‘Go back to your country’ he yells at me when I am crossing the road. No point in explaining that this is my country. This year I became a citizen of this convoluted kingdom. After ten years of living, studying and working here -plus jumping considerable hoops, such as paying what could have been a deposit for a mortgage, passing an English test, a life in the UK test, being forensically scrutinised and provided a pile of records and evidence of my life worth a stone- even the Home Office agrees that I am asset to the place I have chosen to call home. But Bob Dylan’s singing ‘I pity the poor immigrant who wishes he would’ve stayed home’ makes me realise it is time for a change. Robin Wall Kimmerer reminds me that if a plant is considered a source of goodness, people forget that it is not endemic. The Italian navigator Giovanni Caboto is a perfect example. If you improve your place, you would even be claimed as a national. But how do you do it? I wonder whilst looking into Cabot’s statue in the harbour. His bronze eyes are fixed faraway. As in a trance. A vision. A private trip.

How to belong? Through participation and improvisation, whispers the anthropologist Dorothy Holland. You take part. You build relationships. But most importantly, you create something new. You also need to stop idealising, adds my husband. Focus on the present. Associating yellow with childhood is fine for a Cold Play song, but not as a filter for the past. Don’t let nostalgia get the best of you.

By this time I have spent a year living in the council flats on Dove street. My neighbours are not strangers anymore. Some have even become friends. They have saved me a piece of cake for Eid. They have picked me up from the airport. They have let me use their hose. Their screwdriver. They have been kind to my children. While surviving the pandemic we have shared a little our vulnerabilities. Having someone to lean on is what makes the difference sings Bill Withers. All of this goes through my mind whilst picking blackberries. Sometimes only that sour-sweetness stops me from stepping into the abyss of homesickness. And that is when I see it. Under the overgrown bushes of the fly-tipping corner in front of the flats, an apple hangs from a delicate branch. As if wanting to be eaten. As if I am Eve. No Adan, no god, no snake this time.

By now I have also lost my patience. The waiting is over. If I want to see change, I need to be that change. I write to my neighbours. I invite them to clear the space. A Saturday morning in July six of us turn up. Some haven’t met in person before, but have been so close through Zoom and Whatsapp, that there is a certain familiarity. We catch up whilst picking rubbish, cutting branches, carefully removing needles. Lots and lots of plastic.

By now I have reached the part of the story you have heard before. A new community garden. We celebrate our achievement through a picnic. We use stickers to democratically choose a name. Twenty five neighbours vote. The children win. Dove Gardens is born. It brings the best we have to offer. Kind words of those who pass by. Nods of recognition. A shared space to rest and breathe. Smiles and laughs. Nature does the rest. The extreme beauty of rosemary beetles. Purple, white, yellow, pink flowers. The apple tree is blooming. We stop being strangers. We become friends. We are a community. Now we need your help to make it grow.