Page 15 of The Allotment on Willow Tree Lane

‘To wish you good luck for today. Itistoday that you start your new job, isn’t it?’

‘It is,’ she said, touched that he’d remembered, her stomach once again churning at the thought of where she would be spending her day and how she would be spending it.

‘Are you nervous?’

‘Petrified. What if I make a total fool of myself?’ Oh, dear, so much for not letting her brother know how she was feeling. But he’d asked, so…

Huw chuckled. ‘I highly doubt you’ll do that. It’s strange to think that not very long ago I was in the same position as you are now – just moved to Foxmore and about to start a new job. It’s even stranger to think that you’re living in the same cottage I was living in back then. It’s like a weird form of déjà vu, but it’s nice to see you following in your big brother’s footsteps. You’ll be finding yourself a fella and settling down next!’

‘Hardly,’ she retorted, but the memory of a man with dark curling hair and sensual lips flitted through her mind, and she shook her head to clear it. ‘Thanks for thinking of me, Huw. But you could have just sent me a message, rather than get up so early.’

‘What are you talking about? We haven’t gone to bed yet. Well, not really, we—’

‘La, la, la,’ Ceri sang loudly, cutting him off. ‘Bye, Huw. Enjoy the rest of your honeymoon.’

Her brother’s laughter was still ringing in her ears as she ended the call. Then she grinned when she received a message from him immediately afterwards telling her to ‘knock ’em dead’.

Knock ’em dead, indeed! The only thing that was knocking was her knees, and Ceri hoped her students wouldn’t notice. She had arrived incredibly early and was sitting in the staffroom with a cup of coffee, trying to remember what it was she was supposed to be teaching this morning and struggling not to give in to the temptation to flee.

Alongside the City & Guilds and BTEC qualifications she was employed to deliver, she was also supposed to be taking over the running of several shorter courses aimed at the more mature learner, although they were open to anyone who cared to enrol, of course. And although she loved the idea of modules such as ‘Planning a Wildlife Haven’ and ‘Creating an Edible Garden’, she wasn’t convinced she was the best person to teach them. She wasn’t the best person to teachanything.

And when Mark, the Faculty Lead (aka her Head of Department), walked into the room and said, ‘Morning, Ceri. I forgot to tell you, but just to make you aware, the college holds an event at the end of the academic year where students showcase their work, and things like plants and other items are sold to the general public, so you might want to start thinking about that,’ Ceri thought she might have a meltdown there and then.

Mark popped a hand inside one of the pigeonholes near the door and pulled out some papers. ‘You’d think people would just use email in this day and age,’ he said, rifling through them. ‘Flyers, mostly. Huh!’ He dropped everything in the bin and walked over to the sink. Several mugs were sitting on the draining board, and he picked one up and studied it. ‘I’ve been looking for this.’ He held it up for her to see. It had his name on the side.

Ceri gave a little smile. It was the best she could do, considering she was fizzing with nerves and felt positively sick.

Mark raised his eyebrows. ‘Any issues before we start the day? Anything you’re not sure about?’ He glanced at the clock. Fifteen minutes to go before the first lesson began.

‘Everything,’ she replied, willing her bottom lip not to tremble.

He studied her for a minute then plopped into the seat opposite. ‘You’ll be fine. I remember my first teaching post. It terrified the life out of me, and I’d actuallygota teaching degree, so it wasn’t my first time in the classroom. I appreciate how hard it must be for you, Ceri, but you wouldn’t have been employed if we didn’t think you were capable of doing the job.’

It was good to hear, but Ceri wasn’t convinced. She still had the awful feeling she had blagged her way through the interview, without really knowing what she was doing.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’m sure I’ll get used to it. To be honest, I was surprised to be invited for an interview.’

‘Oh, why’s that?’

‘No formal teaching qualification. I know the advert said that for practical courses like these, experience is more important than a teaching certificate, but…’

‘It’s true,’ Mark said. ‘For hands-on subjects, experienceismore important. If you can’t do it yourself, you can’t show others how to. And you clearly know your stuff. For the courses you are teaching, the college wanted someone who is well-versed in horticulture, and you are that person.’ He smiled warmly and Ceri couldn’t help but smile back.

She’d met him at the interview, and although it had been such a blur that she hadn’t been able to recall many of the details afterwards, she remembered Mark. He had an open, sunny face and a ready smile, and throughout the interview she recalled him sitting forward in his seat, his head cocked to the side, as though he was interested in what she had to say. It had given her a much-needed boost at the time, and here he was doing it again.

‘Don’t be too hard on yourself,’ he advised. ‘I’ve every confidence in you.’

Ceri wished she felt the same, and as she made her way to the polytunnel where her first ordeal (sorry,lesson) was about to take place, she once again wondered what had possessed her to apply for the job in the first place.

Hurriedly, she checked that everything was set up, then swallowed nervously as voices drifted through the opening, becoming louder every second. Plastering a smile on her face, she took a deep breath and told herself she could do this. If she just pretended that the students were customers who wanted to learn how to measure the acidity of their soil (in the past, she had run a couple of drop-in sessions on this very topic for the garden centre she’d worked for), she’d be fine.

First though, she needed to know everyone’s name, so she had a roll of sticky labels and some marker pens at the ready.

The first few students to step inside the polytunnel seemed happy to oblige, but a couple of the tardier ones rolled their eyes. One girl especially acted as though it was a big deal to scribble her name on a label, and she huffed and tutted at having to perform such an onerous task.

Ceri made a point of reading her name – Portia Selway – and smiled encouragingly at her.

Portia rolled her eyes again and nudged the girl standing next to her, before shuffling off to the side of the polytunnel and getting her phone out.

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