Roger The Gardener

Roger the gardener maintains the grounds that surround my place of work, it's a total area of approximately 5 or 6 square acres.

It consists of lawned areas and flower beds surrounded by hilly woodland.

I'm not too sure about gardeners. By that I mean they are all perfectly pleasant chatty people, but they're not playing with a full deck, if you see what I mean.

Most people who have never tended a garden in their lives head indoors at the first sign of precipitation, but gardeners simply plough onwards regardless of climatic change. Roger is such a person.

When he isn't tending to his routine he is talkative, pleasant and quite an amiable man, a proper good egg.

Give him a hoe however and he's off into the mysterious world only he and his fellow gardeners are aware of. He will happily get soaked yet still manage a cheery smile and a wave at me as I peer from behind a window at him, looking for all the world like he has just been fired from a cannon into a hectare of nettles.

He is a trooper, a stalwart and he proudly and steadfastly maintains his areas in pristine condition.

But, if I approach him and mention in an offhand way that his beds are looking fantastic, he always seems to know the Latin name of every plant no matter how obscure it is.

That's when his eyes glaze over and I then am aware that a garden tale is about to follow, so I head off to the relative safety of the hotel kitchen, as his eyes follow me, hoping I might turn about and hear the rest of his story.