Saturday 25 December 2021

Boosting and excitement

Close up of pink petals
Riverhill Himalayan Gardens, June 2021
Happy Christmas! I'm off enjoying myself with friends, but here's a scheduled post for you to enjoy.

My last vaccination shift was more interesting than the previous ones. Not because we were busy - oh no, in a 12-hour shift from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. there were a total of 83 customers. Someone offered a different theory this time: being aware that the Covid vaccine can make you feel a bit rough for a day or two, perhaps people are too busy in the run up to Christmas to risk any self-inflicted illness? But I think it's more likely lack of advertising of the availability of walk-in as well as booked appointments, and the terrible historical situation of parking at the hospital, even though there is designated and available free parking for the vaccination clinic. And it's partly because that day we were offering the Moderna booster, and quite a few people wanted Pfizer so went away without getting their vaccine.

Anyway, I had been ignoring the fact that a couple of my mandatory training modules were overdue. I had done all the online modules, but hadn't bothered with the in-person sessions because prior to all the vaccine booster action I had thought I might not get any more shifts. But eventually I had to confess, and was allowed time off from the vaccination shift for my resuscitation and manual handling training, because with on average only one person coming in every eight minutes I could be spared for an hour or two. 

Both modules are required annually so I've done them many times before, but this year the Covid precautions have been incorporated into the resuscitation training. In reality (not the training) everyone would have to dress up in PPE with special masks for a cardiac arrest because cardiac compressions are potentially aerosol-generating procedures. The poor unconscious patient's face even has to be covered until everyone is protected and before the oxygen mask is applied. Other than that it's all pretty much the same as in previous years, with the fancy shmancy defibrillator telling you whether your compressions are the right speed and the right depth and when to stand clear while it analyses the heart rhythm and tells you whether to apply a shock or not.

So that all went well, and I came back to the vaccine clinic and the next person I vaccinated was so incredibly wound up for their first dose that we arranged to vaccinate them on the couch rather than sitting up on a chair, where they promptly fainted. The trainer who half an hour before had been assessing my abilities to carry out chest compressions and use the defibrillator gave me a wave of recognition as she turned up in response to the medical emergency call. The patient woke up before too long and was eventually transferred to the main hospital observation ward. They didn't look too bad as they left our clinic, all things considered. At least I'd managed to give them one dose of the vaccine.

There was no such excitement after my manual handling training, which contained the usual 'pick up this empty box from this trolley and put it on the floor, then pick it up again and put it back on the trolley'. The trainer was a most amusing man who tried to give the dry material a little bit of interest by incorporating a quiz, which I won (simply by participating while almost everyone else sat mute and embarrassed). The prize appeared to be an ex-library book about mental health in primary care, and despite the protests of the trainer I didn't take it away with me. He also peppered his talk with anecdotes including the one about the hoist that fell on the patient when the brakes were wrongly applied, and the one about the person who tried to remove his contact lens with tweezers.

One of the other members of the vaccination team sought me out in the afternoon specifically to ask me if I was all right after the fainting episode. This team are really nice to work with. I've booked another shift in January after all my holidays are over.

Tuesday 21 December 2021

Boosting and boredom

Fountain depicting Perseus and Andromeda
Witley Court, June 2021
Not much of note going on here at Lola Towers as the winter sets in, and we are approaching a time when we ought to stop socialising due to the ongoing pandemic, but instead we are about to embark on the annual round of super-socialising. Our leaders have nobody's interests in mind but their own and those of their rich friends, and consider the rules designed to keep us safe and the NHS tottering on applicable to anyone but themselves. It is contemptible.

With that off my chest, I can report that the vaccine booster programme seemed likely to need all the people it could muster, so thinking I would be needed I logged on to see what vaccination shifts might be available, and signed up to a few. On the first of these, quite a few people joined me who had not been vaccinating regularly for a few months, and there weren't many of us, so I was ready to be rushed off my feet. During the whole 8-hour shift only 150 people turned up to be vaccinated (at our busiest we can manage between 500 and 600) and I nearly died of boredom. 

The next shift was similarly well-staffed, and even fewer people came. I volunteered to go home early - in the remaining 6 hours there were only 24 people booked in. We think that the main problem is lack of advertising the availability of vaccination boosters, combined with the hospital's notorious parking problems. But we may be wrong. Other parts of the country are reporting 4-hour waiting times. In our little Portakabin nobody waited more than 30 seconds.

Back home Ilf had finished the majority of the decorating except for a couple of bits where the damp was evident, and Glf the builder came to have a look. He will come back in the spring for the pointing, and recommended a roofer who has not yet turned up. The LTRP really is a gift that keeps on giving. I was also quite uncertain about the colour I had chosen for the hall, which ought to be apricot but looks suspiciously pink in certain lighting conditions. I am getting used to it.

There has been a badminton match, which we won, and a trip to see mum and dad in which I battled with the phone and broadband company, and I think we won that bout as well. I dithered about whether it would be responsible to attend various social events, and decided to cancel the Buddhist film night but attend the Mr MXF company Christmas dinner, which was lovely. I even visited Lola II and Mr M on the way, and it's been a long time since I was there.

Christmas cards are written and sent and the few presents I require are wrapped and waiting downstairs. All that's needed now is for the Government to institute further measures to try and prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed. I wonder if they will?

Friday 10 December 2021

Just one book this time

Image of the book cover

Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
by Robert M. Pirsig
"Here is an unforgettable narration of a summer motorcycle trip across America's Northwest, undertaken by a father and his young son. A story of love and fear, of growth, discovery and acceptance, that becomes a profound personal and philosophical odyssey into life's fundamental questions."
I first read this book either in my late teens or early twenties, which was in the mid-1980's. It made such a huge impression on me that it became my favourite book, always number 1 whenever I was asked. And yet I'm not sure that I have ever read it again. Why is that, when it is my 'favourite book'?

I think it might be about denial and delayed gratification and my upbringing and 'conditions', as the Buddhists would say.

Once, I was given a present of a painting kit. It was a brilliant present, I was delighted and excited and looked forward to opening the box and getting it out and painting the picture. But I never did. I never even opened the box, and the only reason I can put forward, with hindsight half a century later, is that once it was painted I wouldn't be able to look forward to it any more. Somehow, looking forward to it was better and more pleasurable than actually painting it.

It's possible that's why I never re-read my favourite book. Imagining reading it was giving me such pleasure that actually reading it might be a disappointment.

Well, no longer. I have been trying for quite a while to simplify my life and dispose of possessions, and one of the ways to do that has been to whittle down my collection of books, which means re-reading some of the old ones. And going away for a week's retreat would provide lots of reading time. (It didn't, but that's another story). I picked this book out, my favourite book, to re-read at long last.

If I'm honest, I was pretty nervous. If I didn't like it, what would that mean? But I was also fascinated to find out, and see if the past became present and maybe I'd gain more insight into myself 40 years ago.

Reading the book was fine. It was illuminating. It was thought provoking. I realised that at the same time as I was reading and taking in the story I was also evaluating the experience and bringing to mind my earlier self - what did she see in it? how come it made that number 1 spot in the favourite book charts? would I still put it there? I was reading it as me now and marvelling at that young woman.

It is a complicated book weaving together two completely different stories - one about a man on a motorcycle road trip with his son, and the other about an earlier time in his life before he became insane. I have been surprised to detect in it many of the seeds of my current situation, some Buddhist philosophy, and I wonder if I had followed up and paid more attention to the content I may have made better choices and approached equanimity sooner. But I think that the words and sentences and paragraphs of strange philosophical description spoke to that young woman because it described something she recognised about the way her mind worked that seemed to be different from how everyone else's minds seemed to work, on the scanty evidence she could glean from what they said and did.

[Writing this, here, in this moment, I have been struck like a thunderbolt by the fact that the author refers to his former self in the third person, as if he were a separate being, and I have unintentionally done exactly the same thing.]

On the retreat and in general within the Buddhist context, much time is spent talking about the mind, how it works, how to access its tendencies, how to influence and change it. As someone who has little access to the workings of her own mind and no particular affinity for psychology, this is always a struggle. Occasionally I get a little glimpse of some truth before it scurries away and hides behind some neurones and synapses. 

Year 2 of my study class is more challenging too, and we are encouraged to present a 'project' after each module, to expand on something that we have found interesting. I had a mini crisis at the end of the latest module, and after a kind and supportive conversation with our teacher I was given a dispensation - I wouldn't have to present a project if I didn't want to. Almost immediately I discovered that I did want to, following a chance comment by one of the group alongside an experience I had on my previous retreat.

That other retreat was at the headquarters of the Buddhist movement I've joined, where the founder lived at the end of his life and where he is buried. He was a voracious reader as well as an inspirational teacher (I'm told), and created a whole movement from nothing at all but his passion for the Buddha's teaching. Anyway, one of the buildings in that centre is the Library, so I thought I'd have a look at that, and was puzzled to see no more than a couple of bookcases. Another small room seemed to have some more books, but there was someone there working at a table in the middle.

"Are you the librarian?" I asked.
"Not exactly," she said.
"Can I come in and have a look?"
"Of course."

So there were about ten more bookcases, and not all that interesting - they contained translations of other books into various languages as well as some texts from different Buddhist traditions (e.g. Zen, Tibetan and others). But I had a good look just in case there were any more interesting titles, and after I got to the end, the Non-Librarian said: "Would you like to see the other books?"

It turned out there were two more whole rooms crammed with books of all sorts, the 'real' collection. Actually, not all sorts. There was every philosophy book and author, plenty on religion and faith, nature, arts and humanities, poetry, and probably more that I can't remember. But nothing about science beyond James Lovelock and Bill Bryson. It is clear that the founder of the movement was hugely charismatic, well read, and inspirational, but he was not a scientist.

Until I met Buddhism my faith was science - perhaps I should call it Scientism. Now I am a Scientist Buddhist, or a Buddhist Scientist - the two faiths coexist very nicely with barely any contradiction. And this is what I'm going to talk about for my project, specifically about the preciousness of life, the certainty of death, along with the usual 'Actions Have Consequences' and the existence of suffering. But that's not what this blog post is about.

I finished my 'favourite' book at home after my retreat had ended, and pondered what might have resonated so strongly with my earlier self. It must have been a challenging read, and I doubt that I understood half of it. It's probably the only book on philosophy that I would have read until recently. Maybe I thought it would reflect well on me to have this favourite book? Anyway, I have concluded that I can't say why it became a favourite, and while I found it satisfying to read again I think I will have to demote it from the top spot, which means that 'Catch 22' is promoted to number 1. Now that's a book that I have re-read several times, and it still delivers.

Saturday 4 December 2021

A cold welcome home

Buddha statue in a field
Taraloka Retreat Centre, November 2021
It seems like a long time ago that I went off on retreat for a week into the wilds of the Shropshire-Powys border land. It was a peaceful, contemplative interlude, allowing all the responsibilities of ordinary life to be shelved for a while, where all I needed to do was keep an eye on my watch and turn up for things. And if I hadn't turned up and had missed a few things, that would have been fine too. It was wonderful.

Anyway, coming back to the real world I made a mental note to turn the heating down next time rather than turning it off altogether for a week. I spent all of Sunday out of the cold house, however, doing a busy vaccination shift during which it snowed quite heavily. It took about three days for the temperature in the house to rise to a comfortable level, but it did give me an excuse for lighting a real fire, the first this winter.

Ilf was booked in to start the next phase of LTRP decoration this week, in the porch and hall downstairs. He had somehow forgotten that there is always more complexity when it comes to my jobs and had only allowed three days, within which he managed only a little actual decorating. This is partly because I rely on him for other jobs around the house (he put up some shelves for me and cleaned some high windows this time) and also because of the damp I mentioned before, which delayed some of the painting. Dlf the Damp Man came round on Wednesday, but Ilf and I had already come to the conclusion that it's probably cracks in the mortar letting water penetrate, and I need pointing. Glf is coming round next week to have a look.

While he was here, Ilf mentioned one of his other customers who is having difficulty booking and attending a vaccination session because of being new to the area and not having a car. So I offered to help out, which is one of the delightful aspects of being able to organise my working life at my own convenience.

What else? I have been to an Orthodontist to explore the option of improving the state of my teeth using an alignment device - the invisible braces that have replaced the metal 'birdcage' that I wore in my teens. This only raised further questions, so it's back to the dentist to talk about what's next. My work for Mr MXF reached an impasse in trying to create an online shop using one approach, so I now have a different approach to explore, this time using strange creatures like Gitlab, Github, Gitpod and Cuttlebelle to learn how to build a website. And there has been badminton again - my back has recovered enough to play (and win) a match.

Three white ducks on the canal
The canal at Taraloka