Reading ‘Sissinghurst’ by Adam Nicolson, a book about his dream and struggle to recreate the idyllic working farm that used to surround his family home.
(For those of you who aren’t into that sort of thing, Sissinghurst is one of England’s great gardens, created between the 1930s and 60s by Nicolson’s grandmother, writer, poet and legendary aristo-lesbian, Vita Sackville-West.)
Nicolson drew up a list of ‘qualities’ that he wanted the new scheme to possess:
Authenticity
Richness
Rootedness
Connectedness
Vitality
Delight
I ask myself: aren’t they the qualities we would like to create in every endeavour?
Because if we are not aiming to be those then we must be the opposite: bogus, stingy, temporary, isolated, dull and un-engaging.
Sissinghurst, by Adam Nicolson. Published by HarperCollinsPublishers, 2008.
