Meeting in person

View from Bredon Hill, May 2021

Lots going on as usual. In vaccination news, as I suspected, the first wave of vaccinations is complete and the clinic is only opening on a couple of days a week. I managed to work one shift but it wasn't busy, and I had another shift booked but it was cancelled. Managers have been negotiating to keep the clinic open by making it available for public booking, and I think that's going to happen. I am 80% confident that I will be paid at the end of June...

The Commonwealth Games 2022 continues to loom over the residents of my little cul de sac. We had a meeting in the pub garden, and a committee was formed which will liaise with the District Council and the Games Committee to make sure that residents are considered when plans are made and contracts awarded. I still haven't made my official response on the Council website where planning permission is being sought, but I have seen some of the plans and the discussion at the meeting was very illuminating. 

It is anticipated that 2,500 spectators will attend two sessions per day for the nine days of competition. In addition there will be a media and broadcast centre, security, and car parking needing to be allocated for spectators as well as officials, staff and competitors. The current proposal allows for the erection of large spectator stands that will extend over the pavement and into the road and displace about half the residents' parking for up to three months, as well as blocking two of the three entrances to the park.

The main issues are the proposed three months of disruption for the sake of nine days competition, and the fact that residents are not mentioned when it comes to parking allocation. Some people are also concerned that the entrances to the park that will remain open are on the far side and there isn't a safe road crossing. So the committee would like to prioritise remaining parking space for residents by identifying those who particularly need to park close by - people who can't walk too far or perhaps families with small children - and bookable spaces for loading and unloading. I should be fine on account of having a garage.

There has been quite a bit of socialising since restrictions were lifted to allow meeting indoors. I continue to enjoy the company of the Buddhists, and we met in person on a May Bank Holiday weekend for a walk near Evesham. The weather was absolutely perfect, as it has been most of the time since the cold, wet weekend when Lola II and I visited Malvern. The sun also shone on another get together in person to say farewell to one of my badminton tribe, who is moving away. I had both my work leaving parties - low key lunch in the Diabetes Centre with the diabetes team, and pizza with the Dietitians. And Christmas finally arrived with a weekend visiting the friends who were going to host Christmas 2020. Presents were exchanged and Christmas pudding was eaten, only five months late.

And there's more news from the Buddhists. Normally when someone decides to become a Buddhist, as I did a year ago, there is a ceremony. Because we are a small satellite of the Birmingham group, previously this has been celebrated in Birmingham. We are trying hard to establish ourselves as a viable independent group, and one of the ways to do this is to try and hold the ceremony locally rather than in Birmingham.

What with one thing and another, it hasn't been possible to meet for the ceremony - other groups have been doing them online, but we thought we would wait until we could meet in person. This ought to have been straightforward, but while we have been online the church hall where we used to meet is being rented out to a daytime nursery. We want to continue to offer people the option to stay online as well as meeting in person, so we went there to test out the technology. While it was a resounding success in respect of laptop, projector, mobile phones and data plan, the actual environment has changed from a calm, green countryside hall where you can look through the windows at fields with horses or cows, to a busy room full of toys, games, paints, books and cabinets with clutter on every available surface.

So unless the nursery is prepared to clear a lot more space for us, we now need a different venue for the ceremony, and possibly also for our group when it starts meeting in person again. And, depending upon where that is, we need to start considering acquiring the tech that we'll need and trying it out, all before the date we've decided upon in July. Normally I would be happy to manage the whole tech project, but on this particular day I'll be fully occupied with more spiritual matters. The hunt is on for a suitable venue with just a month to go.

p.s. I'm not sure whether to be glad or sorry that the wisteria lives on...

Wisteria: alive! May 2021