The Oxford English
Dictionary defines residence as ‘a
person’s home, especially a large and impressive one’ and the Cambridge
University Botanic Garden is certainly that, so that I’m feeling overawed
rather by the expanses of lawn and bed and woodland as well as by the size of
the task: what have I taken on?! I
suppose there is an echo of the official residence, too, in the fact that I am
here in some sort of professional capacity.
I think of the phrase ‘taken up residence’ as I creep rather self-consciously
in through the Station Road gate this morning – will those who ‘really’ work
here think I don’t have a home to go to?
The dictionary gives the origin of the word as late
Middle English (denoting the fact of living in a place) from Old French,
or from medieval Latin residentia, from Latin residere 'remain'. I like this: for now, for the next eleven and
a half months in fact, I’m staying here, doing my best to make myself at home.
The weather’s not very welcoming, cold and grey and
not quite raining but a robin fluffed up against the mean wind shouts out my
arrival. I am excited that I am able to
guess the bird from the song. For years
I have loved the sound of birdsong, often waking at first light to the rich
pleasures of the dawn chorus. But I have
never managed to identify more than the obvious pigeons and gulls from the
way they sing. I have a similar block when
it comes to tango music, years of pleasurable listening leaving me not much
further forward when it comes to recognising a particular orchestra. I think being resident here will help me learn
to observe, to tune in to the sights and sounds around me, to practise new ways
of listening.
 |
| Valerian |
I am in equal parts excited by the world of
lovely plants which I am about to discover and embarrassed by my ignorance: but
I remind myself that the expertise on which this garden has been created has
come in part from learning by observation and enquiry; ‘that was how Darwin
learnt, after all,’ Hilary Sutton said speaking about her work as a volunteer
with school visits here. And the garden
now welcomes everyone, so it seems fitting that at least for some of my time
here I’m happy to sit in the cafe with my laptop and let the human aspect ebb
and flow around me. The notion of
expertise is a strange one. Chatting to
Sarah last night over cocktails (Caipirinha a delicious first for me) in a
belated birthday celebration, she spoke about a book she was reading which
identified three stages in the art of photography: the first where you are
faced with an array of techniques and information and simply try to keep up;
the second where confidence arrives suddenly, and you accumulate skills and
expertise with apparent ease; the third, when you throw out the lot and start again
from scratch. The model certainly holds
good for the process – it is a process – of Argentine tango; I have a feeling
it might apply equally to this residency, and more generally to the whole life thing where, as for tango, I am
clearly at that starting again stage. As
for being – becoming – a botanic gardens writer in residence, the beginning of
the beginning...
‘So what does it actually entail?’ almost
everyone asks when they hear about this latest venture. The question reduces me to an extreme version
of my usual incoherent vagueness. The
honest answer is I don’t know. It’s an
exploration and for once I’m going to try and be brave enough to manage without
maps. In any case, this has never been
done before. Of course there have been
other residencies; there may even have been a writer, or writers, in residence
at the Cambridge gardens previously; but not me. This combination – the Botanics and me – is a
new and unique enterprise which I am hoping might help me to join up some of
the dots: my interest in memory, in routes to health and well-being, in the
natural world. Fact or fiction? Um – somewhere between the two? How best to document what is unfolding in the
world around me, to capture the rhythms of the seasons? As well as learning to look and listen, I
find myself reading voraciously, growing a list of garden notes and writer’s
diaries and logs of personal journeys.
Who knows where my journey will lead?
Planting myself in this corner of the café has
already attracted some welcome attention.
Helen stops by, yellow plastic bucket in hand, on her way to – I think
she is in charge of alpines – and we compare notes about Saturday’s
recordings. Then I am spotted by Anna
the yoga teacher who introduces me to her friend Kat and we trade stories. Anna is immensely excited by my new role and
wants to put her name down for the first workshop! I remind her I am still a new cutting: I
need a bit of time to ‘take’. Later a
young man with an impressive array of notebooks joins me at the other end of the
table. Today there is a noisy influx of
visitors – one group or several? – and the table I have claimed acquires a
‘reserved’ sign for later. For now,
though, I sit tight. I have a fantasy that,
if I sit here for long enough, some of the job might come to me, a bit like an
MP’s surgery – I’m here for questions, referrals, advice, support. Perhaps the
café staff will gather to create a series of cake haiku? Or a bunch of beleaguered mums dump their
noisy offspring for a quick injection of word play?
At the weekend I planted my new acquisition, ajuga reptans, under the small apple
tree in my garden. Its common name is
bugle: 1. noun any of a genus (Ajuga) of plants of the mint
family; especially : a European annual (A. reptans) that has spikes
of blue flowers 2. noun a valveless brass instrument resembling a trumpet. I remember the robin’s fanfare for my arrival
this morning, and hope that bodes well.
*with grateful thanks to Arts Council England
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