Gardens, responsibility and conflict

All afternoon yesterday, after three weeks of a virus that floored me, I was potting on seedlings and counting slug damage on the allotment. Most of the morning went on dealing with admin associated with care, some lovely helpful people, some appalling. 

This watery landscape signals my leaving the Netherlands where my daughter is. It's what I was chatting about by the allotment path yesterday with a couple also navigating caring. The allotment community is very kind. 

A relief to feel healthy, that three out of six cucumber plants survive. I'm now concentrating on beans, courgettes, sunflowers and the chilli corner of the polytunnel. 

The apple trees and plum are full of fruit. I'll have to thin out the apples and pray foragers don't get in again this year. Attempting to think positive seems a flimsy counterpoint to the machismo of world politics, clusters of white men in suits. But retreat to a garden feels like a responsibility in the absence of any other action. The poet Forugh Farrokhzad wrote a poem, I Pity the Garden, which explores the impact of living in a warzone. 

What I do here in Brighton is of little consequence, perhaps, except I do believe the pressure of ordinary people can have an impact on politicians. And I do believe I have a responsibility not to turn away. Last year the Guardian wrote about a family garden in a Gaza refugee camp. 

The Borgen Project has collected a few examples of gardening in warzones.