I just got back from the first of my Renewable Energy MSc modules at The Centre for Alternative Technology and I’m feeling pretty blown away but utterly inspired in equal measure.

7 days straight studying, eating, sleeping and drinking with 79 really smart people that have a wide range of backgrounds covering a broad age spread. One thing is common, though. They all totally get the issues and challenges that we face surrounding fossil fuel usage and climate change and are there to find out more about the main (energy replacement) options open to us.

The facilities at CAT were excellent as was the quality of the lecturing with most of the topics being introductions to the various renewable energy technologies and their respective social and political contexts.

It was a pretty tough regime and this was just the intro module! I now have 2000 word essay and presentation to prepare before my next visit in 4 weeks. I think I’ve got a good essay subject it just needs some research to see if it’s got legs.

Thanks to Casey Cole for recommending me to the course, attending this week has certainly felt like a life changing event.

Info on the REBE MSc

Aunite Beryl enjoying the warm September sun while Bealers does a spot of carpentry

We have a neighbour who is a lovely lady called Beryl. She is the elderly auntie of one of the people who first bought the farm we live at almost two and a half years ago. Beryl is in her late eighties and in a wheelchair but lives here instead of in a old people’s care home.

She joins us each night at the communal meal in the big farmhouse kitchen, she is always happy to receive visitors for a chat and is taken her lunchtime sandwich by anyone of us who are around during the day. Beryl ran her own hair salon for 72 years and so is fully qualified to chat pleasantly about anything and everything with anyone.

Having her here provides us with extra diversity in our group but also another dependent person who along with our small children needs looking after (she needs someone to get her up, washed and dressed in the morning and in the evening requires putting to bed like a toddler does).

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Since our move here two weeks ago we’ve been enjoying the communal cooking and eating aspect hugely. It was one of the things I was looking forward to but I was also nervous about cooking for so many.

It feels a bit cheeky to have arrived at a time when there is a huge abundance of food waiting to be picked and eaten in the huge vegetable garden and also in the polytunnel but it has meant that for a newbie to self-sufficiency I am enjoying the ease at which menus for dinner present themselves by a brief wander around the plot to see what is in plentiful supply.

There is not yet a whole-community effort in growing the food and the practice of eating what is available before any additional extras are required seems ad-hoc and there isn’t quite enough of a glut of anything to demand a big chutney making session although a lot of fresh vegetables have been chopped and stored in freezers ready for use in the winter instead of having them and their parent plants go to waste (beans mainly). Potatoes have been harvested and sorted for ones that are blemish and blight free and have been dug into a ‘clamp’ (a shallow trough lined with straw), squashes are being harvested and put to dry in a small barn.

There is no work schedule and despite the huge number of vegetables becoming ripe and ready for harvest it is a case of one picking what one can and using as much of it for the evening meal. On Saturday a load of us are planning to harvest and preserve what we can (beans, tomatoes, courgettes, apples, plums) by making pickles and chutneys, freezing and even cooking some ‘ready meals’ and putting in tubs in the freezer. We will be so glad of them in the winter.

I’ve just had to add up the amount I owe the communal kitchen for all the delicious meals my family and our friends have enjoyed since we moved here mid August most of which have involved an enormous range of vegetables from the garden here and some I’ve even cooked or helped to prepare (despite my worries).

There is a simple tariff which ranges from 50p for a small snack or breakfast to £1.50 for a large main meal with an additional 50p for a portion of desert or a second helping of dinner. One writes the appropriate amount on a chart by the back door of the kitchen and settles up at the end of the month. Any food supplies I have bought for the communal kitchen (butter, bread, milk, oil, seasonings etc) are subtracted from the amount owed and receipts provided so an overall amount is due. As all three children and I have had meals in the communal kitchen most evenings since our arrival here we owed £110 but the shopping I had done came to £40 so I wrote a cheque today for £70. This system works well as one member of the community is a diligent administrator and bookkeeper.

Here we are enjoying helping Steve harvest the potatoes he planted outside his log cabin – a big thumbs up from permaculturists as the plot was walked past each day Steve could easily tend to it without having to go out of his way.

Spuds for storing in a clamp.