Unofficial Tea Break.

Today has been grey, boring and cold, both in my heart and in the gardens. My lady is away in London until Sunday, she did tell me last night but I wasn’t going to spoil a great day by thinking about four whole days without her until it actually came to pass.
Another thing that happened today that I wasn’t right happy about was this morning I went to fill up the log box and when I got finished Angela, one of the cleaners said she was making a drink and did I want to go and join them. I told her that my break time wasn’t until ten thirty and she said that so was there’s but there was no one around so they were getting in an extra one. I agreed to have a drink with them as I didn’t want to appear rude or offend them but I wasn’t happy about taking advantage of Lady Alex like that. In the end I decided the best thing for a guilt free mind was to work on through my official tea break.

As it happens I did learn a few things during the break though, it all started when Angela asked me how I was getting on and I told her it was good and that everyone seemed nice and friendly. Then for no real good reason she said to watch Lady Alex as she got the last gardener fired. I was quite amazed by this but I then had to hear how she had spend half of last year in a clinic because of her nerves. They were worried she might harm herself she was so bad at one time. Apparently the family who have the hall now only took it over three years ago as his lordships parents are getting on and they didn’t want them to die while still in charge of the estate because of paying death duties so they moved out and Lord and Lady Alexandra moved in. They mostly lived in London and only used the place at weekends and holidays up until when she was taken ill, then when she got better she came to live here all the time and so started to get more involved with running the house and grounds which sounds like it upset a few people and if today’s extra tea break is anything to go by I can see why. Apparently she used to leave the gardener but he only did what he wanted to do and not what she told him to do because he said he knew better what needed to be done. One time he was told to prune the roses and he wouldn’t because it was the wrong time of year. He said they should be done in Spring which is the usual time to do them but Lady Alex wanted them doing in November. Anyway he went behind her back to see his Lord A and said he wasn’t taking orders from someone who didn’t know what they were talking about but apparently Lord A said that he wanted nothing to do with the gardens and that he had to do as she told him. Well it seems he didn’t like that so what he went and did was get the strimmer with the brush cutting blade and cut off all the roses about one foot above soil level. This was a Sunday morning when they were at church. I was wondering what happened to the roses because I noticed straight off when I got here that all the stalks and everything are still laid on the borders and you can see from how the ends of the shoots are all hacked off that they weren’t pruned properly. Anyway as soon as Lady Alex noticed them she went straight round his house and fired him there and then – I guess she knows enough about gardening to know he didn’t do it properly hey! What I find strange is that the cleaners and housekeeper were taking the gardeners side and warning me to watch her. Well I will be watching her that’s for sure but not for the reasons that were saying. I think he should have done as he was told. Thankfully the fires aren’t lit when no one is home so I won’t have to go in the hall in the morning and listen to that lot picking spots of my lady.