My parents’ garden in Limassol, Cyprus, is one of my favourite places in the world. It’s a space packed with memories – of my father plucking flowers from his rose garden and presenting them to my mother with a romantic flourish, of afternoons whiled away with old friends, of rowdy barbecues, quiet family get-togethers and landmark celebrations.
It’s also a sanctuary for countless animals: cats and dogs abandoned at the front gate and reluctantly taken in; migrating swallows that return year-after-year to nest in the same spots; an oversized terrapin that wallows in the pond and promises to outlive us all; and even an errant hedgehog that has converted a corner of the garage into his private lair.
My parents moved into their current home in December 2003, during a particularly wet Cypriot winter (and while I had already fled the nest by that time, it is still as much of a refuge for me as it is for that tiresome hedgehog). The house is built on agricultural land on the outskirts of town and strict planning laws dictated that only 6 per cent of the total plot could be developed. Which, on that cold day in December, left my parents with more than 3,000 square metres of muddy field to contend with.
With no formal training in landscape design and limited prior gardening experience, my father has spent the past 12 years almost single-handedly transforming those barren acres into a unique garden full of quirky features and personal touches.
He has lugged and laid paving slabs, carted bags of top soil in his now-knackered wheelbarrow, planted, tended and pruned trees, battled over-zealous bougainvillea and rose bushes, and destroyed an indeterminable number of mowers trying to keep his lawn in check.
Sometimes the rest of us were called in for back-up. Under duress, my mother and I once spent a whole afternoon planting tiny hedglings at 30cm intervals – these now form a three-metre-high boundary hedge that encircles the property and makes me feel ever-so-slightly smug every time I see it. And if a family outing ever took us past a rocky beach, we would stop, pile out of the car and pick up armfuls of grey and white pebbles, which my father has since used to create an intricate rockery.
The beauty of any garden lies in the fact that it is a constantly evolving thing. And for me, this garden is a particularly enticing mix of ideas, plants and features lovingly gathered over the course of many years.
Every time I go home, there is something new to see – the rockery, complete after so many years of collective effort, a new gazebo or eating area, a hammock struck from the citrus trees, or a statue of a Greek goddess staring nonchalantly out from one end of the garden. At the centre of it all lies an orchard full of Mediterranean treats – sweet, perfectly pink pomegranates, luscious figs, shiny lemons and olives that, once ripe, rain from the trees and have to be gathered by our neighbours, who have the necessary skills to transform them into hearty bottles of handmade olive oil.
My father has taught me many lessons over the years, but for me, this garden is a symbol of some of his most admirable qualities: his quiet creativity – unbecoming, almost, of an arbitration lawyer; his endless patience and strong work ethic; and his ability to take joy in the simplest of tasks.
Qualities that I hope to emulate in my own garden somewhere, someday.
Selina Denman is the editor of Home&Garden.
Best Foreign Language Film nominees
Capernaum (Lebanon)
Cold War (Poland)
Never Look Away (Germany)
Roma (Mexico)
Shoplifters (Japan)
RESULTS
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Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
ACL Elite (West) - fixtures
Monday, Sept 30
Al Sadd v Esteghlal (8pm)
Persepolis v Pakhtakor (8pm)
Al Wasl v Al Ahli (8pm)
Al Nassr v Al Rayyan (10pm)
Tuesday, Oct 1
Al Hilal v Al Shorta (10pm)
Al Gharafa v Al Ain (10pm)
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Qosty Byogaani
Starring: Hani Razmzi, Maya Nasir and Hassan Hosny
Four stars
JOKE'S%20ON%20YOU
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
More on animal trafficking
Pathaan
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Siddharth%20Anand%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Shah%20Rukh%20Khan%2C%20Deepika%20Padukone%2C%20John%20Abraham%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%203%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
TECH%20SPECS%3A%20APPLE%20WATCH%20SE%20(second%20generation)
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Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
The%20Letter%20Writer
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THE BIO:
Favourite holiday destination: Thailand. I go every year and I’m obsessed with the fitness camps there.
Favourite book: Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. It’s an amazing story about barefoot running.
Favourite film: A League of their Own. I used to love watching it in my granny’s house when I was seven.
Personal motto: Believe it and you can achieve it.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Student Of The Year 2
Director: Punit Malhotra
Stars: Tiger Shroff, Tara Sutaria, Ananya Pandey, Aditya Seal
1.5 stars
Closing the loophole on sugary drinks
As The National reported last year, non-fizzy sugared drinks were not covered when the original tax was introduced in 2017. Sports drinks sold in supermarkets were found to contain, on average, 20 grams of sugar per 500ml bottle.
The non-fizzy drink AriZona Iced Tea contains 65 grams of sugar – about 16 teaspoons – per 680ml can. The average can costs about Dh6, which would rise to Dh9.
Drinks such as Starbucks Bottled Mocha Frappuccino contain 31g of sugar in 270ml, while Nescafe Mocha in a can contains 15.6g of sugar in a 240ml can.
Flavoured water, long-life fruit juice concentrates, pre-packaged sweetened coffee drinks fall under the ‘sweetened drink’ category
Not taxed:
Freshly squeezed fruit juices, ground coffee beans, tea leaves and pre-prepared flavoured milkshakes do not come under the ‘sweetened drink’ band.
Hydrogen: Market potential
Hydrogen has an estimated $11 trillion market potential, according to Bank of America Securities and is expected to generate $2.5tn in direct revenues and $11tn of indirect infrastructure by 2050 as its production increases six-fold.
"We believe we are reaching the point of harnessing the element that comprises 90 per cent of the universe, effectively and economically,” the bank said in a recent report.
Falling costs of renewable energy and electrolysers used in green hydrogen production is one of the main catalysts for the increasingly bullish sentiment over the element.
The cost of electrolysers used in green hydrogen production has halved over the last five years and will fall to 60 to 90 per cent by the end of the decade, acceding to Haim Israel, equity strategist at Merrill Lynch. A global focus on decarbonisation and sustainability is also a big driver in its development.
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Take Me Apart
Kelela
(Warp)
