What I've been reading

A Voice in the Night
by Andrea Camilleri

"Feeling his age, as his birthday rolls round once again, Inspector Montalbano decides to cheer himself up by dealing with a young driver's road rage in his own unique way. Back at police headquarters he receives an angry phone call from a supermarket boss; there's been a robbery at his store and Montalbano's colleague is treating him as a suspect."

The previous book I read, by Carlo Rovelli, was written in Italian and translated to English just like this one. But despite its challenging scientific material, that was a better translation and far easier to read than this rubbish. I'm aware that this series now features on TV, and I'm prepared to believe it might be quite good in that medium. But in print, apart from enjoying a large amount of seafood there's nothing that gives any insight into what the Inspector is like, and I didn't care in the least about him or any of the other characters either. And they are all men except his housekeeper, some unexplained woman he occasionally talks to on the phone, and a (naked) corpse. Absolutely not recommended.

Parade's End
by Ford Madox Ford

narrated by Bill Nighy

"The story of aristocrat Christopher Tietjens as his world is shattered by the First World War. It traces the psychological damage inflicted by battle, and the collapse of England's secure Edwardian values - embodied in Christopher's wife, the beautiful, cruel socialite Sylvia."

A very long audiobook that comprises four print books, so it was good value but needed quite a bit of commitment to get through. It was saved by the wonderful Bill Nighy, who is a terrific narrator and fits the material perfectly with his world-weary beaten down voice. The story meanders about among the different settings of England and the trenches, but the theme seems to be that everyone around him, led by his despicable wife, are liars intent on getting what they want at Tietjens' expense - in money or even at the cost of his life. It ends relatively well but I would have liked his wife to get her just deserts.

The Forgotten Waltz
by Anne Enright

"In Terenure, a pleasant suburb of Dublin, it has snowed. Gina Moynihan recalls the trail of lust and happenstance that brought her to fall for "the love of her life," Seán Vallely. As the city outside comes to a halt, Gina remembers their affair: long afternoons made blank by bliss and denial."

I have a problem saying no when offered a book to read even when I think it won't be much good, and this was one of those cases. Because the author features on my list of Classic books and I seemed to remember liking (or at least not disliking) that book, I thought it would be OK, but it wasn't. Nothing objectionable, just an account of an affair between two people who eventually left their spouses, and not much else. Like going on a walk in a demolition site - it's a walk, so that's good, but nothing attractive to see. I enjoy both walking and reading but if there's nothing of interest it's just an empty experience.

Hot Air: The Inside Story of the Battle Against Climate Change Denial
by Peter Stott

"Across continents and against the efforts of sceptical governments, prominent climate change deniers and shadowy lobbyists, Hot Air is the urgent story of how the science was developed, how it has been repeatedly sabotaged and why humanity hasn't a second to spare in the fight to halt climate change."

I know the author because he and his wife are friends of Lola II, and the book was a gift to her that she's lent to me. It's not only well written, especially given the fairly statistics-led nature of the narrative, but tells the fascinating story of climate change from the point of view of the scientists striving to find the facts, whatever they may be. The book was written before the resurgence of President Trump and the reversal of many positive steps towards slowing or halting humanity's descent into irreversible extinction. Obviously I can't predict what will happen but my best guess is that we're all doomed.

After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age
by Stephen Batchelor

"What does it mean to adapt religious practices to secular contexts? This book is the culmination of four decades of study and practice in the Tibetan, Zen, and Theravada traditions, and an attempt to set the record straight about who the Buddha was and what he was trying to teach."

I read every word, understood not more than half, and I'm not really sure what the point of the book is. I was given the book by a friend who I'm going to have to talk to about it, and have no idea what to say. Maybe he will explain. [Update - he did explain and it makes a bit more sense now. The author is probably trying to make the point that the Buddha was not a god, which confused me because I have never been asked to believe that he was.]

Artemis Fowl
by Eoin Colfer

narrated by Gerry O'Brien

"Twelve-year-old Artemis Fowl is a millionaire, a genius, and, above all, a criminal mastermind. But even Artemis doesn't know what he's taken on when he kidnaps a fairy, Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon Unit."

After the huge effort of the last audio book I thought I'd choose something much easier, a young adult book with a child protagonist set in a magical world. It was certainly a much easier read and had some nice ideas, but I won't be reading any more in the series.

More tales of travel, admin and water

Just before my year's entry ticket expired I managed to visit Hill Close Gardens in Warwick. It was the week when snowdrops are at their best, and it was really, really cold. Not much else was blooming so I didn't hang around, but I should go again when there's more to see and the wind is less biting. They are proud of their collections - not only snowdrops but chrysanthemums, sempervivums and 63 varieties of apple trees.

It's an interesting historical site too - in the 1840's when people living in towns didn't have gardens this site provided 'detached' gardens divided up into plots. Unlike allotments, people used them for pleasure, with lawns and summer houses as well as lots of fruit trees and flowers (although a few kept pigs too). Some of the plots were sold for housing in the 20th century, but just as all but one had fallen into dereliction and the diggers were on their way, local residents managed to get the site listed and it was saved for posterity. They then cleared it all up, and did lots of research into who had owned the plots and what they had looked like, restored some of the summer houses and then began opening for visitors.

My next outing was the annual Mr M & Lola II Film Festival, which I completely missed last year because I was ill. Not so this year, and the stand-out discovery was the French film "The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe", a slapstick comedy that had us all laughing. 

While I was in London I continued my efforts to link my Senior Railcard to my Oyster account. Mr M drew my attention to this possibility, but when I looked it up I found it needed to be done by a member of TfL staff in person, using an actual Oyster card - I've been simply using my contactless bank card for a long time. So I dug out my old Oyster card, but found I couldn't register it to the account unless it had been used in the last 8 weeks. So on this trip I used the card, after which I managed to register it to my online account. At West Ealing station they didn't have the right staff, but at Marylebone they were up for it - except that the card didn't show up as having been linked to the account. The saga continues.

The LTRP also continues, as it always will with such an old house, with a visit from Luke from Severn Trent Water to investigate the stain that has appeared in my front room. He confirmed that the meter is showing a small leak - he estimated 1 litre per hour, which doesn't seem particularly small to me. He's going to call in a team that will dig up the pavement around the meter and I'm hoping they will find the source of the leak, otherwise it will be another of those long-winded and potentially costly investigations.

Then my newest tradesman came to touch up the evidence of water staining and condensation in the porch, hall and kitchen. It was the same day that my new phone arrived, so I spent most of the day either entering passwords into apps or chatting to him about jobs he's done and the state of the world. The new phone keeps challenging me with passwords and connectivity and making unexpected noises and not having a 'back' button, but I'm sure it will all be sorted within a few weeks...

More GRUHI

Molecular model, Open University

I caught a cold last week which has more or less gone now, but it kept me away from my usual activities, and mostly indoors. So I spent some considerable time in front of the TV watching movies, but also in front of the laptop doing the heavy duty research and thinking that goes into choosing and buying a new phone when Mr MXF doesn't just give me one of his old phones. As well as that I carried on with the GRUHI project, with mixed results.

My current phone (an ex-Mr MXF model) is now definitely underpowered, its memory is full and it has started telling me that the latest version of apps will no longer run due to incompatibility with my old operating system. So my choices were between second hand phones of various ages, the cheapest of which was £100 and would last me a maximum of 2 years before it started complaining in just the same way. I'd get about 4 years out of a newer second hand phone at about £250, or there's something called the Fairphone at about £500 brand new, which is about the same cost as the sort of new Samsung phone I'd buy. Fairphone is an ethically produced product from the Netherlands, which is also repairable, and OS upgrades are guaranteed for about 8 years. I spent a lot of time balancing pros and cons, and went for Fairphone in the end.

A further GRUHI trawl around the house uncovered two old phones (as well as the one I'm currently using). Neither is worth anything in resale or trade-in terms, so I set off for my favourite charity shop with those along with more household stuff. On the way I was accosted by three lads who called out something to me about selling something to them for a penny. In London I would have blanked them, but this is Leamington, so I stopped for a chat. It turned out they were going to try the experiment of trading up items to see how much money they could make on an initial outlay of 1p, and I was on my way to a charity shop, so they were in luck. By the time I'd given them a silver cowboy hat and a rather nice metal water bottle one of them was starting to back off from this crazy lady, so I wished them luck and walked on.

It's surprising how on second look, things that I thought I needed to keep become very much less essential. I had a few things that I didn't think a charity shop could put out on shelves (an empty candle jar, a fairly grotty magnetic knife rack...) and a few more that were a bit too good to give away (two-way radios, Wi-Fi extender...) Now that I'm off Facebook there are still at least four platforms still available, so I'm using mostly Olio and Nextdoor, keeping Freegle and eBay in reserve. The molecular model set in the picture at the top went via Olio to someone whose friend home schools her children. I have my eye on Vinted if none of these work for the very few items of clothing that may be worth money (leather motorcycle jacket and trousers...) but I can't really get stuck in to the online selling until I have a new phone.

Mainly snow and water

Lake Tueda, Meribel Mottaret, February 2026

The skiing holiday was another good one, affected only slightly by one of our party (P) falling on the third day. Sitting on the piste, he was in immense pain around the left shoulder and thought it was dislocated; the paramedic on skis (Damien) thought it probably wasn't. Damien called an ambulance which arrived very promptly and delivered the patient to the local medical centre, where an X-ray confirmed a break right through the humerus just below the shoulder. P came back in a brace along with industrial strength French painkillers, including opium powder. We all hoped he would start wearing a smoking jacket and writing romantic poetry, but no, he just winced and went a bit grey and silent whenever the shoulder was disturbed. There followed some discussion with the insurance company, who finally came up with a plan to fly him home, accompanied by his wife, on the same day that the rest of us came home by train.

Aside from that notable event, the rest of the holiday went very well. In advance it had looked as though the weather would be very bad, but actually the clouds came in and it started to snow only on the last day. I went out with JW anyway despite the difficult conditions, and enjoyed his graceful dives into a couple of soft snow drifts. It started to snow again when it was lunchtime and we were just next to a restaurant; when we were ready to carry on the snow had stopped, so that was perfect.

One afternoon I decided to stay out a bit longer than my companions, and confirmed the fact that I have absolutely no sense of direction or navigational skills. I planned a route that would definitely not take me into an adjacent valley, only to find myself in the adjacent valley on a slope that was challenging to say the least. I managed to get myself back, but skied for about an hour longer than was sensible.

Back home I had to return to all the aspects of life that disappear on holiday. I took mum for a CT scan, which she found very helpful and I found very interesting. My main role was translating and transmitting whatever the various clinicians say to mum because they a) mumble and/or speak very fast b) use jargon c) have strong accents and d) don't look at her when they talk. 

At Lola Towers there is still water penetrating through my front wall. Glf (current favourite of all my tradesmen) came and had a look and we have a plan that includes contacting Severn Trent Water to see if it might be a leak around the water meter. The third estate agent visited; his estimate comes somewhere between the first and the second. Before I put it on the market I have decided to get the front painted, if it ever stops raining. I'm still waiting for a decorator to give me a date before the end of February to do some of the interior painting that's needed, and if we get on OK I'll ask if he'll do the outside work too. If not, estate agent 2 gave me a possible lead.

What I've been reading

Guilty Creatures: a menagerie of mysteries
by Martin Edwards (editor)

"Animals of all kinds have played a memorable part in countless mysteries, and in a variety of roles: the perpetrator, the key witness, the sleuth’s trusted companion."

A selection of short stories mostly by authors I don't know, with mysteries and detection of the kind that I very much enjoy. Just a random pick from the library that was good fun to read.

The Pickwick Papers
by Charles Dickens

"The irrepressible Mr. Pickwick and his fellow Pickwick Club members travel around the English countryside getting into all kinds of scrapes and adventures."

It's a very long book and started by introducing too many characters for me to follow, but once I got into it and began to remember who was who it improved. I reckon it would be an excellent choice for an audio book, particularly to hear Sam Weller and his father's voices.

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
by Carlo Rovelli

"These seven short lessons guide us, with simplicity and clarity, through Einstein's theory of general relativity, quantum mechanics, black holes, the complex architecture of the universe, elementary particles, gravity, and the nature of the mind."

Such a good book that I had to tell the person I was sitting next to going to France on the Eurostar train about it. Just seven short chapters but so magical, explaining concepts of physics so that you can't help but understand them. Skiing companion JD read it on the way back, and then passed it on to other skiing companion JW. What's more, I'll probably read it again when I get it back.

How Late It Was, How Late

by James Kelman

"One Sunday morning in Glasgow, Sammy awakens in an alley, wearing another man's shoes and trying to remember his two-day drinking binge. He gets in a scrap and wakes up in a jail cell, badly beaten and, he slowly discovers, completely blind."

This is written in Glasgow vernacular from the point of view of Sammy, a wrong 'un who has been trying to straighten out his life when he has a big unspecified row with his girlfriend, goes on a bender, loses his memory, gets beaten up by the police and wakes up blind. And that's all in the first few pages. What he does next is what the rest of the book is about, and despite having absolutely no common experiences to draw upon, I found it engrossing and extraordinary. It ends with him leaving his home to go south, and I for one want to find out what happens next. I hope he's all right.

Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity
by Carlo Rovelli

"Our understanding of reality has changed throughout centuries, from Democritus to loop quantum gravity. On a wondrous journey we are invited us to imagine a whole new world where black holes are waiting to explode, spacetime is made up of grains, and infinity does not exist."

My second time through this book, and I'm absolutely sure I can grasp some of the concepts if I give it another two or three goes. Given the truly mind blowing material, he explains it so well that for a minute or two I really thought I understood the ideas behind quantum gravity. Wonderful stuff.

GRUHI continues

Worcester, January 2026

My sojourn at Maternal Manor continues, where I try to make myself useful as well as exploring the locality. I am becoming familiar with a couple of key bus routes - I didn't use the bus much when I lived here as a youth because I'd always be going into London by Tube, and school was close enough to walk (or cycle), and I'd get lifts to most other places. When I did use the bus as a child, I would generally make some mistake and be too shy to ask anyone (often ending up in some bus terminal far from home) or leave something on the bus (most notable was my clarinet). Navigating the buses is now transformed - another thing to thank the Internet for.

My car enjoyed an outing to deliver some stamps and envelopes to one of mum's friends who has connections with Diabetes UK. Would it be a surprise to know that there are still stamps and envelopes lurking in the building? I found some more this week, in an old briefcase in the garage. I do believe these are the last, but wouldn't bet on it. Mum and I unearthed another box from a wardrobe and opened it with trepidation, but it contained old rheumatology journals - I never thought I'd be pleased to see those. This week I also found a large lever arch binder that contained about a hundred photocopied sheets of the engravings on Trajan's columns, each within a plastic wallet. Mum separated the paper from the plastic and now has even more scrap paper and a pile of plastic wallets that her carer took away for her son.

I also took mum to Lidl, which she enjoys, and then on to the municipal recycling centre where we dumped one of the four sacks of rubble that was excavated from the kitchen floor. The dehumidifier continues to extract moisture from below the floor but the low temperatures and the fact that the kitchen isn't actually heated means that it will probably take a long time to dry out. I uncovered the trench so there is more opportunity for evaporation, moved the microwave, and reorganised the kitchen cupboards to minimise the need to go from one end to the other across the trench all of the time. This made me very happy because now the pots and pans are next to the cooker and the plates and bowls are next to the microwave and fridge instead of the other way round.

Along with watching films (on DVD, streaming, at a local cinema and at a cinema a bus ride away), and going to two different Buddhist Centres, one in Highbury and one in Chelmsford, I played badminton with a local club. It has been surprisingly difficult to find a local club. Whenever I have ventured to other parts of the world there are usually two or three that I could try out, but all I could find here were Academies for training young people up to National standard, or courts that you can book in a sports centre, neither of which is suitable for me. Eventually I discovered a club that has a really complicated arrangement for booking a spot on one of four club nights during the week. I went to one of the sessions last Friday and will go again this Friday, but in fact the Saturday and Sunday evenings would be a higher standard that is nearer to mine. I'll have to put off that experiment until next time I stay.

Another social event was a whisky tasting with Lola II and Mr M, where the other guest was a friend of Lola II's who I hadn't seen for 25 years but was still utterly delightful. Due to the nature of the evening I became more drunk than I have been for many years, and I was still feeling not quite sober next morning when I had two Buddhist Zoom calls lined up. Totally worth it, but maybe not to be repeated.

I paid another visit to Lola II and Mr M in order to support Lola II's efforts at tidying and decluttering, where my role is split between police officer (stopping her from getting distracted or running off to do something less unpleasant) and Paper Shredder Operator. [This activity used to rank as second most satisfying after my own GRUHI project, but has been relegated to third behind the behemoth that is Maternal Manor.] During the visit we also started the eBay listing for the disposal of dad's fifteen (count 'em, FIFTEEN) 35mm slide projector carousels, and initiated the insurance claim for the water leak in the kitchen. I anticipate that the latter will be a recurring item in these reports for some time.

The highlight of my stay was a trip to Morrisons. This isn't one of mum's usual shopping spots because her neighbours and friends don't shop there, but I prefer their fruit and veg. So mum came with me, and they offer people the loan of a mobility scooter with a big basket on the front, and mum had a great time going wherever she wanted and taking her time because she wasn't having to stand and walk. And I enjoyed it even more because she was having so much fun.

On my travels I encounter an heirloom

Tomb of King John, Worcester Cathedral, January 2026

I've been trying for a while to post a blog entry every six days. A few things get in the way - making preparations for two trips at once was definitely one of those things. I am currently at Maternal Manor for a two week stay - we both survived one week last time I stayed, so I'm taking that as a win and going for the 'double or quits' option. I exaggerate, there really has been minimal friction so far. After just under two weeks I'll be going skiing without returning home in between, which is why packing was so complicated. At the moment I believe I've only left behind my 'ordinary' gloves (I did remember to bring ski gloves and fingerless mittens), and the power supply to my laptop. This was the more concerning item but I think I'll be able to do everything on mum's PC, which is actually a higher spec machine than mine. Both my laptop and my phone really need to be updated, but the thought of it may put me off for some time yet.

Anyway. I met the second Estate Agent representative, and the cat is very much among the pigeons because he had a very different opinion on both the marketing approach and the price. The difference is so significant that I now need to do my own research - isn't that what Estate Agents are supposed to do for you? - and potentially contact a third company. There are many to choose from in Leamington so it's not a problem, and luckily there's no hurry or deadline.

My tour guide in front of Worcester Guildhall

A very long time ago I attended an auction of delights in aid of the Birmingham Buddhist Centre's fundraising appeal, and I won a guided tour of Worcester. I was hoping to bring a particular friend along, but her health deteriorated significantly so we had to cancel. Then Lola II was going to come with me, but finding a suitable day was quite difficult, and then on the actual date agreed we were on our way when my car broke down. The tour finally took place at the weekend, with just me and my guide. It was cold but didn't rain until the very end, and I enjoyed it a great deal. After my guide left me I went back to the cathedral for a proper look around, but I wouldn't mind going back to Worcester for a proper weekend break.

So down at Maternal Manor for two weeks means a few things. Odd jobs around the house, but also doing more clearing out - it is quite astonishing how much dad managed to accumulate, and mum and I have had a few sessions on the easier stuff (photocopied books, notes for lectures - not difficult to consign to the recycling box). The difficult stuff is dad's personal effects - identity cards, passports, school books, diplomas, drawings. I asked Sister D and Lola II to come round so we could go through it together, and it nearly worked, except Lola II was ill and couldn't be there in person so we stuck her on Zoom while the three of us sifted through everything. It has made a difference, but there is still quite a lot more to do, but luckily no particular urgency at the moment.

Mum and I have been plotting how to get rid of some of the bigger items, some of which may be worth something but mostly not, we thought. Charities will collect saleable furniture for free, and the Council will come and collect three items in any condition, but we've got to get them outside and protected from rain. I think it would probably be worth waiting for better weather, but the first targets are the sofabed with the disintegrated foam mattress, the huge wooden wardrobe that still needs emptying and will have to be dismantled to get it down the stairs, and the oval kitchen table that dad made but forty years on is now not all that stable and surplus to requirements.

There is also a big bookcase that mum thought might be worth 50 or 60 quid - I was sceptical, having had such trouble giving away my bookcase for nothing, but that one was Ikea and this one definitely wasn't. I took a couple of photos and some measurements, and ran it past Lola II and Sister D to see what they thought, and Lola II ran it past ChatGPT. Oh me, oh my, after quite a bit of this and that, it turns out to be a genuine Swedish design classic worth several THOUSAND pounds. Which was, to say the least, a surprise. Mum then mentioned that yes, she had inherited it from someone who had definitely furnished her house in style. So now we have the very welcome task of having to actually sell it, which is quite a lot harder than asking the Council or the British Heart Foundation to come and take it away for nothing.

Visiting and being visited

Lola Towers, January 2026

It's been very cold indeed. Lola II and I forgot that she really shouldn't visit Lola Towers during the winter, so she enjoyed my new heated blanket while also serving as encouragement to my ongoing efforts at shedding surplus stuff. With her help I took down quite a few items from the loft, but the most excellent service she provided was to thread the lace back into the cuff of my Wellington boot, which took a very long time. She also modelled various items that I was offering to particular people, sang songs in the car with me when we were held up on the motorway for an hour, made tea, and was generally in charge of Morale.

I continued to attempt to give away my huge bookcase, with several enquiries leading to nothing, but finally someone who was serious took it away. I was expecting its removal to reveal horrors in the wall behind it but nothing horrific emerged, so that's one bullet dodged. I imagine that many people are not looking to spend much money in January, so I'll be trying to sell the few items of value that I have in February or March.

Trips I have made - one to the north where we ate pizza and congratulated one another on progress made in various aspects of life; one to mum where I feel I was helpful by way of Organising; one to Oxford with Sister D which was quite cold, drizzly, then rainy but the Weston Library was as good as ever and we had lots of time to talk. A more local trip took me to badminton at the height of the snowfall. "This is crazy," I was thinking as I drove at 15mph, slowing down for junctions, trying not to use the brakes and turning corners very carefully. But I needed to play badminton after more than two weeks off, and there wasn't anything like the amount of snow that was forecast, and by the end of the evening it was already sleet and slush.

Cousin M and her son visited from Seattle en route to Spain, and we all met at Maternal Manor and caught up with family history and current goings on, followed by an excellent trip to the Royal Academy of Music in London for a student performance of Trial by Jury. My enlightened music teacher at junior school was quite a character, completely indifferent to the musical limitations of under-11's. He encouraged composition, percussion and harp players (as well as your traditional instruments) and we even had a school orchestra. Together with one of the other teachers he also staged productions of Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. I still remember them - Pirates of Penzance was one, and Trial by Jury was another, where I was chosen as understudy for the part of the Usher. It's now FIFTY years later but some of it was spookily familiar. Anyway, I enjoyed it a great deal.

The official process of moving on from Lola Towers has started with a visit from a representative of an Estate Agent. She found the property bigger than she expected, called the garden 'generous' (which it has never been to me), and showed me comparisons with other local properties that she could find. We agreed on the ballpark figure that might be asked, and the next stage will be a similar visit from a second Estate Agent representative.

What I've been reading

Science Fictions: Exposing Fraud, Bias, Negligence and Hype in Science
by Stuart Ritchie

"Bias, careless mistakes and even outright forgery influence everything from austerity economics to the anti-vaccination movement. There are disturbing flaws in today's science that undermine our understanding of the world and threaten human lives."

Very interesting, if a little depressing to think that how many current scientific ideas may be built on sand. He does have some great ideas for how the situation might be improved towards the end of the book, but I'm not sure whether scientists and their publications are actually looking for something to increase the reliability of their results.

Thinking in Numbers: How Maths Illuminates Our Lives
by Daniel Tammet

"In Tammet's world, numbers are beautiful and mathematics illuminates our lives and minds. Using anecdotes and everyday examples, Tammet allows us to share his unique insights and delight in the way numbers, fractions and equations underpin all our lives."

He writes very well, and introduces numbers in a more sophisticated way into lived examples. For example, working through his particular mental process of finding factors of a number - not that I would or could do it that way, but it's fascinating to imagine. But it's not all numbers - there's poetry, history and more.

Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle
by Manda Scott

narrated by Philip Stevens, Jerome Flynn, Liza Goddard

"In AD 60, Boudica, war leader of the Eceni, led her people in a final bloody revolt against the occupying armies of Rome. It was the culmination of nearly twenty years of resistance against an occupying force that sought to crush a vibrant, complex civilization and replace it with the laws, taxes and slavery of the Roman Empire."

A very long book, but well narrated and went along at the right pace. A good sign was the fact that I could (mostly) tell all the characters apart, although hearing their strange ancient British names meant that I didn't have the same recall as I would if I saw them written down. I think there are more in the series; if they weren't so long I might read another.

After the festivities, retreat

Wales, September 2025

Another year gone by, and for me the overall flavour is that it was a good one. This was helped, no doubt about it, by my withdrawal from accessing any form of news except local news and other specific topics - assisted dying and films being the main ones. 

My book log for the year says I read 66 books, of which 19 were audio books. Only 8 of them gained my top rating, and 3 of those were books I'd read before. This is probably because I'm still obsessively churning through the list of literary classics like a gambler hoping for a big win, because very occasionally I've come across an absolute masterpiece which raises my hopes that it will happen again.

Volunteering went well last year - the international badminton, several Buddhist roles and the Warwick Folk Festival. After a difficult period where I recognised I'd overcommitted my time, I have been much more diligent about not doing too much, and it's paying off with more time to focus on important stuff and generally ending up in a much better mental state.

After the quiet Christmas I embarked on a home online retreat led by good friends, which extended over New Year. I don't find it easy to set up retreat conditions at home - I have to use the laptop to access the retreat so it can't be put in a cupboard and forgotten. Nor, on this occasion, could I turn off the phone. An interesting point to note was that the WiFi signal kept dropping out despite the router being in the room next door. I managed to resolve this by opening the wardrobe door... This morning when the retreat had ended I realised quite how much I had benefitted from pausing most everyday activities. 

So all is well at Lola Towers, and the flavour of coming year is set to be the taste of potential: big changes that are just peeking over the horizon.