The Gardening Angel

Once upon a time, in the Realm of Stupidity, in the middle of Nomans' land, stands the manor house called Fox Hall. Gary Noman sits behind his desk. If he sat in front of it he would have to move everything around, and he wouldn't see who came through the door. Gary is Lord of the Manor and employs a large team of Gnomes and Elves to keep his large estate tidy. If he had any friends they would call him Gary Nomates, but he lived and breathed in his office. The reason for the worried look, in case you wondered, is that almost all his workforce were injured, either walking wounded or home off sick. Every day added another name to the list. Gary Noman is also the boss of G. Nomans Landscape Gardeners. All the workforce wore the company uniform with the logo, 'G.Noman' on the jumper. Glancing quickly at the logo a lot of people thought it said Gnomes, so they were all affectionally known as the 3Gs', Garys Gardening Gnomes.
The office he is in hasn't changed since his fore-fathers had built it. Quite why he had four fathers was a mystery to Gary. Two wasn't exceptional among his men. He had tried to look into his family tree, but had fallen out and hurt himself. His workforce had been with his family for generations. As each son reached man-hood they were apprenticed to their father. If they weren't blessed with a son then the eldest daughter was equally welcome. All in all it was a family concern, and they were all concerned right now about the injured men and women. The unofficial motto was, 'Old gardeners don't die, they just make good compost!' It still brought a smile to their faces when they thought about it. All the staff became experts at flora and fauna, and they knew a lot about gardening.
Gary is still worrying, when he realises that there is somebody else in the room, although this is unusual, he isn't annoyed or surprised, in fact he is acting as if he is expecting the visitor. A man appears in front of him, an ordinary man, apart from the fact that he is glowing slightly around the edges, wearing what appears to be a green sparkly dress, pointed ears of an Elf and 6feet tall, nothing unusual at all. Did I mention the long hooked nose and the curly blond beard, certainly nothing that would make him stand out in a crowd.
Gary sat back and regarded his visitor. "Welcome Yrag, how are you? We haven't seen you for an age." "I am well Lord Noman. Unfortunately this isn't a social visit." As the two sat down they were literally a mirror image of the other. "You have noticed there is a problem in your world?" Yrag nodded towards the reports in front of Gary, who merely nodded back. "I'll explain, Lady Marilyn is beginning to fade. The Crystal Throne has lost the central crystal, so everything, including The Lady, is losing their power and that is why she cannot protect your workers as well as she usually does, hence the accidents and injuries." The announcement by Yrag was made in a rush as if saying it out loud had made it worse. "How can we possibly be of service to the Gardening Angel, the Lady Marilyn, we are common or garden landscapers, not crystal miners?" "You are the only people that can help. Over the years one or more of your staff has come across the special type of soil that will have the prescious crystal underneath." Yrag paused. He regained his composure and his ethereal glow. Gary called for his P.A. otherwise known as Pixie Annie, to arrange a staff meeting straight after their lunch break. Yrag promptely disappeared.
The staff meeting was certainly an extroadinary one, a/ because most of the staff had never seen,'The Boss' and those that had was at a distance. b/ because of the reason for the meeting. Gary wasn't used to speaking to so many people, Annie barely got a grunt. Everything was relayed through P.A. After a lot of Ummming and Ahhhing he got the important message across. At the mention of the Gardening Angel they all thought the boss had been on the sherry. They had all heard of her, it was the first Fairy Story their mothers had told them, when they were babies. Also the first book they learned to read in Nursery School, before they concentrated on seedlings and compost and other important subjects.Apart from home, green houses were the only places they went inside.
The older elves and gnomes looked at each other with knowing looks. Either the boss had been on the falling down water or things were very serious. The silence from the older staff soon go through to the younger ones. Maybe it wasn't the drink talking, maybe there was a reason for their mates being injured. Suddenly there was an unreal atmosphere in the canteen. Gary shuffled from one foot to the other while he waited. "So chaps and chapesses, what I need to know is, have any of you come across this special soil that hides the crystal, the Special Blue Crystal that is needed for the Ladys' Throne?" A deafening silence ensued, while several brains worked, a few nails were cleaned with paring knives, and two youngsters turned their personal radios to the Gnome Service for the news and weather. Peter Daw the senior supervisor suddenly stood up. "Sorry Boss, we seemed to have drawn a blank, I will get young Smith to wash it off. He stared down young Smiths look of, 'it wasnt me.' What sort of time limit do we have?" "Things are pretty bad, the throne and Lady Marilyn are vanishing fast. The sooner the better. Suspend all your work for the rest of the week and send out search parties right away." After hiding the scandalous look, 'suspend all your work,' had bought to his face Peter set to organising things, while Gary gratefully disappeared into the safety of his office, for a cup of tea and a hobnob. "Ok lads and ladesses, what we are looking for is black earth with that slatey, shellate underneath. We've all seen the 'orrible stuff in peoples gardens, but not with the black earth. That's gotta be rare. Off you go, I want it found by packing up time today. We can't keep all our work in the air for too long." A mad scramble started, and while they ate that, they paired off. Carts and various small tractors with trailers were loaded. Within a fairly short time the yard was empty. At the end of the first day all the workforce had reported in and Peter marked off the areas they had searched on his map. Nothing had been found. The rest of the week revealed nothing either.
On Friday afternoon of that week, Peter is standing outside his office door, and can hear a strange sound. What on earth was it? It was like an engine being tortured beyond belief. After a couple of minutes this proved to be the Case, they are normally good tractors. This one was obviously being driven by an idiot with a concrete foot. It flew through the gateway into the yard on two wheels, aiming straight at Peters office. Just as he is about to jump for his life, the tractor came to a grinding halt in a shower of gravel, oily smoke and the stench of tortured clutch. The cloud of dust and smell carries on and hits Peter square on, he staggers, then a small figure hurls itself off the vehicle and aims itself towards the doorway, not even seeing Peter standing there. Two bodies fall into the office in a tangle of limbs. Landing on his back, Peter shoves Ernie off. "Get off me Ernie, you idiot, what the smeggs going on, have you gone mad?" "Boss, Boss, I-I-I-I-I, f-f-f-f." "Take a deep breath and start again." "Boss, I've found it! Black earth and shellate, down at Farmer 'Ortons chicken farm," He eventually go it all out. Peter looked at his map on the wall and put a cross on the field. "So Ernie, eggs marks the spot eh??" "What d'yer mean boss?" "Never mind Ernie, never mind. I'll contact Mr Horton right away and make some arrangements. Well done Ernie. There may be a reward, who knows." Ernie wasn't listening, he was miles away, in his mind he was remembering when he had his small holding and kept chickens. Peter knew that if Ernie got going about his chickens, very soon he would lose the will to live, so he stopped him, saying he needed to use the phone, why didn't he go and get a cup of tea from the canteen, Phil Thurkettle was in, and wouldn't mind. Luckily Mr Horton was in having lunch, and he was happy to help. They would start work the next day. He had to assure the farmer that he wasn't pulling his leg, or any other appendage, and he promised to put everything back the way it was, and hinted at some compensation, which went down well.
The following morning found the whole workforce standing in front of Peter and Gary in the chicken farm, with every type of digging implement they could find. Several of the workforce were openly staring at Gary, and he was getting distinctly uncomfortable. They were looking at his hat, it looked like a dead animal, when he had told his P.A. were he was going, she had said 'wear the Fox Hat' at least it had sounded like that.It was an ancestral hat, passed down from son to son. "Ok people, what we will do is dig test pits all over this field and see what's there. I've seen it on Time Team. That Gnomy Robinson runs around telling everyone what's going on. Don't just stand there, off you go." He waved his hands at them. "Shoo, get digging." The first half of the day saw frantic activity, then after lunch the excitement and enthusiasm wained, it looked like it could wain all day. Peter was kept busy doing his Gnomy Robinson impression, while the field did an impression of a World War battlefield with trenches everywhere. Once again it was Ernie that discovered the correct spot, directly under one of the chicken coops. He had been admiring the hens and noticed they had scratched away the earth in one particular spot and they were laying some amazing eggs. From the spot there was a faint glow from underneath. Collecting everyone together, they gnomehandled the coop out of the way, and wrinkling their noses at the smell, they managed to clear a 3 metre square of earth. They stood around it in awe, a shiny blue crystal. Wow, was the collective thought, then Whoa!!! as a shiny figure in a green dress appeared in the middle of the cleared square. "Thank you, thank you, The Lady Marilyn will reward you." Yrag borrowed a digger from Ernie, who like all the others was standing with his mouth open, goggling. After studying the crystal he took careful aim and struck. A large piece of the crystal flew off, and Yrag deftly caught it, and vanished.
They all blinked and looked around at each other. What had just happened? They all felt the anticlimax. The hole was just a hole now. They put the coop back over it, in a daze. Peter tried to cheer them up by telling them they could have the rest of the day off, and to be certain, the The Gardening Angel is looking after us again. "See you all in the morning people, don't be late."