Arrival Llanfyllin

I just arrived at the Workhouse in Llanfyllin. I was kept from the station in Welshpool by Steven Jones. It was the third ride he made today up and down the station. I realized I probably should have announced my arrival sooner so that Steven could have combined the rides. It's always a pity that many permaculture places are so far away from public ways of transport and are so dependant on oil driven vehicles. Arrived at the workhouse I was warmly welcomed by the course members Pia, Jollie, Marc and Holly who arrived already and pitched their tents in a field next to the workhouse. About half of the people where staying in their vans and the others had like me taken their tents with them. The workhouse itself was a big one/two story high building with several yards in between. Most of the building where still unused but parts of it where occupied by people in which they have their workshops for their businesses, one of which was Steven's permaculture workshop. Sue has a big well equiped kitchen in which she was going to take care of our fysical well-being during the course. Ritchie, her boyfriend, was assisting her with that but he also had his own woodworking workshop in which he was building ancient musical instruments.
After pitching my tent I joined the queue in the kitchen and met all the other course members. It looked like a very mixed group of different ages, gender and backgrounds. I joined table with Keith, who told he is a hedge fund manager. He just occupied his new job and expected to earn enough money to be able to retire in a few years time. He was going to be working on a big agricultural project in Egypt with a milion acres of land and tens of thousands of employees. He was investigating new ways of doing agriculture to obtain better yields. I was really astonished to find a guy who obviously thought he could implement permaculture in such a huge company. But I really liked the idea of a commercial person joining this course and was looking forward for his input.