A flower in the wrong place…

It may have been Bob Flowerdew, the well-known pony-tailed gardener who sometimes makes a sensible point… it may have been Bob Flowerdew who said a weed is just a plant growing in the wrong place. I thought this as I walked past our neighbour’s lawn on the way to feed their cat while they are away on holiday. The lush  grass was studded with golden and purple wild flowers, glowing like jewels on the green… the lawn was full of weeds.

And as I was waiting for the cat to take his leisurely time and come to his replenished food bowl I pondered on various things… and thought about my students… my ex-students.

They were students at the pupil referral unit where I worked and they were there for a reason… they could not cope in school, or school could not cope with them being there; they were weeded out. However, with us most of them bloomed and blossomed, transplanted into an environment where they could flourish.

Thistles are a dreadful nuisance in my garden, but in a hedgerow they are wonderful, striking grey-green foliage, stunning purple flowers or delicate pale grey thistledown. Nettles are a painful menace… but they do make delicious soup, and in the past have been used for their fibres and made into ropes and fabric.

Schools these days are often massive, kids get lost in them physically and emotionally and socially. I always said to my students, especially when in candid moments they talked about their ‘failure’ in mainstream schools, that there was nothing wrong with them, it was the schools that were wrong for them. Wrong time, wrong place… our PRU gave them a different place and a chance to see if they could blossom and bloom!