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Writing workshop Friday 16 May – Memoir and Ancestral stories
The third Discovery Writing Workshop will be at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, 16 May 2025, at my home on a hill near Santo Estêvão, Tavira. In the first workshop, we examined origin stories and worked on prompts. We also learned about each other’s writing practices and built some trust. The second workshop considered Magical Realism, Fantasy, and Fabulism. In this week’s genre, we will consider how memoir can take many forms and reflect ancestral connections and cultural differences. Through poems, stories, cultural narratives and research, we will uncover how memories and moments in time may bridge different worlds of experience. A memoir is not about being fair to everyone and…
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Earth Day – Tuesday 22 April 2025
Earth Day.org, the global organiser of Earth Day, observed annually on 22 April, has set the theme for 2025 as – Our Power, Our Planet™. 2025 marks the 55th anniversary of EARTH DAY. To honour this milestone, they have invited one billion supporters in 192 countries to unite behind renewable energy to triple the global generation of clean electricity by 2030. To mark Earth Day, here are a couple of examples of local actions. There are many more that could be acknowledged, so please mention what you are doing or any you know about in the comments. We have 30 solar panels and have been generating solar energy on a…
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Writing workshops and get together sessions for writers in the Algarve
Hello writers and dabblers, I will facilitate some Discovery Writing Workshops this spring and summer at my home on a hill near Santo Estêvão, East Algarve, Tavira. We have lots of space for inspiration. The first session will be Friday, 18 April 2025, at 2:30pm. Writing with a group can often spur writers to accomplish more than when writing alone. Why I write. From seven to twenty-eight, I drank the cool aid of a cult. My family are still believers. When I left, my life was rudderless without family connections, as shunning was what they were instructed to do. I had to find my own community. As a child, education wasn’t encouraged…
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Open Mic Night – Photos
As part of the Alvaro de Campos Festa, I helped organise an Open Mic Night in English and Portuguese on Friday 22 November. It was a fun evening of kindness, sharing, poetry and song. Big thanks to all the performers, poets and especially to Tela Leao for translation and for introducing everyone. Also gratitude to the Casa Alvaro de Campos for use of the venue. Here are a few photos:Ana Cristina, Tela Leao, Fernanda Guerra, Isabel Pereira, Jay Artale, John Williams, Malcolm Highfield, Marjorie Mallon, Mark Evans, Miguel Andrade, Nana Rebelo, Timothy Halford, Zizi. Timothy Halford would like a regular Poetry Slam in Tavira. Get in touch if you want…
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Rob Hopkins Tour – What If?
Rob Hopkins founder of the Transition Movement is touring Portugal starting in the North and reaching Faro on the 26 October. “Transition is a movement of communities coming together to reimagine and rebuild our world.” The tour will include interactive workshops, discussions and conversations. Central to this tour is the theme of imagination, especially in times of crisis. This tour takes place as Rob Hopkins’ book is published in Portuguese. “What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want.” Rob says: “Given the state of the world, the message of despair is pretty convincing. Things look grim. But something about that doesn’t sit quite right with…
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Open Mic Night in Tavira
The Álvaro de Campos Festival / Birthday Party takes place in Tavira from 15 October to 30 November each year. Last year, I helped organise an impressive and enjoyable Open Mic Night in the cold of winter. On Friday, 22 November this year (2024), we will try again to bring musicians, poets and writers together to perform on a small stage to an eager audience at Casa Álvaro de Campos. The venue is a cafe with a piano and a small stage. Last year, we managed to get 6 delightful musicians and singers on the stage! The cafe is on the steps, just down from the Tavira Museum near the Igreja da Misericórdia de…
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Whisky Galore Fundraiser- Help Tavira artists to perform in Glasgow!
Tavira and Glasgow have a cultural connection that is about to become even more potent. In 2019 two Scottish poets performed in Tavira, together with their Portuguese colleagues, and this year the event will take place in Glasgow. Unfortunately, there is not enough money for travel and hotels. From the total costs of € 6.000 still € 4.000 need to be raised. Why is the connection between Tavira and Glasgow important? Tavira’s famous poet, Álvaro de Campos, was born here in 1890 and moved to Glasgow to study naval engineering. Álvaro de Campos including his birthday, only existed in the poet Fernando Pessoa’s imagination. He was one of his heteronyms,…
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Community Garden and Mobility Plan Update
Yesterday, 13 April I was blessed (I am not sure that is the right word) but anyway it was a gift, to be able to go to visit Community Gardens in Spain. I will do a separate blog post and add more photos and write about the trip tomorrow. But for now the important message is about the CEAT Community garden. The regulations consultation finishes tomorrow. It has been an impossibily short consultation period. I hope the Camara extends the period. This is the message I received from Ecotopia Activa Association today. “As mentioned on the bus, Monday (15/04) is the deadline for participation in the Public Consultation of the…
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Community garden – regulations consultation Tavira
Community gardens are becoming the backbone of communities, which is no less the case locally in Tavira. I recently watched a video from New Zealand about community composting, and it has fired me up because the benefits to the soil and human interaction are enormous. I wonder if Tavira could add a community composting club/project to the community garden. I digress; more about composting in a future post. Today I noticed on the facebook page Os Jardins Alimentares a post by Angela Rosa. It mentioned a consultation document about the regulations associated with community gardens in Tavira. The message from the Camara says: i️ Edital (extract) n. the 495/2024 Submit to…
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Mobility plan Tavira Consultation response
We have sent in a personal response to the mobility plan consultation before the deadline of 31 March 2024. Below is the response from CEAT and Ecotopia Activa. See attached document links in English and Portuguese. The Citizens’ movement for CEAT and Hortas Urbanas de Tavira and the association Ecotopia Activa, based in Tavira, announce their participation in the Public Consultation of the Sustainable Mobility Plan for the City of Tavira (PMSCT) – attached. We request that participation be publicized in order to make known to all interested parties the detailed analysis that was carried out on the Plan. We inform you that we have not yet received any response…
