My gardening skills are usually limited to lawnmowing and leaving a small wake of destruction with a strimmer. About the only area where I have had any success with bringing new lives into the garden rather than violently curtailing old ones is in growing chillis. I have ten different varieties grown from seed and although not all bearing fruit, yet, they are all notably alive.

The West Dean Chilli Fiesta is a bit of Mecca to amateur growers like myself so it is a rather bizarre coincidence that West Dean is also where my courses in October are being held. Something I mulled over as the August rain ran off my nose and my mouth burned with a rather excellent jalapeno and papaya sauce.

If navigation is about where we are and where we are going, then the senses have a bigger part to play than many realise, and not just physically. Marion’s passage about a passage beautifully illustrates that honing our senses can get us to our destination in more ways than one. She found land and a new career.

Here are some excerpts:

‘Wall-to-wall ocean, especially in the warm tropics, does something to your senses…

…salt crystals form on the decks and railings–even your skin– like granules of sugar. With the acrid smell of ocean water and sweat, always sweat, mixed with suntan lotion and more salt air, your nose is dulled with monotony…

Leaning against the metal railing like race horses at the starting gate, we peered at the horizon, straining to see land.

I smelled it hours before I saw it. Green. Chlorophyll. Leaves. Land. The round smell was sweet and full.

The smell of land triggered more than tears of joy. It told me that it was time to take a new road in life; to find a new job. Within a year I’d moved to Kodiak Island and followed a compelling urge to learn everything I could about gardening.’