The Otesha Project

…The epic 80 miler to Bristol proved more of a mission for some than others – Robin boosted our puncture stats by having 8 that day! We were happy to finally pedal over the Avon Gorge suspension bridge into the city, flooding into Robin’s student house. The next day it was great to meet Liz and Laura from the Otesha office, who had journeyed up from London. AND, there was a special surprise in the form of a ravishing red haired lady in a sling…Olivia had returned!! Back for a few days to crack us all up with her hilarious Simon Cowell impressions, Huzzah! Sam and Ellie had a twitter interview with 10:10, to share our love for bicycles and tour adventures. That evening we sampled Old Bristolian aboard the apple, did some impromptu rapping (aided by the latter) and jammed to an Israeli funk band, oh yeeah! A youth centre at Windmill Hill City Farm was the venue for our play the following day, which went well despite the odd blooper – for example Jamie Oliver telling the audience they could ‘always grow your own cheese’, instead of lettuce!

The next day we had an exciting sneaky peek into gardening and community allotment projects going on around the city, led by our guide Richard. We met inspiring permaculture guru Mike, who chatted about how to efficiently re-use things, symbiotic relationships of plants and happy poo-related cycles of life. Cauliflowers can feed goat, goat poop cultures worms, worms feed chickens, chicken poop feeds trees…etc! Frying us up tasty pakoras in the sunshine was a definite highlight. The sun was still shining the following day as we cycled 70 miles to our next destination…Newent!

We were welcomed by some of the transition Newent volunteers in Oxenhall village hall. We were overwhelmed by their hospitality, providing us with food, tasty local fruit and jams to sample. The next day was our first outdoor performance, with around 30 watching. We added a scene about money and ethical banking for our more adult audience. Many stuck around to take part in the bike maintenace workshop afterwards led by Mike and Sam. That evening, the play was performed again in the village hall, after a yummy ‘bring a pot’ dinner. We had great convos with people and there was an atmosphere of mutual encouragement between us Oteshites and the Transition Newites. Then, early start….and we begin meandering towards the midlands….bring it on!