Positive news

Worcestershire, October 2024

I hardly need report that I've been away on retreat again, this time just for a long weekend during Easter. Four of us from the Warwick group went together, including someone who hadn't been on one of our retreats before. It turned out that he had plenty of experience of meditation and Buddhism and retreats within other Buddhist traditions, and he meditates a great deal more than I do. It was very interesting getting to know him anyway, and he wasn't put off by any of it, which is a bonus.

Another way that I've been stretching myself involves something called a 'kula'. This is a group of people who are both Order Members and my friends, and who commit themselves to meeting occasionally in order to support me in my journey towards ordination. It's by no means compulsory to have a kula, and not necessary at the start of the journey, but I've been steeling myself because I find the idea quite challenging. I've now got as far as asking three people, who thankfully have all said yes, so that's done for now. Now I just have to find a way to get them to meet, which is likely to be a considerable challenge.

Our Warwick group is going from strength to strength, and we have started to find ourselves supported by two regular Order Members, one from Birmingham and the other from Milton Keynes. I've been trying to arrange a team meeting between five of us, and out of 60 different time slots there were only two that were suitable and even then only four out of five of us could make it.

I spent a day with mum taking her to the local hospital to have a lump on her leg cut out. I actually found it quite enjoyable spending time with her, although it probably wasn't her idea of a great day out with her daughter. It was almost impossible to park at the hospital - I left the car in a slightly illegal place in the renal unit with her Blue Badge displayed and got away with it; they also double booked the appointment slot before ours so we got into the clinic room at 4.30pm for an appointment that was scheduled at 2.45pm. Once inside the procedure seemed very straightforward and hopefully her recovery will also run smoothly.

My news blackout continues and I'm getting quite used to not knowing much about what's going on. Have I Got News For You informed me about some female celebrities who went up in a rocket, squealed a lot, talked a lot of rubbish about love, sang a song and imagined they were astronauts - you might as well say that turning a light switch on and off makes you an electrician. And the Pope has died and everyone is watching the film Conclave again. I have to say that even this level of news seems wholly unnecessary.

I am managing various financial admin projects on mum's behalf associated with dad's estate and other investments, and for a change things seem to be moving in the right direction. There's also been admin in respect of UJ and the Homes for Ukraine scheme, also going well, and I tried to give blood but they turned me away because of my imminent periodontal work and the risk of levels of infection in the blood. Swings and roundabouts, people, swings and roundabouts.

A visit from Lola II

Lola II enjoying a nice sensible cup of tea, April 2025

I was privileged to host an overnight visit from Lola II, despite the terrible state of her knees which are each suffering from a different complaint. We usually do a whole lot of walking when we are together, so this demanded a new, car-based approach for our usual pastimes of eating, talking, playing and mucking about.

It's not that she can't walk, but she can't walk far, and steps and stairs are quite a problem. So instead of walking together from the station into town I picked her up in the car. First stop was lunch at a beautiful riverside pub that used to have delicious food, but was sadly disappointing this time. Never mind, we went elsewhere for dessert after a stop at the Re-Useful Centre, my new treasure trove, where we found a perfect walking stick. She doesn't particularly need it for walking but it does help with the stairs, and it may get her a seat at busy times on the tube.

Dessert was cake at Temperance café, where they also keep a few board games for customers. I'd noticed one of the games I'd played with my U3A group that I thought was rather good (Splendor), so we had a go, and it went so well that we thought we might go to a games café next day - there are at least two in Leamington.

Evening entertainment was a National Theatre Live performance of Dr Strangelove, adapted for the stage by Armando Ianucci and starring Steve Coogan. I'm enjoying these NT Live shows, and there are a few more to come over the summer. Lola II managed to walk from Lola Towers all the way to the Royal Spa Centre where it was on, but went the long way round to avoid the steps up to the door.

Next morning I started on the task that Lola II had brought for me - shortening some new trousers (she did give me two large leeks and some carrots in payment). I only made one fairly serious mistake and broke two sewing machine needles - the twin sort for stretch material, which seem to break as soon as you look at them. My enthusiasm for stretch fabric is seriously waning, although this must be the first time I've got the sewing machine out for at least a year, and I came across the fabric we bought in 2016 when I was supposed to be making a dress for Lola II. I try not to think about it. I'll definitely get round to it one day but it just doesn't feel like a priority at the moment.

My ineptitude at sewing was interrupted for each of us to have a massage. I'd booked this when the venue was just a short walk into town, which might have been a problem for Lola II's knees except that they had moved to an out-of-town venue so we could drive. I try to make sure that there are activities in Leamington that can't be found in Lola's home area so that she has a reason to visit. Previously it had been the optician, but she's found one locally (how rude). Thankfully I think I have her hooked on the massage option now. She does the same for me - visiting their local international supermarket is my treat whenever I stay with Lola II and Mr M.

We had lunch at another place (Boston Tea Party) in Leamington which was half the price and twice as good as lunch the previous day at the fancy riverside gastropub. I shall visit BTP again. Then we did go to one of the games cafés where we repeated the game from the day before and tried another (One Key), which involved guessing which very strange picture had been chosen using various other very strange pictures, and it seemed absolutely impossible except somehow I managed to guess Lola II's very strange picture - an achievement that will never be repeated.

Before she left, I went through my box of art materials and persuaded Lola II to take as much GRUHI stuff as I could. So at the end of a lovely couple of days I delivered Hopalong Lola back to the train station with her new walking stick, and listed a few things that she didn't want on the trading platform Olio, and they were collected later that day. When it works, Olio is a marvel.

Lola I enjoying a ridiculously outrageous milkshake

A Whale of a Time

April 2025

Apart from the tourist trip to Warwick and the badminton volunteering, there have been a couple of other notable events recently. Following a pessimistic dental appointment I made a return visit to the periodontist, who agreed with the poor prognosis on two sites and recommended further 'regenerative' surgery of the sort that I had before (three years ago), but this time with extra bone graft. I really don't know what to think about all this - I can afford the fees and it probably helps to keep my teeth in my jaw, but it's a most unpleasant procedure and eventually they are bound to come out, so why prolong the treatment? Something to think about when the next crisis arrives.

I went on a day trip to Oxford to pick up Sister D and on to the University's Harcourt Arboretum, which (as you'd expect) has very fine trees, and we generally caught up with each other and had some serious and helpful conversations - helpful to me at least. I'm still dealing with a couple of mum's financial affairs which keeps Sister D and me busy trying to interpret mystifying correspondence and acquiring evidence of identity and address and signatures of everyone in the family.

Then I went on a solitary retreat that was longer than I've done before (12 days), taking all the food I'd need as well as getting jobs done before I went. UJ was in Ukraine for a few weeks and returned while I was away, so there was some anticipatory cleaning and tidying needed. I had a very thoughtful and fruitful time, meditating, walking, reading, reflecting and studying (in preparation for another, more academic retreat in September), but also doing nothing. The time flew by.

A couple of weeks before I went away on the retreat I had started a self-imposed news blackout - have I mentioned this? The news, especially in the USA, Ukraine/Russia and Gaza/Israel, had become too much for me to bear with equanimity, so I stopped watching, listening to, and reading any news media except for Radio 4 comedy and a couple of podcasts. Obviously on retreat I was completely offline, and spent quite a bit of time pondering whether to go back to the news on my return, and if so, how to achieve the right balance of staying informed without being overwhelmed.

I went for a walk with a friend this week, and was going to ask him to tell me in the briefest terms what I needed to know. He very quickly demonstrated that news has no boundaries, and even the most innocuous event is linked in many ways to other events that I would not wish to hear about. So I have concluded that it isn't possible, and have continued to be completely ignorant of all news, both domestic and foreign, and even stopped subscribing to the news podcasts (although I've continued with Radio 4 comedy). It's a strange, unnerving place to be, a bit like driving while wearing a blindfold. 

Up to now I considered it my duty to stay informed, and not doing so seems somehow irresponsible, or negligent, but several responsible and not-negligent people I've talked to say that they don't keep up to date with the news, although a couple of them said they sometimes feel stupid for not knowing what's going on. So I'm trying to let go of my self-view, and, for the time being at least, to focus on the fact that it's not only possible but preferable to step off the relentless cycle of doom and gloom, pain and ignorance, injustice and grief.

A couple of happier stories to finish with. I went to a delightful concert in a Leamington church which involved an adult choir, a choir of primary school girls, a small group of musicians and two solo vocalists, performing arrangements of two Kinks albums with the support and encouragement of Ray Davies (lead vocalist of the Kinks). I knew about it because one of the people involved in the LETS local trading scheme was singing in the choir, but in the queue for tickets I met one of my music group whose husband was also in the choir, and Nameless Man was also there (I'd told him about it but he wasn't sure he would go), and then I met the man in charge of my U3A board games group who turned out to know the LETS woman because they were neighbours and both trustees of the community centre where the Repair Café happens, and then I bumped into an ex-colleague from my last career but one.

The other lovely thing is that UJ brought me a present from Ukraine of a lamp she has made in the shape of a whale.

What I've been reading

Yellowface

by R. F. Kuang

"When failed writer June Hayward witnesses her rival Athena Liu die in a freak accident, she sees her opportunity… and takes it, stealing Athena’s final manuscript and 'borrowing' her identity."

While I found the book very readable and kept coming back to find out what happened next, I didn't relate to the story or the characters enough to make it enjoyable. There's a lot of interesting stuff about the publishing industry, but I didn't feel any affinity with or understanding of the mindset of minority Chinese ethnic people, and that's a major plot point that simply didn't touch me.

The Virgin in the Garden

by A. S. Byatt

narrated by Sophie Aldred

"In Yorkshire, the Potter family are preparing to celebrate Elizabeth II's arrival on the throne. Its three youngest members, however, are preoccupied with other matters. Stephanie has grown tired of their overbearing father and resolves to marry the local curate. Anxious teenager Marcus gains a new teacher and suffers increasingly disturbing visions. Then there is Frederica."

The book was interesting enough to keep me listening to the end, but ultimately I'd have to say that I didn't like it. Hard to say why, but there was something unlikeable about both the characters and how they were written about as well as the storyline itself. The narration was top class though, distinguishing between the different voices so skilfully that it was always utterly clear who was speaking.

Does Anything Eat Bankers? And 53 Other Indispensable Questions For The Credit Crunched
by Andy Zaltzman

"Does Anything Eat Bankers? is here to cheer us all up, asking (and answering) questions such as: 'Is human life still economically viable?' 'How can you qualify for a bail-out?' and 'What face should a politician pull whilst discussing the Credit Crunch?'"

Andy Zaltzman is by far the best host of Radio 4's News Quiz that has ever lived, and he brings the same voice and humour to his first book, written in 2008 hard on the heels of the banking catastrophe and its fallout. However, there's really only one joke stretched out over about 150 pages, so as much as I like his voice and humour I got a bit weary of it towards the end.

The Living Mountain
by Nan Shepherd

"Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the 'essential nature' of the Cairngorms, a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us."

This book was in the house where I stayed for my recent solitary retreat, and I picked it out to read because of my summer 'outdoor' retreat where I'm on the support team. During that retreat we are invited to read some nature-related poetry and prose together, and one of the extracts is from this book, about the writer's experience of the Cairngorm plateau and its corries, lochs, tarns, burns and peaks and the plants, animals and people to be found there. She describes the place using all her senses, and it's wonderful to read.

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures
by Merlin Sheldrake

"Fungi throw our concepts of individuality and even intelligence into question. They are metabolic masters, earth makers, and key players in most of life’s processes. They can change our minds, heal our bodies, and even help us remediate environmental disaster."

This is a brilliant book - if you like this sort of thing: an expert who writes on one subject that he knows in enormous depth, and who also knows how to write. A whole chapter about lichens that blew my mind, let alone all the other amazing aspects of fungi that can hardly be imagined. Even the scientists who study them are still mystified about some features, which would be called 'abilities' if these were animals, and in fact fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants. Thoroughly recommended- if you like this sort of thing.

The Mysteries of Udolpho
by Ann Radcliffe

"Orphan Emily St. Aubert finds herself separated from the man she loves and confined within the medieval castle of her aunt's new husband, Montoni. Inside the castle, she must cope with an unwanted suitor, Montoni's threats, and the wild imaginings and terrors that threaten to overwhelm her."

This book, written two hundred years ago, is not only on my list of Classics but is mentioned several times in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and was also recommended to me by a friend. I have now read two immense books recommended by this same friend, and I think I shall take no more recommendations from him in future. He declares, and he may be right, that both this and Jane Austen's books are supposed to be funny. The only trace of humour I could appreciate were the heroine's three poems about adventurers who meet gruesome deaths. She is mostly very tiresome, dissolving into tears at least once (and often more than once) in every chapter, and swoons, faints, has to be supported or must sit down at every conceivable opportunity. The Udolpho of the title (which is a castle) isn't even mentioned until a third of the way through, but I'll acknowledge that the mysteries are mysterious and resolved satisfactorily at the end, when all baddies are done away with and the good guys live happily ever after. Avoid.

World Series badminton

Event Control Room, Birmingham Utilita Arena, March 2025

The other fun event that took place last week was my volunteering at the 'All England' badminton tournament, for the second time. Apparently the new anonymised application process put some of the seasoned volunteers off so they were very short of people. Last year in the Event Control Room there was the boss plus three volunteers; this time the team was down to one person for some of our shifts.

I skipped the volunteer orientation meeting which took place on Monday evening, since last year it was only just worth it, I know the ropes, and I had board games, a study group and Monday badminton that afternoon and evening. Tuesday started very early with the 6.25 a.m. train into Birmingham for the start to my shift at 7.30 a.m. I was welcomed very warmly and recognised quite a few people from last year. The ECR setup was much the same, passing messages between teams and the venue and logging any issues to make sure they were dealt with. I had a similarly early start on Wednesday and Thursday, then I was on the late shift on Friday and Saturday, finishing after 10pm. Sunday was Finals day so only five matches played, but they were long matches, and then I helped with packing up the ECR screens, radios and the rest.

There were no free tickets for volunteers this year, because apparently last year some were being sold on. But UJ messaged me to say that her boyfriend had two tickets that he wasn't going to use, and I found two of my badminton friends who were happy to take them. I went up to the arena to watch a few matches between shifts, and sometimes during shifts as well when it was quiet. Most of the time it was quiet, with issues like banners falling down, checking that it was OK to open the doors to the public, and IT glitches. There were a couple of exciting incidents involving members of the public behaving badly, a volunteer falling down stairs who needed crutches, and another volunteer who made some inappropriate comments to members of the management team in the evening at the hotel, probably fuelled by drink, and then didn't have the sense to apologise next day. He was ejected from the venue and accreditation withdrawn.

We had six screens going most of the time, showing our logging spreadsheet, the list of radios and who was carrying them, the seven-court practice area, the two-court warm up area, the live play on court and the broadcast feed. On Saturday another screen appeared showing the rugby (there were three matches that day) and on Sunday there was some sort of football cup final. I preferred the badminton.

The key to their success from my point of view is that the people in charge - the Event Director and his team - are universally and individually lovely. They really seem to care that volunteers enjoy themselves. We were also thanked personally by Badminton England's President and some other official personages. I would definitely do it again next year if they'll have me (I think they will). 

A day out in Warwick

Lord Leycester Hospital and West Gate, March 2025

My goodness I've been having fun, hence lack of substantive blogging. Recently there have been a couple of significant bloggable things for a change, so here goes with the first episode.

Chatting to one of the new people that I've met through the U3A walking group I happened to mention that I'd never been to Warwick as a tourist. Warwick is very close to Leamington - I sometimes walk along the river to a Warwick park and back. I've been to Warwick Castle long ago with my nephew, but that's more a theme park than part of Warwick itself, and very expensive to visit. The Warwick Folk Festival is within the grounds of the Castle and extends various musical offerings to the town, so I've had a look at some of that. I even got married in Warwick, but after the ceremony we went straight to Stratford for a meal. The U3A walker suggested a few places to visit, I did my homework, and bought a day return for only £1.55 on the train (with my Senior Railcard).

I decided that there were four places I wanted to visit - the Lord Leycester, the Market Hall Museum, St Mary's Church and Hill Close Gardens. A tour of the Lord Leycester was advertised at 11am and supposed to last for 45 minutes to an hour, so I thought I could do that first and something else in the afternoon. Luckily it was a beautiful sunny day, which made the whole experience much more pleasant.

The Lord Leycester is an unbelievably old medieval building dating back to the 12th century, which has offered housing to ex-members of the armed forces since the 16th century, and to the local Guilds before that. Twelve servicemen and their families still live there now and are known as Brethren, led by the Master (who is currently a woman). Brother Ken led the tour I was on, and it became clear that it wasn't going to be finished in an hour, let alone 45 minutes. He was a very chatty Irishman who had served in the Irish Guards, and he certainly gave us value for money. So it was definitely lunchtime by the time the tour ended.

After lunch I didn't fancy going back to the Lord Leycester even though there was more I'd have liked to see. The ticket is valid for a year and also covers Hill Close Gardens, so I'll have to find another spare day for that. Instead I chose to go to the Market Hall Museum, which has a lot of local geology and dinosaur fossils and social history and silver hoards and a stuffed bear and an ancient Irish Deer skeleton and a working beehive with Perspex sides so you can see inside. 

Market Hall Museum

One of the most impressive exhibits was a white model of Warwick town with iPads attached. You turn the iPad on, point its camera at the model and it displays a photographic overlay of the town which moves as you move, and you can click for more information. It actually gave information about the great fire that wiped out loads of Warwick in 1694 (thatched houses were not allowed in the town afterwards), but I was bowled over just by the technology.

The best exhibit, and the real reason why I chose to go to the museum, is the Sheldon tapestry of Warwickshire dating from around 1590. There are four tapestries still around, and Lola II and I saw the Oxfordshire one in the Weston Library in Oxford in 2022. Well, the Warwickshire one is complete rather than fragmentary, and is absolutely wonderful - well worth a visit.

After that I headed home, with two sites unvisited and more to see at the Lord Leycester, and if I'm in the area anyway I'd probably go back for another peek at the tapestry as well.

Lord Leycester Chapel - no electricity to this day

What I've been reading

Mother London
by Michael Moorcock

"The book follows three mental-hospital outpatients and their friends, in an episodic, non-linear history of the capital from the Blitz to present day. The main character is London itself - the towpaths, pubs, bombed churches and neglected marble angels."

Quite an interesting book, and another from the Classics list - I've now come to expect these Classic books to have very little story or plot. Someone who knows London well would probably enjoy walking along with the characters through familiar streets. I can't quite put my finger on why I enjoyed reading it, but I did.

Julia
by Sandra Newman

"London, chief city of Airstrip One, the third most populous province of Oceania. It's 1984 and Julia Worthing works as a mechanic fixing the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth."

This is the companion piece to Nineteen Eighty-Four, written from the perspective of Winston Smith's partner in sexcrime. The descriptions of torture are just as harrowing as in the original, and the ending is interesting but with a similarly depressing attitude. Today I was listening to an analysis that divided politics into Trump, Putin, and Xi and I thought "Oceania, Eurasia, Eastasia." Lies have become truth.

The Maltese Falcon
by Dashiel Hammett

narrated by B. J. Harrison

"Sam Spade is hired by the fragrant Miss Wonderley to track down her sister, who has eloped with a louse called Floyd Thursby. But when Spade’s partner Miles Archer is shot while on Thursby’s trail, Spade finds himself both hunter and hunted: can he track down the jewel-encrusted bird, a treasure worth killing for, before the Fat Man finds him?"

I managed to keep track of the story by dint of not leaving huge gaps between chapters. Lots of story threads to keep track of, and it is worth the effort.

Sharpe's Eagle
by Bernard Cornwell

narrated by Rupert Farley

"Richard Sharpe finds himself clashing with incompetent officers and an inexperienced company, making himself dangerous enemies, even on his own side. Sharpe knows he must redeem the regiment by capturing the golden Imperial Eagle, a standard touched by Napoleon himself."

Not something I would have chosen but for its appearance on the Classics list, and for some reason that list only features the eighth book in the series. Evocative of the period, much description of battle and incompetence and heroism and foolhardiness and clashing male egos. The only woman with a name who features is a camp follower, but I wouldn't have expected much consideration of the female viewpoint in a book about 18th century soldiers in Spain. Unusually for one of these Classics, there was a semblance of a plot.

To Say Nothing of the Dog
by Connie Willis

"Verity Kindle, a time traveler from the 21st century, inadvertently brings back something from the past. Now Ned Henry must jump back to the Victorian era to help Verity put things right - not only to save the project but to prevent altering history itself."

This is one of the books that I keep and re-read regularly. The reason I picked it up this time is because I bought another copy to give as a present, and wanted to remind myself of the story. It's been a while since I last read it (blog says 2012) and it felt as fresh as ever - meaning that I had forgotten lots of the details. Reading this (and one other of hers) I can forgive the author for the terrible books that she's written since.

A very ordinary week

Dovecote, Kyre Hall Park, October 2024

There's been nothing special to report for the whole week, in which I did all the things that I regularly do, and a few optional extras, and it was all fine.

• the weekly shop
• the U3A board games group
• a candlelit vigil in town to commemorate three years of the war in Ukraine
• Monday evening badminton
• a GRUHI trip to the tip and to Action 21 with all the electrical junk
• watched a film at home
• Tuesday evening Buddhists
• visit to mum
• a session with Muscles (my personal trainer)
• a bonus massage (because I'm worth it)
• Thursday evening badminton
• the U3A ramble
• a Buddhist team meeting via Zoom
• the Repair Café LETS trading table to try and get rid of more stuff (nobody wanted anything)
• my music group (I have been given a big solo this term)
• watched another film at home
• did nearly all the necessary routine admin
• a film at the cinema to end the week.

I do try to find interesting content for this blog, but there really isn't any this week. I'm looking forward to warmer weather - I find February the cruellest month. Daffodils are appearing in the garden and the paving is invisible under its blanket of weeds. So, much the same as every year.

Not Very Well

Les Menuires cafe, February 2025

The week since returning from the ski trip has been notable mostly for a nasty cold and cough. I don't get ill very often, and this was quite a significant event which prevented me from attending the 11th Gulloebl Film Festival, even though I travelled down to London in the hope of being well enough. It seemed to manage without me, somehow. And I was looked after very nicely while in confinement, being allowed to lick the beaters that made icing, and given a plate of canapes while everyone else attended the gala opening. 

I went home next day and spent a lot of the weekend asleep. I didn't do much on Monday either, not even badminton. Feeling better on Tuesday, however, a significant event took place - my first GRUHI trip with a boot-load of stuff to the newly discovered (by me) Re-Useful Centre in Leamington, a warehouse sized recycling centre as big as about 10 charity shops run by an organisation called Action 21. I had been prevaricating about this, thinking that some of my stuff might be valuable and worth trying to sell, and that I might find people who wanted this stuff via Freegle or Facebook Marketplace or Ebay or Olio. But in the end, supporting Action 21 seemed like a good cause and far less work than any of the alternatives.

Since then I've spent another day or so trawling through the boxes of old electrical and electronic bits and pieces that have accumulated over the past twenty years or so. TV and printer cables, power supplies, in-ear and over-ear headphones, LAN and wi-fi extenders and so many network cables, audio cables, charging cables, telephone cables, old mobile phones and tablets. Action 21 will take most of this but I took an old router and the mobile phones to the Vodafone shop in town, and the broken electronic bits will have to go to the tip. A Fitbit and my original Sony Walkman may be the only items that are worth anything, especially if I put batteries and a cassette in the Walkman and discover that it still works.

Ski France

From the balcony, Mottaret, February 2025

The annual ski trip this year involved nine people (two resident in France and the rest of us from various parts of the UK), of whom two are definitely non-skiers, one went out to ski just a couple of times on her own, one beginner who had booked lessons, one expert and the remaining four (including me) at about the same standard. All except the French residents travelled by train via a route we hadn't tried before but was far better than having to cross Paris on the Metro - St Pancras to Lille and then just across the platform from Lille to the 3 Valleys ski area, and a taxi at the end.

The journey was not without its problems, however. A large landslip had closed the main access road, and traffic was having to be re-routed so that both arriving and departing traffic went through a tunnel designed for traffic in one direction. Our French duo, who were aiming to get to the resort early and make us all supper, ended up having to sit stationary in their car for a number of hours, but decided against seeking refuge in the emergency accommodation that was being provided. Meanwhile, we were waiting for our taxi, which had also got caught up in the mayhem and arrived an hour late. Despite this we arrived before the car party and provided supper for them instead.

The conditions for skiing were perfect - plenty of snow, temperatures around -1 degrees, and glorious sunshine for the whole week except for one morning when there was light cloud. I started badly, perhaps due to overconfidence, and kept falling over on the the first couple of days. Then I was involved in a nasty accident, where an out-of-control skier bumped into me and knocked me over. I was absolutely fine but she had knocked herself out, and for a minute it wasn't clear how badly she was hurt. 

One of our party had seen the whole thing and reassured me that it absolutely wasn't my fault. The perpetrator/victim seemed to be skiing on her own because nobody else turned up to help her. Then a couple of random skiers who happened to be doctors stopped to help, she recovered consciousness but was clearly in need of medical attention, and there were enough people around by then to make us superfluous, so we left them to it. After that I skied much more cautiously and gradually built my confidence back up, so I didn't fall over again, and I didn't push myself to stay on the piste after about 3pm (which I might have done in previous years).

Apart from skiing there's entertainment (some of us watched LA Confidential on DVD - a bit more violent than I remember but a good film despite this), and food and drink. Hot chocolate with whipped cream is my drink of choice and there was a wide variety available, rating from about five out of ten to a magnificent ten out of ten in one particular café. We went out for a couple of dinners, cooked for ourselves a few times, ordered takeaway pizza, and for one evening I deliberately planned a vegan dinner because of my experience that cheese is the only protein available to a vegetarian, especially in the Savoie region which prides itself on fondue, raclette and many local cheeses like Beaufort and Tomme de Savoie. 

On the way back we stayed at a French hotel for one night, which allowed the trip to include seven full days of skiing. Expecting some sort of grubby Travelodge, we were actually accommodated in a lovely place where I managed to avoid cheese for one evening by selecting soup and chocolate mousse.