Dr Dorothy Fox is currently on study leave funded by the Bournemouth University Fusion Fund. Below she shares some of her experiences with us:

I’m now about half way through my period of study leave funded by the BU Fusion Fund and ready to begin the next phase. I have just completed the collection of data from a survey of residents in the Dorset & Hampshire area about visiting gardens, which has achieved a good response rate. It was therefore a real pleasure to swop the cold and rain of England and travel to the other side of the world and the warmth of New Caledonia in the South Pacific. En route, I was able to return to the Sydney Botanic Gardens in Australia. I first visited the Gardens in winter and most recently in the spring. It was therefore very interesting to return as summer approaches and see the wonderful trees and plants as they come into flower.

My first meeting at the Gardens was with Dr Carmel Foley, Senior Lecturer at University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) who is a member of a project that Dr Katherine (Kat) King and I have set up with colleagues from the USA, Sweden and Switzerland. This project is an international collaboration to understand more about the social and cultural aspects of natural spaces that are used for leisure and recreation. We’re using Google Docs as a communication tool, but it was really good to see Carmel again on a face-to face basis to discuss our progress.

My next meeting was with Wendy Symonds who organises events for the Botanic Gardens and Lynne Cusack, a volunteer there. I met Lynne as leader of a guided tour when I last visited the Gardens and she kindly agreed to be interviewed for a book chapter I have been writing with Dr Susanna Curtin from ST on wildlife in domestic gardens. Wendy organises events and festivals for the Botanic Gardens and it was interesting to discuss their upcoming Autumn Vibes Festival. We then moved on to the possibilities for collaboration based on data sets from their visitor surveys and a future funding bid for a joint project in the UK and Australia. Additionally I was able to update her on the work of Marian Lechner from the University of Tübingen, Germany, for whom I am a mentor for his PhD. He is researching adult education on sustainable development in botanic gardens and Wendy was pleased to hear more information about the project.

I’m now sat in my current ‘office’ in New Caledonia, surrounded by the piles of paper work relating to current projects. The doors and windows are wide open to let in the sunshine and earlier a nosy bird landed on the kitchen floor briefly, before flying off again! The birds here are larger, brighter and much noisier than those in England but are as friendly as the robin in my garden at home. The plants of course, are also very different but I’m sure I’ll soon stop looking out at the garden and be able to concentrate on writing again!