usual huge heaps. This week's edition is 11 sides long with 76 new paid posts of which 34 were sent direct to CJS from the employer.

Whilst the rest of the country swelters with bright sunshine Goathland shivers under grey clouds and intermittent drizzle, we've had the heating on today and are thinking about relighting the woodstove.

Fish update: The tank of tropical fish seem to have coped well with the upheaval of being moved, we only lost two neon tetras and one rosy barb all the others including the lovely big blue oranda and the charismatic golden loach are swimming and eating normally – which is good news. As we'd lost a couple of fish prior to the move there was a gap which we've filled with two replacement neons and three Red Columbian tetras and are predictably now known as the drug barons.

Don't forget Monday is another Bank Holiday so although we'll be in the office catching up with all those things that lurk at the bottom of the in tray there won't be any adverts posted online.

We have a new printer.

Full colour, spot colour and black & white all in one marvellous machine – it even works out which is which without us having to tell it – no, we don’t know how it does it either, we just push the button! The literature claims it's faster than the previous one as well, so that should make our lives a little easier. The one which has just gone to the printer's graveyard had done nearly 1.5million copies in four years, we hope the new one will be as reliable.