My colleague Stuart’s a gardener and amongst other things he keeps the nature garden at work looking beautiful. He’s very knowledgeable about the natural world and often shares his knowledge with both children and adults.

Stuart’s been helping me with my garden at the castle. He’s put up a trestle, created amazing raised beds, and filled them with three tons of soil. Soon the final stage will be under way when a host of plants will be coming to live in their new home.

But there’s only one plant living here at the moment, ‘Little G’, an offshoot of Leftwing Idiot’s much-maligned geranium.

This morning Stuart casually dropped a bombshell: ‘Technically it’s not a geranium at all, it’s a pelargonium.’

I was stunned. He went on to explain that though they’re commonly called geraniums, real geraniums are a separate family of plants. My tics immediately offered their opinion:

“You’re not a geranium, you’re a pelican.”
“You’re such a fake geranium.”
“Non-geranium geranium.”

It’s almost four years since Leftwing Idiot was first given the so-called geranium and today’s news was totally unexpected. Who knows what the long-term effect will be on my tics’ surreal relationship with this plant.