I’ve been all over the place since last Friday – teaching at Wildlab then an amazing drive round the back of Monsterrat that ended very badly, after a beautiful sunset, with a missed junction and a 40 minute detour on a dark motorway, before arriving feeling very exhausted at Monkey Business festival.

I lasted just under 24 hours at the party before crashing out at Caseres on Saturday night. We laughed a lot about people’s reactions to me being there “Oh, we didn’t expect you to actually come, it’s lovely to see you” as I staggered around feeling old, wearing the last clean t-shirt in my bag (I’m still basically living out of a suitcase since the trip, but that’s another story involving bed bug scares and a toxic fumigation). I’m glad I went, I had some fun, it was great to participate in a workshop run by young people for a change.. they call it “Erotic Ecology”.

Then I had a few days in the village, an afternoon making a community garden at the Cooperative housing project I’m in, and then back in time for homework, cuddles, and Kira’s weekly Cello experience. Maybe you saw her buzzing through Barcelona on the back of a moped with a Cello last night. What a life for a 10 year old!!

Boodaville finca and rovira regenerativa

We had a visit from Priya and, together with the volunteers living in Caseres, she worked to clear out silt and level an infiltration irrigation ditch in the Thyme Terrace project where we planted 100 tiny Almond Trees before a drought. (Some of them are alive. We’ll see how it looks when the rain comes back).

I finally got to use the strimmer on Tuesday to keep up the plan to chop and drop the wild fennel and grass growing between the vines in the Rovira Regenerativa vineyard.

I’m also really pleased to report that I’ve raised the first 108€ in my patreon style “Would you give me 12€?” campaign, which means I can spend some hours raising the next bit, and taking the first steps with growing the project. Thank you to my first supporters: Kerry, Mark, Elaine, Ruth, Manu, Rob, Jessica and Priya you are wonderful humans!!

my permaculture / eco activities

I’m looking at the calendar for October and November and wondering what impact it would have on the world if I got into the “Impact Week” rich people’s investment, “let’s bring tech to Africa”, conference here in Barcelona. I’m very interested by the presence of Stockholm Resilience Centre who I’ve seen on the Donut Economics Action Lab. The Global Donut Days are the same dates, maybe there’s some synergies emerging here.

Looby told me she wants my voice in her book and likes the story I wrote! To fully participate in that publication I need to write up the Permaculture Design I did for the trip in some kind of readable format.. which gets me thinking about whether I should move forward with a Permaculture Diploma at one of the national academies that exist. I also want to design the food forest and vegetable garden at the Housing Coop (La Fabrica de la Transició)

Here’s a stunning quote from Dougald Hine about statistics… I’m still enjoying his book and following the project A school called HOME

“The patterns that can be traced when lives are reduced to statistics do not reveal an underlying truth, deeper and more trustworthy than the evidence of our own experience. These patterns are the footprints left on a beach across which we have walked. Read with care, they have things to tell us; but are silent about almost everything that mattered about the day we spent together on that beach.”

other Boodaville projects

We’ve applied for another project coordinating the next 2 volunteers who will live in Caseres, and very much hope Catalunya has enough money to fund it. In theory, with the accreditation we ALREADY have this approved, but times are hard and budgets have been cut (or badly planned). This is very important as these projects pay a large part of the Association overhead costs, and fund the flat in Caseres.

We are still looking for young people to join the latest Solidarity Project, and this application will be sent in the next few days. We will organise a series of practical work days and encourage a community of young people, from rural areas to get to know each other by attending several events around Southern Catalunya during 2025.

We are taking the first steps to oranise an event in November near Caseres, as part of the Rio Algars solidarity project. We are looking for co-organisers and ideas!! There’s a small budget available for this one..

Sergi at Mas Les Vinyes asked if we want to do another youth project at their place, this time with me doing more teaching! That felt great and made me smile.

overall admin of the Asociation

And finally…. boring but very important..

WE GOT PAID!! and have moved the money on very quickly to pay 27,333€ to people who were waiting. Thanks so much to everyone for their patience!!

I have also been reminded that the website doesn’t work properly. I know this, but need to be pushed into action sometimes. I’ve added a new plugin to try and solve the problem, and must move forward with the Kit Digital to get an ACTUAL paid web person. For me.. like the computer.. it’s just a tool. I can’t get into how it works or how it breaks!!

Well that felt pretty complete.. now it’s time to get back to the job list. See you next week!