This week was another stretch of long, satisfying days in the garden. As long as the sunshine holds (and it did) working in the garden is the best job in the world. We dug 13 trenches one day, and spent a lot of time planting various trees, shrubs, hedges, and flowers around the gardens. While the whole estate is already in spectacular shape, there is more and more to be done as opening nears, vast tracts of land that need to be beatified. So we planted and transplanted and weeded and made everything immaculate for several days. I should add that there is simply nothing better than the planting part of our job. Feeling the cool earth wrap around your fingers as you extract the plant of choice, getting it just so in the ground, making sure the roots are comfortable and the level and location are perfect, re-filling the whole and pressing the earth firmly against the root ball. Knowing that you have planted something, whether a powerful half-grown birch tree or a tiny fern, that will grow spectacularly in the near future. We continue to get on extremely well with the garden crew. In addition to all this, we continue to work on fitting out the newly completed Block A of the hotel. Curtains, chairs, desks, and various other delivery and unpacking jobs are exciting when they involve wandering the evolving halls of a beautiful resort. We get on well with the construction workers, and work well both as parts of a big a team and working alone.
I should add a note about our diet. Thus far, hosted by various friends and a variety of brillant cooks in countries serious about their culinary arts, we have eaten like kings fairly regularly. Now however, we make our own food, budgeting by substaining primarily on pasta with tomato sauce and rice with curry sauce. It does the trick, works as fuel, but we can't help pining for our normal diets rich in fruit, veg, sugar, and gourmet delights of all sorts. But it is a small price to pay for this independence, and the thrilling experience of being up at 7 and in at 5 every day, working long hours in a real job. The work feels good, it is hard and demanding and constant, but also rewarding, fueling a big appetite for food and sleep. We are happy to work long hours and flow thoughtlessly along. We are not intellectually stimulated but, just for this brief moment in life, we don't mind.