Here I am in shorts and sandals in late October, and another first for me is having up to 7 different builders looking in the back windows of our flat. Normally there are 0 people who can see in the windows, but thanks to some scaffolding and hammering work on our building, and the continued gutting of the adjoining building there are people and noise everywhere. This week thankfully there’s been very little drilling, and all was quiet until 10:30 on Monday so I could start the week peacefully. 

Right now, though, we seem to be back into the bad week cycle – Joanna got another fever and missed nursery yesterday, I had two kids in the bed and about 8 wake ups last night, and it’s going to be at least 36 hours of single parenting between Thursday and Saturday night because of Bernat’s work, family and social activites. Single – parenting a baby and a child is seriously challenging. I salute all parents everywhere who have children close together in age and no nanny, and I realise why so many friends were basically nuts for a couple of years during this phase. 

Solidarity Economy Market – Barcelona

It was great to participate in the event in our neighbourhood square, Plaza Sortidor last week as part of the Boodaville Barcelona project. We didn’t get any new sign ups for the volunteering role, but we did harvest some lovely energy and ideas. Including a woman who offered us 2.5 hectares of almonds and olives near Tarragona!! I hope she comes back to us, maybe we can organise some adventures into nature and farming with people from the neighbourhood. I see our role as facilitators developing. We act in Poble Sec to help guide people’s energy and ideas into action. The “Taula de Transición Ecosocial” is gaining strength and members after the Fira. 

First international Boodaville collaborators are back after COVID

We were so happy to catch up with Ben! And he didn’t fly 🙂 The world is open again so we hope to see more of our international community come back again in 2023!

Updates from Boodaville Caseres/ Rovira Regenerativa

This week at the finca we organised the next couple of months for the volunteers, and have invited Alex a possible future site manager to stay! Next week our third candidate Jordi will visit and we are looking forward to next month when we will share the needs of the project to all the people interested in helping to manage Boodaville Caseres. Together we will find a way to meet everyone’s needs and a model for a strong team next year. 

We are organising a meeting on 31st October for Rovira Regenerativa, to design the new terraces we have access to. You can see the whole 12 hectare plot in the photo below. To be honest, I’m not sure what to do next for the Rovira project. All the designers and farmers are still in, we’ve been given access to agricultural land, we have all the real stuff we need. But the people who were doing tasks like showing up for meetings, organising weekends together, making presentations and doing social media have drifted off, but not officially left the project. I also didn’t do much on this project in the last year, and now I have energy for it again, I’m not clear on where to put it. I need someone as a sounding board, or some advice. Let me know if you’re interested!

I’m hoping next week I can share photos of the almond trees and hopeully almond harvest from the new land! And also other projects like fixing the roof and the finished hand washing station.