Shunbun no Hi: Terrace Garden

Having posted last year about Shunbun no Hi (spring equinox day in Japan), I thought I’d make it an annual tradition – a post to celebrate nature and living things.

These days the view from my office window is very different from the usual, because I am on a 3-month secondment to a client’s office at St. James’s. The buildings here are lower, older – some dating back to the 17th century. They have gabled roofs, chimney-pots, turrets, courtyards, wrought-iron spiral staircases. My favourite design feature, though, is a terrace garden at the back of the building next door. Victorian red-brick may be fetching enough in its own right, but there are few vistas which cannot be improved by a patch of greenery.

One afternoon a man appeared on this terrace, wearing a plum-coloured suit and holding a champagne glass. Carefully placing the glass on the parapet, he commenced to pace the terrace, declaiming to the winds and performing an incredible series of flamboyant gestures. He may have been an actor, or a madman.

Separated by a hundred yards and a plate-glass window, I sat at my desk, reviewing a non-disclosure agreement and making marks with a highlighter. I say this without exaggeration or undue fancifulness: it was like looking out into a different world.