We first heard about the idea of Transition Towns in 2008 when we randomly went along to a lecture at our local secondary school. The talk was about the combined issues of Peak Oil and Climate Change and how communities might begin taking positive steps to deal with these.
Peak Oil is pretty simple to explain – but we’d never heard of it in 2008. The idea is that at some point (if not already) we get to a “peak” when we’ve used more oil than is still left in the ground (or the difficulty in getting the stuff means it costs more than a barrel of oil in energy to extract a barrel of oil so not really viable) – then our whole oil fuelled economy begins to get more and more expensive (sound familiar?) Combine this with the increased climate weirding and turbulent flood and storm weather, sea water acidification and the other stuff you get with higher CO2 in the atmosphere and you have the perfect storm that is our children’s future.
Steph Bradley is one of many people involved actively in the movement which has now reached over 1,100 communities in 43 different countries. She’s an incredible storyteller who in 2012 adopted the quirky persona of Wynn Alice the Walking Storyweaver travelling by foot and wearing red flip-flops. She travelled first around England and now Wales sharing and collecting stories in her Tales of our Times. Having met Steph on her first walk we were hugely excited to see her again on her walk around Wales when she visited us and guests from Transition Haverfordwest at The Woodland Farm.
With adults and children joining in, huddled in a bell tent out of a damp June evening – then out into the field when it was dry, we enjoyed marvelous company, sharing food, stoking an open fire, baking potatoes and toasting marshmallows. This story telling is fabulous! It was also great to hear about the progress of Orchard Mawr – a local project to plant 1000 trees by the end of the decade. Thanks hugely to Steph and the Transition Haverfordwest group who joined in the event and looking forward to working together in future. More pictures of Steph’s visit here …
Flip flops and Jackets
