When I decided that I could do with a change of direction, and that it might be possible to turn my love of gardening into my profession, I considered investing my redundancy settlement in a full-time degree course I had seen was available at Reaseheath College - Historic Garden Restoration and Management. There are a large number of historic houses and gardens close by, and I particularly enjoy looking at their kitchen gardens, and growing "heritage" vegetables myself.
But you need to learn to walk before you can run, and the advice from the college was to start with the RHS Level 2 Princples of Horticulture part-time course. It was possible to join this at the half-way stage, while I was still in my last couple of weeks at work, but I couldn't make the first session due as I had a tribunal to represent at that day. But I could reshuffle my remaining working days, and early in March found myself back in education.
In addition to classroom-based lessons, my first day included a tour of the college greenhouses. These include a tropical house and several for raising plants commercially for sale, plus the "hydroponics" house. This was a revelation, as already the pepper plants inside were carrying large fruits, from flowers pollinated by a resident hive of small bees.
Returning to work the next day, I enthused about everything to my colleagues, particularly the hydroponics house and visit to the greenhouses. Steve asked whether we'd had to repot mandrakes, and if so, whether I'd had to wear ear-defenders - and so it became accepted around the office that Sarah was doing "Herbology at Hogwarts"!
Which would seem pretty daft, if we didn't have one tutor who frequently tells us that plants are "magic"!
The tutor in question is something of a college legend. I have no idea how long Harry Delany has been teaching at Reaseheath, but his career in horticulture stretches back many decades by his own admission. Despite great knowledge and experience, and "Master of Horticulture" RHS qualification he has the humility to state regularly that he is "still learning", and such boundless enthusiasm for his subject that it's impossible not to be inspired, even when he has wandered well away from the "learning outcomes" into tales of Victorian plant hunters or marvelling at the fact that a whole new plant can develop from a root cutting.
Actually, there is something magic about that!
