Personal Odyssey by Richard Leighton

Andrew Falconer expat, head gardener and published author takes a wry look back over his life and draws some pretty startling conclusions about his chosen profession and his place in the scheme of things, in a world that can often deliver the unexpected.

Drawing a lot on his memories from a rich and, at times, rarefied childhood, long since spent with his elder brother Hugh growing up on the very edge of the Snowdonia National Park. Falconer, who lives in the city of Lyon in the South of France, spends a great deal of his free time-writing at the lakeside in the local park, jotting down what he considers to be all his most relevant experiences, compiling ideas and composing plots to create many of his best short stories and essays with the overall intention of capturing much of his past life on paper.

These memoirs include taking a nostalgic look back at growing up in a coastal community in North Wales and many of those key experiences that made it all so worthwhile. The highlights being long coarse fishing excursions in the Welsh hills while working for the National Trust as a park’s operative in the Gwydyr forest, and finally his moving to the south of England to study and gain vital experience to improve his chances of achieving the position of head gardener.

He eventually relocated to the South of France where he experiences the thrill of spending much of his free time in Paris and lives the life he could previously only dream about.