Visitors from Sweden

At the end of March 2014, we had a group of visitors come from four different Transition Town projects running in villages in central Sweden. They were doing some very interesting things, such as sharing a cow between 7 families, with each family being responsible for ministering to the cow & milking it one day a week; another project involved restoring a derelict flour mill & growing the grain to provide raw material. While in Gloucestershire the group visited a number of Transition initiatives, including the Sedgeberrow Energy Project, and also the Annecy Garden. Our visitors were very enthusiastic participants & required no encouragement before they were setting to on the weeding. They were also amazed at how advanced the season was (about 7 weeks ahead of their area in Sweden); growing conditions in Cheltenham are certainly a lot easier, our visitors were relating that they expect their last frosts on the year on about the 21st of June & their first on about the 18th of August ~ so that's a 2-month growing season (here I'd expect to have to have the 6 months May to October more or less frost-free).