John Elkington

Arrived in São Paulo around 05.00 this morning and were ferried to hotel by our driver, Carlos. Did a Volans team meeting en route. On my first visits to Brazil, the thought of wi-fi from a speeding car would have seemed like sci-fi. Then across to Acciona to hear about their mega-project, Line 6 of the city’s subway system. After a briefing and lunch, we were vanned across to one of the construction sites and taken deep into the tunnel workings. Beyond impressive. But the social and environmental aspects were fascinating, too. More on that anon.

Thoroughly enjoying the Fixing The Future Festival in Barcelona. Chaired two sessions yesterday, one in the morning on Biodiversity and Regeneration (with Montse Vilà of the Doñana Biology Station, Tim Smit of the Eden Project and Deli Saavedra of Rewilding Europe) and one in the afternoon on Revolution & Regeneration (with Bethany Koby of Fam Studio and Carlota Pi of Holaluz).

Wonderful to see old friends, including festival organiser Cathy Runciman of Atlas of the Future and Lisa Goldapple of Topia. And the serendipity effect has been in overdrive, as when I introduced Tim to Brian Eno, who I had met the previous evening while walking back from a dinner at the Hidden Factory, after which we had a wonderful lunch together.

Then an evening of Salvador Dalí, paella, and monsoon-like rain that left even those of us with umbrellas drenched, but that’s another story.

I was delighted to be quoted in The Los Angeles Times on the announcement that Yvon Chouinard was moving his company Patagonia into a charitable structure – which means that it will dedicate itself to funding work on climate solutions. I interviewed Yvon a couple of years back, for our Green Swans Observatory – a story that was then picked up by Topia.

Elaine and I cabbed across to Kew Gardens this morning to accompany Hania, Jake and Gene to the Children’s Garden, the Palm House, the Lily House, and the like. Was blown away by the design of the children’s area, where we were allowed to come in as grandparents – but would not otherwise have been able to experience.

Quite remarkably well designed and run. And amazing smells from the flowers and the gum trees. Very taken with The Singing Hollow, where you stick your whole head into a hole in a rock pillar and hum. A sense of what it must have been like for our ancestors inside the great cavities where they painted those early masterpieces of cave art.

A nearby sign said that there were humming hollows in Malta and in medieval cathedrals in the south of France. Amazing sensation, though Gene didn’t like it at all. One sensed, though, that he would have made his way back there before too long …

Fell into conversion with a woman who was originally from Tipperary and comes across to the play area from North London with her granddaughter every week. I’m not surprised.

Lovely sunshine, through a fair amount of cloud, and a sense of the summer shading into autumn and winter. But the grass and many of the trees are looking much revived after recent rain, though a fair few trees are still dead or in need of intensive care after the drought.

The last couple of months have also been busy on the home front because of the demolition of our old summerhouse, which was showing signs of age and had degenerated into being a pretty raggedy storehouse, and the construction and fitting out of our new garden studio.

One key reason for the project was that during some of the 250+ keynotes I did in 35+ countries in the first eighteen months after Green Swans was published it was sometimes possible to hear our neighbour’s children practising their flutes and trumpets through the party wall. During one important event I did in Finland, someone at the other end asked whether anyone else could hear distant flutes?

The project, undertaken by eDen Garden Rooms, has exceeded our hopes – and gave me an excuse to realise a long-held dream. I had wanted a wildlife pond rather than the tiny lawn we had allowed to ‘rewild’ in recent years.

Our daughter Gaia and her friend Adam from WoodeNZone, based near Shepperton and sourcing driftwood from New Zealand, have been the driving forces behind the project. We bought a glorious piece of driftwood from Adam, shaped like a great eagle or vulture, that will stand by the pond – and he gifted us another, which he referred to as an “embracing wing”.

Together they remind me of rather weathered and worm-eaten versions of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

We part-filled the pond with rainwater captured by our new green roof. And once the pond was in place, the rain fell and the first water boatman arrived in the course of just a few hours.

Much still to do in terms of bedding the whole thing in, including the planting of aquatic plants, hopefully embracing irises and bullrushes. But the shape of the thing is now fairly clear – and it is remarkably calming to sit on the new deck and watch the world, including our ancient apple tree, reflected in the surface of the water.

With the village pond a couple of blocks away, the Thames ditto, and the WWT London Wetland Centre at the other end of the village, I am very much hoping that we will have some wild visitors before long – though desirably not the herons, my second favourite birds after swifts, which roost in a heronry alongside the nearby Leg O’Mutton Reservoir.