More Transition Tales

I went to the Globe this evening (Islay lay quietly under a table) to listen to Steph Bradley again. As she had several people in the audience who'd heard her story before, she varied some of the tales, so we heard about the builder who wanted an allotment in Ambleside, and ended up with the most beautiful builder's yard in the land.
As she's been travelling, she's been carrying gifts from one place to the next - so she started off with a felted tea cosy, which became a pot of jam, and a tea towel, and a book and a newspaper and many other things. Last night at the garden she gave Malvern's gift to Hay, which was a book written ten years ago, for the Millennium, containing all the hopes and dreams of the community there, together with a DVD made this year showing what they've done about those hopes and dreams. One of which, apparantly, is to replace the electric lights in Malvern with the old gas lights, many of which still exist, which will throw less light upwards so they can see the stars better.
Tonight, she got the gift from Hay to take on to Ross, her next destination. It was three old piano keys, tied round with a ribbon, and a story. Dave, who was at the garden party last night, woke up at three o'clock in the morning, inspired to write the story, which was all about the garden he was involved in making for the Hay Festival. It was intended to have a piano in the garden for anyone to come along and play, and to entertain the workers while they were building the 70 metres of fence and the bridge and the path of wood chippings and planting the wild flowers. When they picked it up, however, it was obviously at the end of its life, and could not be salvaged. Later they got a phone call from the warehouse where they had picked up the piano - to say that the one they were meant to have was round the other side of the building. But Dave kept the keys to the one that fell apart, which he said formed an E minor chord, which was the first chord of a Chopin work which he had playing in his head while he was building the garden. So the keys are to give inspiration and to remind the people of Transition Ross about the garden in Hay.
Of the audience tonight, three people had come from a bio-dynamic farm where they work near Vowchurch, called Fern Verrow (I think). It's at St Margaret's. Sadly, they have made the decision to sell their produce in London, where they can get premium prices for it, rather than locally, but the owners seem to think this is the only way they can survive as a farm at the moment.
Another member of the audience had come to see if he could get advice on permaculture, as he has an overgrown garden he wants to transform.
Tomorrow, Steph will be telling her story at the Library at 11am, and on Friday she walks on to Abbeydore, and then to Ross.