Urban Gardening

Seem to be doing a lot of blogging lately. It comes and goes.

On Sunday I caught the first programme of a new series on BBC2 TV, Around the World in 80 Gardens. We started in Central America. I loved it all but it was the section on the urban gardening movement in Cuba - something I knew absolutely nothing about - that really grabbed me. If you wonder how city dwellers will manage when the oil starts to run out and it is no longer economically viable to transport food long distances, this may be at least part of the answer.

From necessity after the collapse of the Soviet empire and the subsequent withdrawal of aid, in the early 1990s the Cubans set to and started growing vegetables on spare pockets of land in urban environments in order to feed themselves. And, amazingly - to me anyway - the project is a success. Locally grown, organic fruit and vegetables feeding urban communities.

Here's an excerpt from a longer piece on the Cuban urban gardens:

For the vast majority of urban Cubans since the Revolution, food came from a grocery store or supermarket. Growing food was generally considered a part of campesino (peasant) life, left behind on the move to the city. To encourage small scale food production in urban areas, the government gave unused land to anyone who wanted to cultivate it. Havana, with a fifth of the island's population, was a priority area for urban food production .....

This all created, almost overnight, a new urban gardening culture. By the mid 1990's there were over 28,000 huertos in Havana city province, run by 50-100,000 individuals. Some of this new army of gardeners could remember farming with their parents 35 years ago, before they moved to Havana. For many it was an entirely new occupation.

Huerto is Spanish for 'kitchen garden' and these are the equivalent of allotments or smallholdings in Britain. They may be individual, family or collective and some are attached to institutions such as day care centres and schools. They range in size from postage stamp to two or more hectares. Garden clubs are comparable to allotment societies ... there are more than 19,000 individuals organised into more than 800 clubs throughout Havana.

Read the whole thing. The programme is being repeated tonight at 7.00pm on BBC2.

It's probably not a one size fits all solution - there must be other factors involved: culture, climate, population density, social cohesion. A reminder nonetheless that homo sapiens can and will adapt in order to survive. When we have to.

Photo: http://www.cosg.org.uk/gardens.htm

Fair Helena

Photohunters theme: Old Fashioned.

With two additional rooms to furnish I’m keeping my eyes peeled these days for pictures and wallhangings that I like and which fit into the budget. Attracted initially by the carving on the frame I spotted this delight yesterday, hidden behind a pile of other donated pictures and assorted bric-a-brac in a local charity shop. The tattered, yellowing label on the back reads:

RACKHAM, Arthur (1867-1939)
“A Midsummer’s Night Dream”
Original Colour Print. 1908.

A quick search on Google and I found an alternative name for the print: Fair Helena.

Standing alone and watchful in the midnight wood she is discreetly sensuous, this Helena. The gauzy fabric of her robe is draped to show her figure to advantage. Tall and elegant, rather Edwardian with her bare shoulders, plunging neckline and mass of upswept, slighly dissheveled hair, she possesses more than a hint of Pre-Raphaelite wildness.

I remember hearing of Arthur Rackham as a child but can't remember where and when. I’ve just spent, or perhaps wasted, a fascinating couple of hours following links on the net and discovering what a talented and imaginative illustrator he was.

Have I made a profit on my purchase? Possibly. I paid £2 and from its condition this particular print looks to be an old one. Prints of Fair Helena seem to be selling for around US$70 online and I will ask C, a professional artist, for her opinion. Helena's not for sale though; she hangs above my bookcase, spreading enchantment. I must re-visit A Midsummer Night's Dream.

48 Hours (Updated)

In the last 48 hours the following has happened:

a) I've had a severe stomach upset (following a dodgy jacket potato and tuna mayonnaise from a previously reliable stall in town).

b) The hot water tap in the kitchen jammed yesterday evening. A high pressure stream of hot water thundered into the sink and spilled over onto the floor. I tried to turn the stopcock under the sink to stop the flow but it was too stiff. I phoned three emergency plumbers and none could come out till this morning. After an anguished phone call a friend's husband (thank you, T and C, thank you, thank you ) came over at 8.00pm and shut off the faulty tap. He will buy and fit a replacement on Saturday.

c) On T's departure I switched on the gas boiler which I had closed down when the flooding started. After half an hour it was apparent that there was no hot water or heating. I rang British Gas at 9.00pm yesterday and they arranged for an engineer to call this morning.

d) We had a city-wide electricity power cut this morning just as the engineer arrived. He was sorry but he was unable to do anything without power. I rang British Gas at 11.00 am today when the electricity was restored and an engineer will call again tomorrow.

e) I have a job interview this afternoon

I think Mars retrograde has something to do with all this, but that's just me.
I don't know what I would have done without T.
Taking out Three Star insurance cover on the boiler was a good idea.
I'm thankful for two fan heaters and an electric shower.
British Gas's efficiency has been a pleasant surprise.
If I get this job it won't be because of my calm demeanour.

This afternoon I'm in a state of mild shock at how fragile the structure of my so-called self-sufficiency actually is. It's perilously easy to take so much for granted - good health or utilities or whatever - for so much of the time. I'm contemplating our mutual interdependence. No exceptions. None.

Update: I got the job.

Hilltop

One day long ago
a yellow kite tugged and soared
straining for freedom,

a boy unaware
of our presence in his duel
with the cunning wind.

....

The river runs fast and angry and the watermeadows have flooded. I'll need to take the long way round to the railway station this morning. The heavy skies have their own beauty but it isn't for me today. Too much grey. Too much rain. I've been looking through my photographs in search of a particular memory of summer.

It was taken in June, I believe, sometimes in the early 1990s. My father and I drove out one morning for a walk on Harting Down . I remember the feel of the warm breeze on my face, the springy turf, our hesitant conversation - sadly we didn't often talk one-to-one without my mother being present. The quality of the photo could be better - a bad workman blames his tools but it was taken with a very cheap, very basic, camera. Yet the combination of the energy flowing through the solitary kite flyer, his absorption and focus, the sweep of the downs and the distant memory of a summer's warmth still captivates me.

And the photograph was taken from the crest of a hill. Throughout this lifetime I've lived in the flatlands, on river plains and estuaries. I know that I need to climb a hill, any hill. Regularly.

I need - always - to be reminded of the long view.

Waiting

You might believe, wrongly, that the universe is out to get you when it's 6.45 am on Saturday morning, still nighttime really, and you have struggled downstairs with one of two huge piles of washing. You're making an early start to catch up on the week's accumulated chores. You load the washing machine, set the programme and press the On switch. Thirty seconds later the machine starts to grind and squeal. Red lights flash. The tub stops turning and your sheets and towels sit there, waterlogged and motionless.

The engineer is coming on Tuesday.

A therapeutic phone call to a friend at 9.00 am helped. So did a sunny morning after several grey days, a trip into town and new lingerie bought with a Christmas gift token.

....

The temporary job finishes next week. I've been more than glad to have it, but the goal of permanent part-time work is still elusive. The spectre of financial insecurity has started to make himself at home.

So I fall back on those other, smaller, ways of grounding myself which are suddenly no longer just a luxury. Making commitments. Lighting candles (£1 for 50 nightlights) around the home, taking care of the physical self and its surroundings, creating a structure when life isn't supplying one, eating properly (more or less), meditation. Especially meditation.

....

The only real answer though is to let go. To cry over the piles of dirty washing and the worry and the paralysing fear of doing the wrong thing. And then to listen.

I can wash some things by hand. A contact has requested a head massage. There's enough money in the bank for today, this week, this year. And I try to move forward in the understanding that real growth and real progress are sometimes more about considering the lilies - or snowdrops - than measuring miles covered or items ticked on a To Do list.

Waiting is an art form, someone I knew used to say. I think he was right.

Kiva

Kate at Integral Shamanics originally put me on to to Kiva where I went to renew my development aid loan this week. For all sorts of reasons, when you're anxious about money this kind of activity is good. My first loan went to a shopkeeper in Mexico to help her buy a photocopier. The second is to a charcoal seller in Tanzania.

I'm no economist but I'm particularly interested in the concept of microfinance. In another life, over twenty five years ago, I had some contact with work of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, then in its infancy. The bank's founder, Muhammad Yunus, played a major part in launching the concepts of microcredit and microfinance as forms of development aid.

Follow any of the links above for more information.

New Year's Day

Awake so early
in this unfamiliar bed
swimming in grey light.

My heart pumps its blood;
mist wraps the house in silence
and the Buddha smiles.