If I held a gun to your head, I couldn’t make you fall in love
If I held a gun to your head, I couldn’t make you fall in love. Falling in love is not within your control. Fear, anxiety, hope, happiness, despair. None of them are within your control.
Thoughts then? Surely thoughts are? In a time of great fear and of threat to our most vulnerable, surely we must be able to not think dark thoughts, to not worry about what might happen, to not examine our relationships and our perspectives? No, me neither.
What is in our control is our action. What we do.
We cannot control what is inside our heads, but we can control what our arms and legs do, the words that come out of our mouths. Of all things, I believe in my actions being guided by courage, by growth, and by beauty. These are the values that I live by. After a conversation about how my sister-in-law, an ICU nurse at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth was coping, I felt helpless, desperate, afraid and powerless. I thought of what faced her and her colleagues and I thought about what might happen to my nephews if she was not ok. I thought of the scale of the task that faced her, whilst I stayed at home. My heart hurt.
I felt and thought these things, and then I did something. What I did was to find a garden to give to them. It was built in an afternoon, exactly a week ago today. (It was timed to make sure it was in before the next wave of lockdown, but also because the hospital’s restrictions were planned to step up a level by the Monday.) It was such an incredible mission that when I got home, I forgot that I was meant to write a newsletter; I couldn’t have told you what day it was, never mind strung a sentence together. So thank you, as ever, for your patience in waiting a week for this. Here are some pictures.
The garden was designed by Tom Massey for the Chelsea Flower Show. It was sponsered (and therefore gifted) with incredible generosity by Yeo Valley, and was grown to organic standards by Hortus Loci. The director of Hortus Loci, Mark Shaver, loaded a van with the most immaculate, pampered and lush plants I have ever seen, drove four hours to deliver them, pushed them into hospital lifts, and then drove home. The build was assisted by Andi Strachan and Helen Lockwood. Johnson’s sweet peas also gifted some beautiful plants which were planted alongside the seating area, also generously donated by Anwen Woo from her very own garden.
Already this feels crazy. A week ago, we travelled. It seems unthinkable now. Please be reassured that we all washed our hands, practiced social distancing, and were as responible as possible. The hospital corridors were deserted but the big double ICU doors and pale, tense members of the staff team were there as a stark reminder of why we were working so hard.
I truly believe in the power of plants, and I believe that the day that we worked will be only a drop in the ocean for the weeks and months of toil and slog and endless work that the doctors, nurses, and support staff will endure.
It turns out lots of people believe in this too, and seed sales have slightly exploded. I added a few vegetables to my usual flower varieties, and they were snapped up. As worlds and communities and daily commutes shrink to a scale we never thought possible, we turn to growing our own food.
Nutrition. Nourishment. Nurture. The root is the Latin word nutrire, to cherish.
Nurture these and they will nourish you. Cherish your food. Cherish the generosity of the soil and the earth.
This week, I have made pasta, quiches, wild garlic pesto, harvested chard and sown Musselburgh leeks. I have pricked out the tomatoes (very mixed germination rates), and fleeced the asparagus against whatever was nibbling it. At some primitive level this feels necessary. That in such times, this is what we need.
Food. Family. Courage. Beauty. Growth.
