I am very much isolated in Dubai at the moment as the lockdown in both the UAE and the UK, our twin seats of our life, continues. Jane has the great pleasure of being locked down at Oaklands in the Spring with the boys, while I have been confined to the Villa in Al Barsha. There are flights out for those that lose their jobs or bolt for home but no flights back in as yet for UAE residents. I am toughing it out until our equivalent of SAGE thinks its time to reopen Dubai. I need to be able to come and go to support both Oaklands and my role and team in Dubai.
It's 5 weeks since I have seen Jane. Lockdown here is a grade up from the paltry restrictions in the UK. We do lockdown competitively with all nations. No exercise, shopping by permit once every 3 days and even the dogs have restrictions on them. They have to crap immediately outside their front gates and in no more than ten minutes. I am about a month into my solitary confinement when I add in the self-isolation I was awarded courtesy of Jane contracting the Virus on her return to the UK.
I have "done" a lot of Oaklands from afar in the last 16 months. I was pleased to find the first rambling plan I sketched out and pdf'd to Jane when we put the offer in. A short note annotated with exhortations for "Bluebells !" and borders "50 m Long !" was further illuminated by a set of coloured pencils with joyous depictions of livestock. The monk working in his cell on the borders of the manuscript conjured up a very fine cockerel, a jovial "Rare `Breed" pig complete with ears like a spaniel and a hasty bee, also sporting a smile and swept back legs as he goes about his buzzing business. Brother Neil was in a fine mood all the way from Dubai that evening. Even before contracts were exchanged plans for wildflower rides through the Priory's forest were being laid out on vellum with the greatest of artistic skill. I still feel this is the most joyous of Oaklands imaginings I have seen to date. It captured the mood and the enterprise.
It was with sadness that I turned over final planning to Cheryl and Jane as I undertook further overseas work at my Ministry. I did put in a plea for a dozen raised beds and a huge greenhouse. I wasn't disappointed and with a rotary pen and ruler on this occasion an altogether more professional plan emerged. We were always set on a Potager or more formal Vegetable garden. Fork to fork is a life we want to lead and many ways if I end my days with 20 years which are not disimilar to a monk in terms of routine and work I would not be disapointed. Lockdown has given me an even greater taste for a simpler life. Albeit with access to the space we have bought. My mind as I sit in Dubai is crowded with ideas for the garden and the Potager, the wood, the ponds, the rides. But at the heart of how we want to be is the desire to grow something and support ourselves in some way. I have "blown up" below the beating heart of the working garden.
It's such a simple design - the hardstanding mirrored on each side of our the "Avenue" that runs from the steps next to conservatory to the woodand's edge. In many ways we are blessed by our impatience and desire to push things on. Things get done. I cannot imagine now how we would feel if we had paused and not invested in getting the works started. It was a toss up between the damp in part of the barn and landscaping. The damp can wait ! Jane is outside most of the time anyway and the barn has been standing for 150 years. We could have been "locked out" from any progress this year on the garden. Our choices now seem blessed. The enthusiasm of childish pencil sketches has carried us through to something that can sustain us for a number of years in terms of follow up work. As things stand pretty much everything in the section captured above will be complete.
It is the strangest feeling for me personally however not to have seen a single sweep of a digger or stone turned. My contribution has literally been to throw as much cash at the landscapers as I could in a concentrated period. As the tide recedes on the economy I am very grateful that we stuck to the "Direction of Travel" while we had the means. As with all of us - life is going to be different from a commercial perspective for the next 2 years as a minimum.
We are though just two weeks of final work away from completion of the big Phase 1 and Sam and his team will return to us as soon as able to finish up. I took the decision to pay them in full on trust before they downed tools - that seemed the right thing to do. I am self-employed myself but not prevented from working like them at this time. While they could have come on site the deliveries of materials they relied on could not be made. Equally they had concerns about not spreading the virus through a number of families. So they will return for a two week period and then the heart of the plan will be complete.
And I have yet to see a single thing ! I imagine myself returning like one of those confused partners in an episode of Groundforce or another daytime home makeover show. Oh my ! My dream Potager - I'm speechless - oh ! (sheds small tear). For now I get regular little walks by Jane on Zoom or Botim (UAE Facetime) using an Ipad. It is both frustrating and fascinating. In many ways I am glad though that I will just come home, pick up a dibber and start planting. For me it will be a big reveal - a heap of relief - joy - amazement. Absolute satisfaction that I have done my bit and helped to get us closer to where we want to wash up. I have it all stored up to look foward to. Like Christmas.
So I haven't yet walked up the steps to the terrace avoiding the precipitous fall into the day yet to appear beds on the left and right.
Looked back down to the house.
Taken up a vantage point on the higher ground to look down across to the space for the greenhouse.
I have not seen the beds that will flank the greenhouse one it has gone in - we have yet to decide where perennial crops such as Asparagus or soft fruit will live.
There are plants waiting - these are cardoons that are destined for the two "Demi-Lunes" as we call the beds that start the terracing up to the meadow slope. These have been renamed the "Baby Groots". Currently plants that have arrived homeless are being re-homed by Jane in the beds by the barn. Plants by the box load.
A dozen Johnson's Blue geraniums from memory for my white and blue border in the Demi-Lunes. Refugee Alliums and Artichokes are also being tended to in the "camps" until the war is won.
So the best thing to do now is to plan. So I think I will be stuck in Dubai for perhaps another 4-6 weeks, In some ways that feels good now. I will be able to justifiably desert my post and take a good 3 weeks back home. I will actually stop work for two weeks and get as much in the ground as possible. It should be possible to plant for the late Summer and Autumn and to have at least half a season and the promise of some Winter crops. If I plan now from my "cell" I can set about the work with the same purpose that got us this far together in 16 months. The only thing I a slightful wistful about is missing the bluebells this year which is my next post. Then we can go back to planning Potagers.
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