This year I taught a permaculture design workshop at the Wales Permaculture Festival on the last weekend of September 2024.
I’m making a habit of late September trips across to the UK, having attended the UK Permaculture Association Festival at Lambourne End just outside London in 2023.
I had a great time there last year meeting wonderful people including Nim Robins of Cynefin Farm in Wales. This year Nim and her Wales Permaculture colleagues organised the festival and invited me to get involved. Last year I taught a swing dance class at the London festival, which was to be repeated this year, along with (more importantly?) a serious permaculture and keyline design workshop.
I had a pretty crazy week leading up to the trip, with suspected food poisoning hampering my preparations and putting everything in jeopardy. During the week leading up to the trip I did some intermittent fasting which improved things but ultimately I resolved to stop eating from Thursday morning to make the trip possible.
Permaculture Journey
The plan was to drive to Wexford on Thursday evening, late enough to miss the worst commuter traffic in Cork and Waterford but not so late as to annoy my accommodation host. This worked out okay but I probably left a bit too early and got caught in a traffic queue on the Cork South-link road at about 6.30pm.
After a fairly uneventful journey I got to the guesthouse, had a chat with my host and went off to bed not too late. It was a pretty eco house that suited me fine. I left in the darkness on Friday morning to drive to Rosslare Harbour and leave my van parked up for a few days – I was going as a foot passenger as Nim had set up a lift for me from Fishguard which was extremely convenient.
The same can’t be said for modern day car parking. Even something as simple as parking your car these days requires a smart phone and the downloading of an app, (which I really resent) but I did it and I left my beloved Ford Transit Connect behind and boarded the ship laden with camping gear, laptop and about three litres of electrolyte mix that I needed to get through the fast, as I was still not eating.
Rosslare to Fishguard in Big Swell
It had been quite a while since my last ferry trip and I over-confidently set up in one of the lounge areas at the front end of the ship to work on my presentation and workshop. This didn’t last long however as it was a rough crossing and I fairly quickly removed myself to the centre of the ship (which has the least motion) and was extremely thankful that I hadn’t eaten since the morning before. Even food poisoning has a silver lining!
A Beautiful Journey Through South Wales
On reaching dry land I was happy to be alive and I was delighted to meet Michelle who was also off to the permaculture festival. The trip across Wales was great and beautiful and I took in the scenery while sipping my electrolyte drink. Thank you for everything Michelle!
The Festival Site was at Three Pools Farm, located due east of the town of Abergavenny in southeast Wales. The farm was in one of many beautiful rolling valleys in the area, which was a perfect subject for my Keyline Design workshop. We got in around 4pm and so set up our tents first and then headed for dinner. The communal dinner was a pot-luck of dishes brought by the participants at the festival. There was a massive buffet of delicious looking food, but it was a spectator event for me, as I had a swing dance class to run that night and didn’t want to test out my digestive system too early. I sipped the last of my electrolyte drink convincing myself that this was a wise move.
Permaculture Festival
The weekend and trip home was fantastic and full of adventure far too long to recount but in short I taught a swing dance class on Friday night, I broke my fast on Saturday morning and I delivered my permaculture/keyline design class on Saturday afternoon.
Keyline Design Workshop
During the workshop I presented a brief summary of my journey to using keyline design. Then I presented images from the projects at home in Ireland including drone generated contour maps and real designs using Keyline principles.
The workshop started at 2.15pm, straight after lunch. This can be a difficult time to give a concept-heavy workshop, indoors with the lights low and the door closed to keep the room dark. I saw a nodding head in the audience and quickly opened some windows and cut to the workshop! The Wales Permaculture festival was very well organised with each workshop assigned a volunteer assistant. This was extremely welcome in particular for time keeping as it was vital to have enough time for the design exercises.
The workshop involved using Keyline Design and contour maps to redesign some of the local valleys. As I passed out the contour maps, the class began keyline designing which is ultimately what I wanted to get to. So much of permaculture design involves protracted thought and efficient action therefore it is important that we have opportunities for practice in order to complete the action-learning cycle. In my Permaculture Design Course I have included opportunities for “safe failure”. Ultimately we are not going to get it perfectly right first time every time with theory alone. We need to practice our skills!
Permaculture Workshop Feedback
It was my first time teaching Keyline Design in particular but the feedback was extremely positive. It was an honour to teach a group of about thirty participants including some of the UK’s best known sustainability practitioners, and the positive feedback is encouraging for my current focus on teaching permaculture. I will continue with my professional permaculture design work but there is a limit to what one person can do. We need a mass movement of designers to create a sustainable world.
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Electroculture Permaculture
With my preparations and own workshops I didn’t get to many others, but I did make it to Aranya‘s workshop on Electroculture. Electroculture is a fascinating topic regarding the ability of antennae, both naturally occurring and artificial, to tap in to the earths subtle energies improving animal and plant health. It’s something I look forward to looking into deeper this winter.
When I got back to Fishguard I headed for the hills for a walk near some very interesting rock formations and of course wondered at the geology and potential of these rocks as such electroculture antennae. Much more study needed!
Permaculture Coming Home
The ferry home was much smoother, and I got home OK after another four hours or so on the road heading west. I lit my first real autumn fire with the house needing warming up again after four days away.
It’s great to have adventures and great to come home. The short time away has helped motivate me to get my own garden back into optimum condition. I have a little window now of time before I gear up for the bare root season for planting up projects already designed, and then of course the winter orchard pruning season will also open soon. I’ll also be busy designing the new projects that are always coming in.
There’s always something interesting to do in wonderful world of permaculture.
