What I've been reading

Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth
by Natalie Haynes

narrated by the Author

"A female-centred look at Olympus and the Furies, focusing on the goddesses whose prowess, passions, jealousies, and desires are as mighty, revered and destructive as their male counterparts."

I get the idea that this is a spinoff from her brilliant Radio 4 series, and she presents this view of Greek and Roman myth from the unfamiliar female perspective. Which shines a light on the horrific treatment of women - both human and divine - which appeared to be completely routine in those days. This takes me down a rabbit hole of 'what has actually changed since then' but of course things are different now. I am able to exist very comfortably as an unmarried childless woman without having to be dependent on a man or being some sort of priestess serving a deity. Anyway, back to the book - she writes very well and reads it well too, and I enjoyed it without necessarily being likely to remember much about Demeter or Hestia or even Aphrodite.

North Woods
by Daniel Mason

"When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become home to an extraordinary succession of inhabitants. As each one confronts the mysteries of the north woods, they come to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive."

For the first half of the book I wasn't sure why this had been recommended to me. It seemed like a collection of not very interesting vignettes tied together only by them happening one after another in the same house in the woods. The second half of the book, where the stories were linked by some of the same characters - and then earlier characters - was much more satisfying. If I could be bothered I would re-read the first half, but that's not going to happen.

The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp
by Leonie Swann

"It's an eventful day at Sunset Hall, a house-share for the old and unruly, when the police arrive with news that a body has been discovered next door. Everyone, including Agnes Sharp, is secretly relieved that the body in question is not the one they're currently hiding in the shed."

This is a whodunnit where the main mystery is predicated on the fact that all the elderly and eccentric characters have some sort of memory loss or dementia, and is therefore incredibly annoying. I wanted to know the resolution of all the mystery - at least six deaths were revealed, not all of them in the present - but it was tough to stick with it up to the end. And the tortoise, which I thought might have some role to play beyond being mentioned at every possible opportunity, turned out to be completely irrelevant. I did not enjoy it.

Dear Fatty
by Dawn French

"With a sharp eye for comic details and wicked ear for the absurdities of life, Dawn French shows just how an RAF girl from the West Country rose to become one of the best-loved actresses of our time."

I wouldn't normally choose to read an autobiography by a celebrity, but I picked this off the shelf at the place I was staying on retreat as a last resort when nothing else I'd tried had helped me go to sleep one night. She's had an interesting life, and as far as I know has done her best to work and raise a family under the awful constraints that 'celebrity' brings. It didn't much help in getting me to sleep though.

The Discomfort of Evening
by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld

"Ten-year-old Jas has a unique way of experiencing her universe: the feeling of udder ointment on her skin as protection against harsh farmyard winters; the texture of green warts, like capers, on migrating toads; the sound of 'blush words' that aren't in the Bible. But when a tragic accident ruptures the family her curiosity warps into a wild vortex of disturbing fantasies - unlocking a darkness that threatens to derail them all."

Another book off the shelf of the solitary cabin, but this time a desperate, bleak, disturbing book, full of unpleasantness, misery, cruelty and death. I ought to have stopped reading, but I couldn't believe there would be no redemption, no chink of light somewhere at the end of the relentless onslaught of tragedy and pain. But there wasn't. It was horrible.

The Fisherman's Gift
by Julia Kelly

"Winter, 1900. A little boy washes up on the beach of a small fishing village in Scotland, barely alive. He bears an uncanny resemblance to teacher Dorothy's son, lost to the sea many years before. When the village is snowed in, Dorothy agrees to look after the child until he can be returned home."

Another off the shelf in the solitary cabin, which I'd hoped (and expected) would last until I left, but was not only easy to read but also drew me on into the story. So it was hard to put down, and such a relief compared with the last one. Yes, it contained pain and tragedy, but there was also love and redemption and a flow to the narrative that made it possible to bear the difficult aspects of the story. Not a masterpiece, but I'm glad I read it. Now I've got to decide whether to start another of the books on the shelf...

Wild Awake: Alone, Offline and Aware in Nature
by Vajragupta

"What is it like to be completely alone, attempting to face your experience with only nature for company? Buddhist teacher and author, Vajragupta, has been doing just that every year for twenty-five years. Here he recounts how these "solitary retreats" have changed him, how he fell in love with the places he stayed in and the creatures there."

I take this book and read it every time I go on a solitary retreat. I know the author personally, I admire him and his writing, and was fortunate enough to be part of his team when he ran retreats based loosely around the contents of the book. I even sent him a postcard from the recent retreat expressing some of my gratitude. Aside from all that hero worship, it's a great book in itself, and despite having read it and dipped into it so many times I'm still finding passages that I don't remember reading before.

Hamnet
by Maggie O'Farrell

"On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London. Neither parent knows that Hamnet will not survive the week."

This book actually does live up to the hype, it's a masterpiece and a treasure. I resisted reading it because I've seen the film, and I don't usually like to mix the media, although usually I've read the book and therefore avoid the film. But in this case the perfect casting of Agnes and Will and the phenomenal performance of Jessie Buckley actually enhanced the reading experience, which was absolutely wonderful. I wish I'd been able to make it last longer.

Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It
by Oliver Burkeman

"We're obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, the struggle against distraction and the sense that our attention spans are shrivelling. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time-management problem: the question of how best to use our ridiculously brief time on the planet."

This was given to me a couple of years ago by Vajragupta, the author of Wild Awake (above), and I've been meaning to re-read it for some time. I seem to remember finding it interesting the first time through, but I'm in a completely different mental state now that I'm coming to the end of two weeks of solitary living with very little distractions or external inputs, and its messages are having a more direct impact. Recently I've been starting to visualise facing backwards as my life progresses - I see what's in the past, the recent past more clearly than the distant, and I travel blindly into the future making the best of what I can guess or imagine is ahead. The idea is attractive that decision-making is less about what to do than what not to do, and allows me to be content with a much more spacious life, setting aside ambitions that will never happen and uncluttered with regret about unfulfilled potential. And the fact that nothing most of us will do is particularly important in the long run, and our lives are of such short duration in the universal scheme of things doesn't lower my mood, rather it takes the pressure off the need to make everything count. Pick a few important things, do the next and most necessary thing, and don't worry about underachieving or failing, and accept that I'm never going to be able to do all the things on my list.

The Oyster saga

Kew Gardens, May 2026

In London the Tube has been transformed within my lifetime, with the demise of smoking carriages, air conditioning introduced into some lines (particularly the new ones), free passage along the length of the train, and (to my sorrow) the Circle Line no longer being circular. The graffiti remains consistently present, though. I thought the Oyster card was quite a good idea when it was introduced, removing the delays in ticket buying, standardising fares in Zones, and bringing tube and buses together into one payment system.

It was Mr M who told me that I could link my Oyster card and my Senior Railcard to get discounts. I looked online for instructions, and it said I needed to create an Oyster account, then go to the railway staff in person with my card. For quite a while I'd been using my contactless bank card, but to get the discount I had to use my actual Oyster card, which was in Leamington. Having discovered its location, the next time I came to London I brought my ancient Oyster card, but then I discovered that to get the linking and discounts it had to have been used in the last six weeks.

So I topped up and used the Oyster card, but although I had a Transport for London (TfL) account with my Oyster linked to it, tapping into machine said 'not registered'. I thought it might be too soon as I had only linked the Oyster earlier that day. Home I went to Leamington.

Next time I brought the Oyster card and used it, but it still showed up as not registered. Lola II looked at what I had done, and we decided that what I'd created was a Transport for London account, and I probably needed to create a separate Oyster account. So I did that, went back to the station, but the system still didn't recognise the card as registered. All of these steps took even longer when you count all the times I asked for help at a station but the appropriate people who could log into the system were not available.

Next, I phoned the number on the card, which started with 0845 and my phone warned me was obsolete. It really is a very old card, probably one of the first wave to be sold. I found a more up-to-date phone number, and a very helpful lady said despite my card not showing as registered, the train staff should be able to complete the registration on a machine in the station - I just hadn't yet found the right person.

During the extensive phone menus one thing I had heard mentioned was the issue of 'original Oyster cards'. So mentioned this to the helpful lady, who thought a bit more and gave me a reference number to use. If station staff still couldn't help I might need to buy a new card, in which case I could phone their number with this reference and I would be refunded the cost of the new card.

I'd been trying to get this sorted for about six months by this time, and I did consider just giving up, especially as I had no idea (and still don't know) how much the discounts might be on journeys that I take. One thing that the Oyster system has certainly removed is any idea of how much journeys actually cost. Anyway, I finally resolved to take my problem to central London rather than the stations local to Maternal Manor or Lola II and Mr M's house.

I explained the problem to one of the staff, who directed me to the other side of the station where I explained it again. I was all ready with the phone number and reference number that the helpful lady had given me on the phone, but he took my card, I entered my post code, he entered my senior railcard number and Bingo! it was done. I think he was slightly taken aback by my rejoicing - I insisted on a high five - but it was such a relief to find someone who really knew what they were doing.

I've now received my 60+ Oyster card, so I'm not even using that one any more. Should I try to link it to my Senior Railcard?

Old, but not that old

Ilford Hospital Chapel, September 2026

I recently wrote about the 60+ Oyster card as the second benefit I've received for staying alive this long - I completely forgot about the wonderful Royal Spa Centre who sold me cheap tickets and gave me very seventh film free with my loyalty card for some time. Sadly that venue is not immediately available to me any longer, but I was reminded of the benefit of being old-but-not-that-old by joining a 'Senior Screening' at the Forest cinema in Walthamstow, where they advertise tea and a biscuit included with the show on Tuesday mornings for only £3.45.

Sure enough the tea and biscuits were readily available in self-service style in the foyer, and other Seniors were sitting chatting at tables nearby. One gentleman advised me that in South Woodford the Senior screening was only £2, and we continued to talk about movies for a little while. In the auditorium I smiled when the first advert after the 'Senior Screening' banner was for recruitment into the Armed Forces.

Mum and I managed to complete another job, which was to select the pictures to adorn the walls at Maternal Manor. There were many that remained through inaction - mum didn't like them but preferred something rather than a blank space, and she enjoyed having them replaced with pictures connected with the family. We'll live with our choices for a bit and then review them to see if we'd rather swap things around. I like it.

London's Open House Festival provided two more places for me to visit in the boroughs of Redbridge and Havering. Ilford Hospital Chapel (or more accurately The Hospital Chapel of St Mary the Virgin and St Thomas of Canterbury) remains tucked away in the centre of the urban thoroughfare of Ilford town centre, and its foundations date back to the 11th century. Much has been done to it since then, quite a bit by the Victorians, but it still has original features and some newer stained glass, and it was interesting to talk to the volunteers. Like Eastbury Manor House last weekend, it would originally have been surrounded by fields as far as the eye could see, and now is completely hemmed in.

The second place I went to see was Bower House in Havering, which was built in 1729. It caught my attention for an unusual reason - I was certain that in 1982, when Ford Motor Co sponsored me for a year before university, the first thing they did was to send me and all the other sponsored students for a residential induction course here. Sure enough, the leaflet outlining the history of the building said "In 1970 the site was acquired by the Ford Motor Company as a training centre." I wondered if I might remember some aspect of the house, but it has been changed around a great deal in 44 years, as one might expect, so nothing was at all familiar.

Since 2005 it has belonged to Amana Trust which is a charity that "endeavours to help believers to grow in the Christian faith both personally and in groups through events and trainings." Many young trainees were on hand to talk about the features of the various rooms, few of which were original but had been salvaged from other buildings, like the main fireplace and the oak panelling and architraves over the doors. The original mahogany staircase and sepia chiaroscuro trompe l'oeil paintings on the walls of the stairwell are usually covered by curtains but had been revealed for our benefit, and are the reason that the building is listed Grade I.

I am about to depart for a long offline solitary retreat (by the time this goes live I will already have started) so I'm trying to tie up the ends of jobs that are under way. Other stuff will have to wait. I have managed to clear all the boxes in the kitchen and most of the boxes in the garage, but the down side of this is that all the boxes still waiting for collection or disposal are now being stored in the Salon (my room downstairs), awaiting my attention at the end of the retreat. But I'd say we're now 80% of the way to having everything organised and in its place.

Trips here and there

Jephson Gardens, Leamington, June 2026

What with all the moving house and everything we lost momentum on the organisation of our annual ski trip. I'd been working with JW and JD for a while, choosing from a selection of dates, countries, resorts and accommodation types. We found a moment to revive the project, and now we are booked into a self-catering apartment in Ischgl, Austria at the beginning of February next year. One job crossed off my list. Except that now I have to work out how to get there and back.

Mum was slightly appalled by the length of my list of jobs, but it's the only way I can get through without forgetting important things. For example I am reminded of the need to keep chasing things like insurance renewal and quotes for work on the kitchen as well as keeping track of the refunds I'm owed for council tax, utilities and broadband. And the rest.

Recent trips out with mum: two, one to her friend who has been having treatment for cancer and then on to Lidl, and another trip to get ericaceous compost for the heather plant she bought on the first trip. While Lola II is away on holiday she has also given mum the responsibility for caring for a plant that needs a strict regime of 14 hours in darkness, so mum's green fingers are glowing emerald.

Meanwhile I took myself off to Mr M and Lola II for a very short break, since they were in the midst of preparing to go on the holiday mentioned above. I helped Lola II focus on clearing her room while she helped me focus on photographing the contents of six boxes of kitchen stuff that we offered to the rest of the family so that whatever is unwanted can finally leave the premises. [I estimate that mum and I are about three-quarters of the way through the process of merging the two households.] Then we entertained ourselves with a real treat - Lola II's new Spirograph kit, which she intends to lend to friends who have a similar nostalgic attachment to this amazing toy.

Back home, and my first session with my new Personal Trainer, Muscles 2. The sessions take place in a gym, and he must have thought I was joking when I said I wasn't going to do anything without my music on, because that stipulation was completely ignored and I had to endure the din that was being broadcast throughout the gym. As a first 'get to know each other' session it was OK - he worked me a bit too hard on the shoulders which are now quite sore, but the real issue is the music! I've paid up front for five sessions, but I'm also considering exploring other options.

Another trip out in between contemplating storage jars and two households' combined cutlery collection was to Tate Britain to meet a Buddhist friend who comes from Croydon. I'm sure I haven't visited Tate Britain since I was a child, and maybe not even then. My friend is a member so presumably knows the place quite well, but we wandered randomly from room to room, and sometimes a new room felt like a whole new realm as we switched from Pre-Raphaelite to some strange and modern installation then back to the nineteenth century and then to Henry Moore. They don't half have a lot of Turner.

Decorator Dave came to quote for redecoration of the kitchen, the insurance job that keeps on giving. I liked him and would like to give him the job, but I wonder if this is just the hope that comes with novelty and he will eventually become difficult to get hold of and pin down for a date just like all the others.

Lastly (for now) I visited Eastbury Manor House as part of London's Open House Festival, which "opens up and celebrates the city’s architecture, special sites and neighbourhoods." The added bonus is that the normal admission price is not charged. It's a Grade I listed 16th century manor house that once stood alone between Barking and Rainham surrounded by farmland right down to the Thames. It was very nearly demolished before World War I and has managed to retain just the gardens around it - otherwise it's now completely surrounded by housing. I joined a tour led by the Curator who described the work that's been done recently and what's planned, so I'd be interested in going back again next year when the gardens might be little more developed.

What I've been reading

The Well of Loneliness
by Radclyffe Hall

narrated by Cecilia Fage

"Stephen Gordon (named by a father desperate for a son) is not like other girls: she hunts, she fences, she reads books, wears trousers, and longs to cut her hair. As she grows up amidst the stifling grandeur of Morton Hall, the locals begin to draw away from her, aware of some indefinable thing that sets her apart."

A story that revolves around the lives of gay people, named 'Inverts' in the text, just over a hundred years ago. They were treated very badly in society but managed a bit better by banding together, and yet the final act of the story is that Stephen has to force her lover Mary to leave her so that Mary has a chance of a happy life. It's all a bit depressing, but interesting, and well written and narrated.

The Nightingale
by Kristin Hannah

"France, 1939. In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. Vianne's sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth."

It was a good book but very graphic in its recounting of the conditions of occupation and resistance in Second World War France. I wouldn't read it again, so it is the first on the shelf at Maternal Manor of books to be given away.

Ten Things I Love About You
by Julia Quinn

"Annabel Winslow, a country girl through and through, has received an offer to go to London for the season. The eldest of a family of eight, she knows that a good marriage might be the only thing that will save her family from ruin."

I picked this up as something easy to read while all the house removal was going on, and it was a perfect choice. Regency romance with straightforward characters having a lovely time, enter the villain who gets his comeuppance in an unpredictable way and all ends delightfully. It's now second on the shelf of books to be given away.

Kitchen Confidential
by Anthony Bourdain

"From his first oyster in the Gironde to his lowly position as a dishwasher in a honky-tonk fish restaurant in Provincetown; from the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop the Rockefeller Center to drug dealers in the East Village, from Tokyo to Paris and back to New York again, Bourdain's tales of the kitchen are as passionate as they are unpredictable, as shocking as they are funny. "

After I went to the recent screening of a film about his early career, I thought I'd re-read his first memoir which covers that time and much more. He writes well, and I first read it at a time when there weren't wall-to-wall TV programmes about chefs and restaurants and the catering trade, so a glimpse into this strange world was relatively new. Now I just hope that kitchens are no longer run in the way that he describes them back then: a crucible of bullying, drug abuse, overwork, misogyny and racism. I am also continuing to fulfil my obsessive need to get rid of everything I own because it too has been consigned to the shelf of books that will be given away.

Black Tag
by Simon Mayo

"When the West End Gallery in London's fashionable Coal Drops Yard is set alight, the fire service must use the list of paintings lodged with it - a grab list - to snatch the key pieces of art from the flames."

I picked this up from the library on impulse because I'm a big fan of Simon Mayo as a broadcaster ever since I was a teenager and he was on Capital Radio, and wondered what sort of author he is. Luckily he's a good one and it's a thrilling and suspenseful read, to the extent that I stayed up much, much too late to get to the end. That said, it's not without its flaws - it's about 10% too complicated, but that may be because I know nothing about art, journalism, far right politics and its opponents.

John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs
by Ian Leslie

"At the centre of The Beatles was the volatile, madly creative chemistry between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. This is the story of how two young men merged their souls and multiplied their talents to produce one of the greatest bodies of music in history."

I was slightly hesitant about reading this. On one hand I've wanted to read it ever since it came out; on the other hand the last time I immersed myself in the world of the Beatles I came a bit unstuck - somewhat overemotional and tearful. This time I've been fine, and it was a particularly wonderful experience because he writes their story using the songs they wrote, both together and separately, and I could listen to the music as it was being described. The author picked out meaningful lyrics and included information about how, where and when the songs were written and recorded, as well what was going on at the time. I'm just in awe of their talent and creativity.

Settling in to my new life

Jephson Memorial in Jephson Gardens, Leamington, June 2026

Alongside the search for a badminton club and a Buddhist group I started the hunt for a new Personal Trainer to replace Muscles (although I can't imagine anyone better). The nearest gym is a short walk away, so I dropped in to see if it would do, and have been put in touch with someone who takes as much time as I do to respond to text messages. Eventually I met him, he seems OK, and we've set up a few sessions to see if we get along.

I had to go back to Leamington because of a periodontist appointment that I couldn't move. I thought I might as well make best use of the day so I had a training session with Muscles as well as having a repeat blood test. I actually had a blood test before I moved away, but there was a 'lab error' so it's lucky I've had the opportunity for a repeat - if they mess it up this time I'll have to start again with a new local GP. I also tried to give mum's old VHS video player to Leamington's recycle warehouse, but there was a sign saying they couldn't take any more donations at the moment. I met Nameless Man for a cup of tea and mentioned the video player, and he took it for the Library of Things. Result!

Mum and I have started on the kitchen, weeding out all sorts of things that haven't seen the light of day for years, and hopefully putting more of the things she uses within her reach. There is so much that is no longer needed, both of mine and hers. Her friend came round and helpfully took away one or two things, and the family WhatsApp group means that some of the rest will find a new home, but I anticipate a new kitchen section in the local charity shop. I have promised mum that I will clear the boxes in the kitchen by the time I go away... because I have taken advantage of the certainty of having moved to book a whole lot of retreats and volunteering activity up to the end of the year. Then I will need to calm down and spend more time actually living here.

At various times this week we hosted Lola II, Mr M and Sister D who assisted with more unpacking and helpfully took various items away with them. The saga of the cooker continues - I think I wrote about the broken knob and the unsatisfactory replacements, but the next thing has been that the gas ignition spark failed, and mum thought that it needed a battery that is no longer available. I persuaded her to consider a new cooker, and went as far as investigating where we might get one second-hand (a brand new one seeming unnecessary). Then I actually looked at the battery (which was a standard size), took it out and put it in again and the spark is back. I still think a replacement would be an improvement to our quality of life, but that will have to wait until I have a bit more time to spend on it.

It's taken a couple of weeks but I've now applied for my 60+ Oyster card, which is the same as the Freedom Pass but funded by Transport for London rather than the London borough I live in. So I'll be getting free trains and buses (and trams etc) in London, which is the second big benefit I've attained simply by remaining alive, the first being my Senior Railcard. I went back to the library to make sure I understand how it works - the building is so small that they encourage you to reserve books you want to read rather than expecting to find them on the shelves. I also enquired about borrowing an OS map, which was promptly ordered for me, and then I made the classic error of not simply leaving the library without looking around. So I've borrowed two books, as if I didn't have loads already on my shelves waiting to be read.

This last weekend brought my first retreat with my new Buddhist Group, who started holding a Camping retreat when they couldn't meet any other way because of Covid. The tradition has continued, and there were nearly 30 of us in a field in Essex, meditating and chatting and generally doing Buddhism together, and it was very lovely and people were splendid. It's also been my only camping trip this year, which is very unusual.

Unpacking

May 2026

The box emptying continues, along with whittling down our joint possessions to something more manageable. My email is full to the brim with admin relating to both a change of address and transferring the bills to my name. It doesn't feel possible that I moved in only a week ago.

I have finally found a 'normal' badminton club, in Epping. When I was growing up here it is peculiar that we didn't travel in that direction - music school and most of my friends and the synagogue were south east, into London by tube was south west, and we might go up the M11 to Harlow or Cambridge, or maybe to High Beech where we picked blackberries and climbed trees. But Epping, Ongar, Abridge and the rest of Essex might as well have been on the moon, even though they are just as easy to get to as Ilford, Romford, Stratford and Walthamstow. I am learning fast about the geography of Essex and find it to be nicer than our adjacent London boroughs. But that is because I can drive. Public transport will take me much more efficiently into London than to the villages and towns of Essex.

In between unpacking and doing the admin I continue to frequent the local cinemas, mainly the Odeon in South Woodford for standard fare and the Forest Cinema in Walthamstow for more esoteric choices. This week I went to the Forest for the film about the chef Anthony Bourdain, then the Odeon for straight up dinosaur excitement. Mum has been preoccupied with gardeners - now that she can't look after the garden personally she has entrusted it to a variety of different folk, who for various reasons have not been satisfactory. She interviewed another one this week. I am keeping my head down on this one.

My school friend (who now lives in Nottingham) was my very first visitor at Maternal Manor. I'll have to give him some sort of pseudonym, which I have managed to avoid so far - he will henceforth be known as Doc, which is his moniker on any public-facing internet platform because he is an educator and doesn't want to be visible to his students. His sister lives round the corner where my infants and junior schools are, and she was looking after their mother until her death in July. 

His career has taken him all over the world, including long spells working in China, Indonesia and Malaysia, and his strong opinion, often stated, used to be that he could never set up a home outside London. Then he had to move to Nottingham and discovered, like the rest of us, that London has its pros but also very much its cons, and he now appreciates the provincial life. But his sister has many children and grandchildren and he has a strong connection to his family (he and his wife, Ms S, have no children) so he'll probably be in my neighbourhood quite a bit.

Lola II visited specifically to give me a hand with the unpacking, at which she performed excellently and was very welcome. She came up with ideas for where to put things, did some filing for me, entertained mum, and generally fulfilled her other designated role of 'responsible for morale'.

As a break from unpacking duties I spent Friday in London. The plan was to visit the V&A (it doesn't seem to be called the Victoria and Albert Museum any more) and then attend a Proms concert at the Albert Hall. But the free guided tour of the V&A was cancelled and after looking at the rooms containing Buddhist art I really couldn't raise enough enthusiasm for the rest of it. On the other hand, the Proms concert was terrific. I was given a free upgrade from a seat in the top circle to a box, and I really enjoyed the music - it was a Dutch-Turkish psychedelic folk-rock band backed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Not everyone's cup of tea perhaps, but I loved it.

Farewell Lola Towers

The wonderful and perfect Lola Towers, August 2026

Before I left there were a succession of 'last times' - with the local Buddhist group, the Birmingham Buddhists and many other friends. My last U3A walk opportunity was cancelled due to the heat, and my last U3A board games opportunity was also cancelled due to the two leaders being busy elsewhere. I did manage to have lunch with UJ, who has just returned from Ukraine where she has spent most of her time since moving out about 9 months ago. She has persuaded her parents to apply for visas at last now that conditions at home are so much worse, and they may look for a place in Leamington.

Removal was delayed by a day, and while I thought this would give me some time to have a break I really did need that day for organising. I labelled everything with its destination room, sorted out all the keys (and only found two that I don't think belong to anything), separated out and labelled the things I didn't want them to take (like cleaning gear), and the things I agreed to leave for the new occupants. 

Then the team arrived bright and early, with boxes and tape and paper and bubble wrap, saw how organised everything was and asked me if I had a military background. Four of them took three and a half hours to pack and load everything I own into their truck, which also included disassembling a wardrobe and my desk right down to component parts. They went off and I took a break to have lunch then started cleaning, which took me four hours. When I was ready to go it turned out to be surprisingly easy to leave the house behind, and I arrived at Maternal Manor too tired to unload the car. I went to bed early, but couldn't sleep until the early hours, even though I was physically exhausted.

Next morning the truck arrived at Maternal Manor with just two of the removal men, one of whom was tasked with the unenviable job of reassembling the wardrobe and the desk that he'd reduced to matchsticks the previous day. He didn't do too badly; only a few unimportant pieces left over although one of the shelves in the wardrobe is the wrong way round which will bug me forever.

Now mum and I are completely surrounded by boxes, and it will take quite a while to get everything out and in its proper place. We spent an entire morning sorting through the towels and bedding to decide what to keep from our joint collections. The item that always causes the most grief - my wireless printer - proved impossible to connect until I noticed that mum's printer cable could be used to set it up wirelessly via a USB cable, which sounds counterintuitive but I followed the instructions and it worked beautifully. It can't have been too bad a move if the worst thing so far is the stupid printer.

So that's that, the end of an era - more than 25 years in Leamington and I'm now a Londoner again, back living in the road where I lived throughout my school days.

Nearly there

Another from the Escher exhibition, London, August 2026

I had to sign some stuff in person with a witness and so did Lola II, but at last I was notified that the Compliance Department had given me the all clear and it was safe to exchange contracts with an agreed completion date. When exchange actually happened I was temporarily overcome with grief. This is actually going ahead, and after nearly 25 years I'm going to have to hand over to someone else my beautiful and perfect house, in its wonderful location, and move away. I can't take it back now.

Notifying institutions and changing addresses takes a surprisingly long time, and some accounts are very much easier to change than others. My broadband supplier was the least reasonable; car insurance costs more where I'm going; TV licensing have already worked out my refund. I've done about half the work on this. I've also been in touch with a few people that I'd like to meet before I go.

Maternal Manor is prepared for removals day as best it can be; all excess furniture has now left the premises and we've done quite a lot to clear cupboards and drawers. We haven't touched the kitchen yet - that will be a job for the first month after I move in and is likely to be challenging due to the amount of stuff I have and the kitchen already being full of mum's stuff. Then I went off to play badminton with the Oldsters, only to find that I got the day wrong and the hall was full of girls in leotards doing gymnastics. I have continued my search for a 'normal' badminton club and have one lined up for September that looks good.

In the middle of this there was an interlude at a party thrown by Lola II and Mr M, called Desert Island Desserts, where desserts were served that had been identified by guests as the one they would choose for their desert island (if they could only keep one). The desserts were delicious but my state of mind wasn't robust enough for the number of people and the amount of social chitchat required, so I had to take frequent breaks away from the throng.

Back home then, and back to the task in hand, trying to rid the house of even more unnecessary household items. A breakthrough came when someone agreed to take all the ring binders, lever arch files and plastic pockets that I have liberated from all my university and dietetic notes in the loft, and there are A LOT of them. I must remember to keep just a couple because I never want to have to buy any ever again. 

The annual national bowling competition began and I realised that I hadn't received my resident's pass to get me through security at the end of the road. They are saving money by employing volunteers instead of a security company, and the volunteers are so much stricter than the professionals were. They gave me a hard time about not having a pass but eventually agreed to arrange one for me, then challenged the man from the removal company who came to give me a quote, and wouldn't let my friend through at all when he came with his dog to go for a walk with me. The pass hadn't arrived by late afternoon so I wandered over to ask again, only to find that one of the security volunteers was my ex-boss from the Dietetics department at the hospital.

I have been surprised by my excitement at the partial solar eclipse. I think I have missed all previous opportunities to witness a solar eclipse, either because it was cloudy, I was otherwise engaged, in the wrong part of the world or who knows what. But I made a makeshift viewer out of a shoe box and had a good time projecting the image through a pinhole onto my wall.

The end of the week brought the British Heart Foundation van to collect some of the larger items of furniture that aren't going with me. They rejected a few things that I then took to the recycling shop at the tip. In the evening someone who described himself as a 'forager and chef' came to take away my fridge/freezer. When I retrieved all the documentation for it I discovered that it was bought in July 2000 - 26 years ago, and apart from cracks in a couple of the shelves it was still working perfectly. Then a local couple came to take the television and sound bar, which was quite a challenge. I had kept the box and the instructions but it was much heavier and more unwieldy than it looked and took three of us more than an hour to package it all up - they needed to make two trips. 

Just one more week now.

What I've been reading

The Invisible Man
by H. G. Wells

narrated by B. J. Harrison

"A scientist theorizes that if a person's refractive index is changed to exactly that of air his body does not absorb or reflect light, then he will not be visible. He successfully carries out this procedure on himself, but cannot become visible again."

Obviously everybody knows about this story, but how many people actually know what's in it? I was completely unprepared for such a dark and violent tale, and have to conclude that this is the first time I have read it, which is very surprising indeed. Given the opportunities that invisibility might present, the author chooses to go nowhere near what I would have expected.

Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales
by P. D. James

narrated by Daniel Weyman

"It's not always a question of "whodunit?" Sometimes there's more mystery in the why or how. And although we usually know the unhealthy fates of both victim and perpetrator, what of those clever few who plan and carry out the perfect crime?"

A perfect book of short stories of murder that manage to be utterly different from each other. Sometimes the murderer and/or the murdered are introduced right at the start, sometimes they pitch up towards the end of the tale, and sometimes they aren't who you think they are. I really enjoyed this book.

Spider's Web
by Agatha Christie

narrated by Hugh Fraser

"‘Supposing I were to come down one morning and find a dead body in the library, what should I do?’ she muses. Clarissa has her chance to find out when she discovers a body in her drawing-room. Desperate to dispose of the body before her husband comes home with an important foreign politician, Clarissa persuades her three house guests to become accessories and accomplices."

I was surprised to find this in the audio book library because I thought I knew a lot of Agatha Christie's work, but after I'd listened I found out it's an adaptation of a play she wrote. It's pretty good, and avoids many of the outdated tropes of her work, but that may be due to the work of the 'novelization'. Looking at the library again, there seem to be quite a number of her books that I haven't yet read...

Independence Day
by Richard Ford

"After the disintegration of his family, the ruin of his career and an affair with a much younger woman, Frank Bascombe decides that the surest route to a 'normal' American life is to become an estate agent in Haddam, New Jersey. Frank avoids engaging in life until the sudden, cataclysmic events of a Fourth-of-July weekend with his son jolt him back. "

For most of the book I really wasn't bothered. I didn't hate it, but wasn't engaged enough to care what happened next, which is why it's taken a long time to finish it. When I was about 90% of the way through it started to grow on me, and I've ended up thinking it's actually rather good. It won the Pulitzer Prize, and I'm starting to get a feel for what that is all about - literary excellence without necessarily being a page-turner.

The Eternal Legacy
by Sangharakshita

"An introduction to the vast range of Buddhist canonical literature. It covers all major sacred texts, summarizes their essential teachings and places them in their doctrinal and historical context."

This is an incredible resource that I couldn't have appreciated before now. Unlike Judaism, Christianity and Islam which only have a book or two of source material, Buddhism has a library of works describing the Buddha's life and teachings. Being originally an oral tradition and spreading throughout South East Asia, there are versions of the same books in Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese so additions and losses can be tracked and some idea of authenticity is available. It is also an incredible scholarly achievement.