Gardening

When I was a teacher I felt it was like gardening people. Many of them were in bud, many bruised and a few blooming awful. Joking aside, some were coming into bloom well before others. Now that I'm retired and gardening with plants rather than with people it seems to me there are similarities worth exploring. Slugs! Do you know how amazing they are? Their sense of smell is far better than a police sniffer dog. They can catch the scent of a favourite food 20 feet away. Maybe some of you have found slugs and sometimes snails halfway up a high wall and wondered what on earth they are doing there, not on earth. My friend, Richard, typing this, suggests feeling high, it's time to mate. Any comments on that?

This puts me in mind of Eleanor Roosevelt. She once had a garden rose named after her. On reading the catalogue, she was far from feeling flattered. The words read, "No good in a bed, but fine up against a wall." Sex education in schools, unlike the birds and bees in gardens, is considered a controversial topic, except to kids. Do you think teenagers throbbing away at their desks should be introduced to an anecdote, in the name of history, the like of which relating to Mrs Roosevelt is given above? Also controversially, if there are "slugs" and "weeds" in a classroom who refuse to be fertilised by the wisdom of the teachers, as in the Garden of Eden, should they be expelled. Please spot the anomoly in my logic as demonstrated above! (I used to love teachers who could admit error, when the were in the wrong. Trouble is, I can't remember any). YOU?