Garden volunteer Lucetta has a beautiful message for us all about her experience of volunteering in the garden at Fulham Palace.
Dear all,
I do think that everyone has a happy place. A place where you feel at peace with yourself. It doesn’t matter when or how you have found it, it’s where you feel fine and even its memory can help you to ride the storm when you are faraway. For me this is Fulham Palace. To be precise, its walled garden. I have already told you how I came to know about the Palace many years ago and what my first visit meant to me. The purple dahlias, the ancient dark bricks, the secluded benches have been so captivating for me because they were and they still are very different from my ordinary life. The perfect match between Nature and History. I’m a teacher and I am more than happy to work with my students, nevertheless the routine of the school year in the low lands of Pianura Padana is lacking in bright colours. But the dahlias, the lavander, the marigolds, the gladioli, the calendulas, the cosmos, they have vivid colours, as well as the tomatoes, the grapes, the rhubarb, the spinach, the kale, the chard, the radish and my favourite, the pink potatoes. Beyond the history, the colours and the scent, it’s the people I met.
I strongly believe that I am very rich because of the people I have met and the relationships I have forged over the years. My experience at Fulham Palace proves my theory. In a troubled world where the pandemic, the war, the economic crisis, the environmental issues make us worried and sometimes feel alone, we need people with whom we can share our ideas: language and nationality cannot be a barrier. For me they were not at Fulham Palace, thanks to Lucy, Pete, Franziska, Patricia, Lewis, Sophie, Nada and all the volunteers who had lunch with me, talked to me, worked with me. I would like to underline this word, because gardening is a wonderful pastime but it requires hard work and passion; it’s at the same time ancestral and contemporary if you think about our ancient farmers or about the green philosophy which many of us embrace nowadays. Working the soil is really rewarding when you look at the vegetables growing or you pick your own produce; it’s something I keep on recommending to my students, who usually live indoors all the time. What makes it so special at Fulham Palace are the people who work together for the maintenance of the garden, the group’s spirit they have built. The gardeners and the volunteers are a team whose aim is to take care and to enhance the garden to the best of everybody’s ability.
And taking care should be the key word for this Christmas: taking care of the planet, of each other, of ourselves.
My best wishes for a peaceful Christmas and a sparkling New Year.
Lucetta
