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The French Gardener

I was lazing on the lawn in the summer, thinking about my next book, when I saw my parents' gardener, Simon, mowing the grass on the tractor (my parents live on a farm in Hampshire, UK, and have an enormous garden!) on the back and sides were my two children aged 5 and 7 and their four small cousins. Simon was blithely mowing with these little monkeys laughing and squeaking around him, probably making it harder for him to work, but he didn't seem to mind. I then thought of how much fun they all have in the countryside, planting vegetables and trees, picking apples and blackberries in the autumn, finding small creatures to nurture, rescuing the odd bird fallen out of his nest, building camps and running around in freedom. They rarely watch tv and certainly don't have time for computer games when there's so much to do in the garden! My parents are busy people. My father is either on a tractor or playing tennis, rackets, squash, golf! I noticed too that the garden brought them together. Simon is a recent addition to the farm. My parents didn't hire a new gardener when Peter, the old gardener they'd had for 20 years retired and then died, preferring to save pennies and do the gardening themselves, an enormous task as the grounds are so big. They mowed over the vegetable garden and cut things back to make it more manageable. Then, by chance, or fate, Simon appeared wanting to rent a cottage. When he said he was a gardener my parents took him on a few days a week. They began planting vegetables again, sweet peas, created new borders - it's a hive of activity now, and has brought them closer together as they spend time doing what they love, together. This, combined with my children's love for the countryside, being essentially London children, gave me the idea for the French Gardener. I then wove Jean-Paul and Ava out of my imagination, but the gardens are based on Prince Charles's gardens at Highgrove.