Good morning! If you are a follower of the blog you will have noticed that I didn’t write last week. That means “bad week”. I can sum it up with one word – gastroenteritis. Things took some huge swings for the better and this Friday (in keeping with a regular pattern since September) I’m happy to report that it has been a good week. I mean, it’s quite insane the amount of things that happen in a week. I’m going to go ahead and just plough through them.

Argh! “plough” now that’s a metaphor I need to drop, along with “concrete”. Ok it’s probably not a metaphor at all, James you can correct my understanding of English in the comments! From now on I will use vocabulary in line with the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. A world which has very little ploughing and concrete. 

I’m going to go ahead and just beaver on through the list

– Friday night Joanna started eating and hasn’t stopped since. This is a big change and we love it – may it continue more than a week. She also slept 7 hours straight and so did I! Best night’s sleep in two years. 

– Saturday I got news that my application for 2000 euros to teach Doughnut Economics in Barcelona schools and the Poble Sec neighbourhood has been approved! Goodbye private maths classes for privileged families and hello to something much better for the world!!

– Friday Kira ended up in a reading workshop at the library instead of eating sweets with her friends.

– Saturday me and Kira went together to a sewing workshop at MoMu. She got on and fixed the holes in her tights by herself and I used a sewing machine for the first time in 20 years (to nearly fix my jeans!). All organised by the Aula Ambiental project and in the company of wonderful folk from our neighbourhood Poble Sec. It actually made me feel happy to be in the city. Shocking.  

– Sunday we spent hours in the Font Trobada huerto where they had a community work day and vermut going on, and I saw the vegetable garden plot which is now 50% my responsability. I say “my”, obviously the plan is to use it not just as the offical “Families of Tres Pins school” garden, but also as a Boodaville Barcelona project. First step – buy 150 plants later today on the way down to Caseres. Next step.. uffff when to plant them. 

After the storm at Boodaville Caseres

The rain that hit the finca last weekend was exceptional (by the standards of the last few decades). This kind of event will be normal in the future. We had more than 150mm of rain in 24 hours. In a year we expect to receive 400mm. 

The track at the bottom of the valley was washed away – but weirdly was SO washed away that all the mud we had problems with in 2020 was gone, and you could actually drive though on the base of rock as soon as the torrent of water subsided! This loss of mud and soil is bad news for the ecosystem, and the erosion caused by these heavy rains is one of the problems we need to design to solve. 

Apart from the track, which our wonderful neighbour has ALREADY fixed! We had no problems, except a rather pathetic amount of water actually made it into the 10000 litre deposit behind the house. We’ve been waiting for rain, urgently, since September – when we usually expect rains to start, and were just a few days away from a work day “optimizing the water catchment” with Jessica. The storm was not predicted, and we were not ready. But by a brilliant stroke of luck, while Jessica was at the finca yesterday there was another brief storm so she could observe and gather all the information needed to make absolutely sure that we are collecting all we can from now on. 

I’m incredibly happy to have so many photos, and the brilliant video footage which shows the water catchment to the upper tank (1:00), the swales in function (1:24), the effect of the earthworks to take the water from the road to the terraces.

before meeting kate raworth

The other amazing piece of news this week, which has got my mind going close to overdrive is that I have been shortlisted for the DEAL- Schools and Education Lead job, and that Kate will be there with the other members of DEAL for the interview. One of  my favourite Ghandi quotes is “I have so much to accomplish today that I must meditate for two hours instead of one” and I’m holding on to that as I live with the excitment, and get on with the preparation tasks. In my case it will be “10 minutes instead of 5 minutes” but the concept is there. Imagine what I could get done if I actually meditated for two hours!!! 

The thing about preparing teaching activities is that you can always make them better, so the challenge is to finish the task. I wish the drilling would stop. Right, I’m going back to the park with a fruit smoothie, then will get packing for the weekend. Interview preparation is for next week