My, first trip with BTCV was to Extramedura in Spain in 1990 where among other things we cleared a path from a car park to a point opposite a cliff, across the river, where raptors nested. There followed many more holidays, my usual pattern being two weeks abroad, one week in the UK and maybe an occasional weekend. Thailand, Senegal, Ecuador, Cameroon, France, Germany and more abroad gave me the chance to work with people from other countries instead of just engaging in transactional purchase of food, hotel rooms etc. as on normal holidays. This gave me a deep love of people from other nations and I mourned when I heard the wonderful chef we had on Golden Buddha Beach in Thailand had been killed in the boxing day tsunami. In the UK I worked on step construction near Lyme Regis, water vole conservation by hand clearinga riverbank, rhododendron seedling extraction on South Uist and in Norfolk ensuring the different plants that the Swallowtail butterfly depended on for the various stages of its lifecycle had space to grow. It was always lovely how the groups bonded so easily in working for a good cause. Then in 2010, I volunteered for a holiday in Romania and there was where I met my future wife, Waheeda. We laugh that we fell in love while slapping pig poo on the walls of an eco information office to be, the poo being the local method of insulating buildings at no cost. More has been done since but I also work now where TCV no longer goes, such as Estonia, where I have friends from previous BTCV holidays.
Written by Nicholas Hales
Nicholas was involved with TCV between 1990 and 2001