By Andy Winfield

In June this year I went on holiday to Georgia, a country with diverse cultural and geographic influences; its links with Europe to the west and Asia to the east made it a perfect corridor for silk route traders. Along the north of Georgia run the High Caucasus, a thousand-kilometre range of mountains that border Russia, and Azerbaijan.  The mountains are an almost impenetrable barrier, few roads link Russia and Georgia, the military highway in the Kazbegi region, the Ossetian military road, and Transcaucasian highway; in Georgia there are two disputed territories that are effectively governed by Russia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and two of these highways run through South Ossetia. After a short but brutal conflict in 2008, thick rolls of barbed wire were placed along the disputed areas in a process known to Georgians as borderisation; siblings, family, and friends were cut off from each other, many haven’t seen each other since. Occasionally, overnight, the barbed wire will be moved further onto Georgian land as a provocative move, a way of unsettling Georgians. Georgian people are nervous of the future; political moves and Russian rhetoric make them so. When you talk to them, they are fiercely patriotic. They want to cling on to what they have, and what they have is beautiful. (more…)

It’s coming up to the fifth week of lockdown and this unusual reality that we’re all living through has become an almost dreamlike normality; the other-world-like quality is enhanced by the perpetual groundhog sunshine that has been virtually ever present for the entire time. Talking of virtually, we all now know what zoom is; all our team meetings and those with other University departments are now taking place on a screen. In the Garden we have just two gardeners at a time and the rest of the week staff work from home, updating plant databases, working on planting plans, researching displays, writing blogs… (more…)