Hello,

We are three horticultural students from Jämsä college. We arrived to England, Heathrow airport last sunday. We are staying here six weeks in total, five weeks remaining. Our work experience place is in West Dean Gardens at Chichester.

Our flight went well and our journey to Chichester from London was a bit difficult but we made it! Our flight left Helsinki-Vantaa airport on sunday (3.4.2016) morning 7.45. We were at the Westgate Halls of residents around three o’clock. We all had separate rooms with own bathrooms and showers. We share a kitchen with three other students and it was pretty dirty… But after we cleaned it, it’s okay, but not what we expected.

West Dean Gardens is at West Dean and we have to take a bus to get there. It takes about 20 minutes by bus. Gardens is big and beautiful. It’s more like a show garden, everything must to be clean and good quality.

There is working ~10 permanent workers and every week around 15 volunteers to help to keep the gardens looking good. There is high expectation of our skills, language and knowledge. It is bit difficult to understand some words about gardening because we haven’t had any studies in profession english.

Workers are really nice and helpful. That was a relief that work atmosphere is nice, makes it easier to fit in.

On our first week in West Dean Gardens went fast. On first days we get to know to the place, we had car ride with Jim to explore Gardens’ lands more closely. There were lots of sheep.

We are looking forward to what the next 5 weeks will bring to us.

Best regards,

Hanna, Tinja & Janita, JTP14.