The big news of the month is that our local newspaper has written an article about our project at Chumbaria. We were very proud to be featured in the UK television series ‘Help. We Bought a Village’ in August, but having such a lovely article in the newspaper is even more important to us and we feel very honoured.
We also received our official planning approval notice from Leiria City Hall to pin up in the village, which means we can start work on the restoration of Chumbaria. Exactly 2 years, 1 month and 1 day since we moved here, with many unexpected obstacles along the way, we can finally start to bring this beautiful village back to life. Inevitably as soon as our builder put up the scaffold for the first building, the rain came down and hasn’t stopped since.
Our volunteers Andrea, Alex, Georgette and Gautham have been hard at work despite the torrential rain, replacing fence posts that were burnt in the fire, harvesting chillies, tending the vegetable beds and as always chopping up dead trees. Since September 2021 we have had a total of 39 volunteers at Chumbaria. All of them have brought something unique to the village and reinforced our belief that the basic ethics of permaculture actually work. Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share.
We would like to thank Mel, Edie, Erika, Richard, Tom, Charlie, Matilda, Julia, Petra, Beate, Isaac, Lisa, David, Kristian, Filipa, Joao, Anton, Linda, Djurdja, Rod, Maggie, Joao, Josh, Elena, Sara, Mathias, Adam, Eva, Lola, August, Gabriela, Indulkha, Zavier, Lucy, Georgette, Gautham, Andrea and Alex for all their hard work, enthusiasm, adaptability and for overcoming some unexpected and challenging hurdles along the way. Most of all thank you for sharing some very funny times and lots of magic moments. Also for managing to share just one bathroom between us!
One of the extra good things about having volunteers is they often come with unexpected talents, an extra thank you to Andrea for taking such beautiful photos for our website.
