I’ll start with today. Waking up to the alarm before 7am after a disturbed night of sleep with the kids, I pushed through the tiredness to get the four tupperwares of my kids’ lives prepared, and everyone driven up to school in El Catllar by 8:30. There was frost this morning, and sunshine. Always sunshine. Where’s the rain???
Kira told me about the creation of our atmosphere from volcanoes in the car while Joanna slept. Then the final energy burst to get Joanna into a fit state to leave the car park. (We have hairbrush and breakfast in the car each morning). I’m still working very much on the idea that arriving a bit late and happy is better than on time and stressed. The gummy bear song is not my favourite, but it works.
Next is the relaxed calm feeling of success as I walk back down to the car with another week of children successfully delivered to school behind me. I stop at the vegetable garden we are running with the families from the housing coop La Fabrica de la Transición and do a brisk morning stretching routine in the sun, looking across the Riera de Gaiá. The baby avocado trees are looking very sad in the cold.
As I drive down the hill I’m very happy to see that my lunch with a friend will now be a couple of hours of physical work gettng a job done at his land, and then Nick Grimshaw plays Voodoo People for a little rave in the car on the way back home. Which is currently a flat by the beach with a south facing garden in Torredembarra. The new life here is working out very well. I spend a LOT of time in nature and having the community from La Fábrica close by is amazing. I can get down to Boodaville Finca for a few hours while the kids are at school if I really need to (I’ve done this once so far), and I still spend about 10 days a month at Boodaville when the kids are with Dad. (I mean of course it’s not perfect – I drive too much, logistics can be complicated, I had an insane amount of work in November, etc!)
So all this brings me to 9:30 am and a fantastic meeting with Angela about Rovira Regenerativa
Updates from Rovira Regenerativa
The photo is our current Rovira Regenerativa team at a coworking day in Nest City Lab this week. Rovira is currently funded by Boodaville (10k a year) and with income we get from our Regenerative Weekends. We have Pedro and Maru helping with communication strategy and graphic design, Robin, our Boodaville Barcelona ESC volunteer helping with social media, Angela is running the weekends and helping make my crazy ideas into something sensible that other people can understand, and I’m about to have more time in my weekly schedule to get our 2026 objectives achieved – a CROWDFUNDING!!, producing wine, olive oil and other products from the farm, delivering awesome weekend activities and scaling up the impact we have regenerating the land, the local community and taking people on a path to ecological living.
Our next weekend is 2-4 January, and the dates for the whole year are published on the info page. We have several people who are coming regularly, getting a feel for the agricultural calendar and connecting with the land. The long-term opportunities for Community Supported Agriculture are a part of the holistic project design that we particularly love.
Updates from Boodaville
Well we had an Erasmus+ Youth Exchange “Think Eco!” in the village of Caseres in November. It was an adventure from start to finish! We’ll be sharing pics and videos to show you all the highlights soon. There were Social permaculture sessions and a design project with Eller Everett, Plus tree planting in our agroforestry project (part of Rovira Regenerativa) and a networking event attended by 50 people in the event space in the village!!
I was so happy to meet and work with such truly amazing people on the exchange and particularly happy about the Romanian connections – a place I hold in my heart since the road trip last year. We will see how collaborations, love and life flourish with these connections.
Thank you so much to everyone who shared the adventure and put so much energy into it.
In Caseres village Elena is soon finishing her epic volunteering journey after 9 months. It has been amazing to see her life path change since coming to Spain, and to see her taking on new challenges, embracing the outdoor life and stepping up to be a fantastic part of the Boodaville team. Boodaville and the village will miss her very much – although word on the street is that she might live in Barcelona next! So not too far away.
Our other volunteers at the moment are Michele, a passionate painter who presented his work at our Think Eco! networking event, and Robin in Barcelona. I don’t quite have the words to explain how much positive influence Robin has had on everything Boodaville and Rovira. So much love here for his attitude and all the useful skills he brings.
Our volunteer positions are pretty much filled until July 2026 – if you are interested for the future follow our Telegram channel! And we are still looking for a permaculture practitioner to live and work at Boodaville Finca – managing and implementing the long-term design (with no responsibility for volunteers!).
I’ll stop there for today, maybe I’ll even have a spare moment to share something on the official social media. Or Maybe not!
