What a Character!

Character Sketch

Dan the Gardner looks as if he belongs in his garden. He is about seventy years old and spends all day pottering outside. Everyday he wears the same grubby old hat, along with his equally dirty faded blue overalls that have holes in the knees. These holes have come from all the hours he spends on his knees as he weeds and plants. He has even worn holes in the toes of his sneakers! For a person who works outside each day Dan is a surprisingly plump old chap whose double chin completely hides his neck. In fact I thought at first he didn't have a neck! I could see no sign of it. Often I see Dan eating his favourite food - ice cream - while he is working away in the garden.. That will be why he looks so much like a roly poly garden gnome with his wispy grey hair sticking out from under his floppy old hat and his fat tummy wobbling like a jelly as he plods around his garden. 

Funnily enough Dan's garden is the opposite of him! Everywhere you looks there are rows of colourful flowers. All the flowerbeds are neatly edged and there is never a weed to be seen. 

Dan hates snails. He says they eat his precious plants so he goes out at night to catch them and drowns them in buckets of hot water. He says, "I will never use snail bait as long as I live!" He believes the good animals, like hedgehogs, would eat it and they would also die. Dan actually believes that the best way to deal with pests is the natural way. He believes he is a natural predator for the snails so that is how he will deal with snails in his garden. "I am going out on snail patrol," he says to his wife as he disappears into the darkness lugging a bucket of steaming water. 

He is really good at growing tomatoes and his roses are the best in the whole town. He gets really cross when children climb the fence and come and eat his tomatoes or pick his flowers. He says to himself, "Why do I bother working so hard when young hooligans just come and tramp all over my plants and steal everything". He has a quick temper and shouts at them if he ever sees them doing it. He is too old and fat to chase them so the children just run away laughing! That makes him madder than ever. 

© Ministry of Education, Wellington, New Zealand (First published 1998)