Blackdown Hills Transition Group….
Transition; changing from one condition, style or place to another.....
Sometimes the process of Transition is awkward and difficult. I find myself stretched between worlds; the first where I work to buy food and resources, energy and services; the second where I use my time instead to provide some of those things for myself. As the recession bites I’m faced with the choice of chasing work or chopping logs, using more resources [diesel mostly] to go further afield to work, or staying put and using less of everything. I have a foot in each world and neither seems quite enough to sustain us.
Sometimes as a group, we struggle to find what it is that we can do for our diverse and wonderful community. There are so many brilliant ideas waiting in the wings, and recently, with the genius and commitment of a small band of us….one took flight at our Apple Day on the 23rd October. In a beautiful orchard in Otterhead, people came with an apple mill and presses, cakes, soups and mulled apple juice, music and games, apples and willing hands. People came to press their own apples and take home the juice in every colour from pale lemon, through scarlet to russet. It was a great day. "…..something happened in Geraldine and Gordon's orchard that to me seemed to have a gentle flow all of it's own. Just the right number of people to create little queues long enough for everyone to catch up with their neighbours, someone putting extra wood on the fire as it was getting colder causing a cheery blaze that tempted people to stay longer, feet tapping fiddle playing , children sitting and chattering in an untidy circle in the twilight ..... I could go on and on describing the heart-warming images I will hold in my head about today."
Sometimes the experience of Transition is full of hope and optimism for the future.
