Threads of my life

April 2022

So many low importance things keeping me super busy, which is how I like it, I suppose. We've got Buddhist activity, travel, Ukrainian cat news, Pub Next Door update, and plenty of family and travel news.

Let's start with the Buddhists. Long-term readers may remember my Mitra ceremony almost a year ago, when I became a Buddhist in the presence of only 14 people (plus more on Zoom) in a large unfamiliar hall mostly wearing masks. It was not the sort of event I had hoped for, but we really didn't know how long this pandemic would last and I'd already waited a year. But now we had four more people in our group who wanted to become Buddhists, and this time we had a wonderful gathering in our familiar hall with about 50 of their friends and family and the ceremony and chanting and photographs we weren't allowed to have a year ago. It really feels like our little group is becoming properly established at last.

The Ukranian cat news isn't so good. In order to bring the cat to the UK, an application has to be made for a licence and another application for home isolation to try and avoid official quarantine, and I'd left this to UJ who seemed to have the thing in hand. But a month passed and nothing had happened and I decided to step in and give a bit of assistance, phoning the agency responsible to find out what was going on. It turned out that the application had not been recorded and nothing at all was happening, despite the chain of emails that UJ forwarded to me. 

I spoke to them several more times to clarify various requirements - having a microchip and rabies certificate is accepted, but the animal has to have left Ukraine for 30 days before it can be allowed into home isolation, and while this would have been fine while UJ was living in Poland, she had to go back to Ukraine to help her parents, at which point the clock restarted. If she arrives in the UK before the 30 days have elapsed then the cat has to be quarantined for the remaining time, and if she stays in Europe outside Ukraine for 30 days then her visa to enter the UK expires. And now I am away from home for a fortnight, the second week of which I'm on a retreat and therefore not contactable.

I left this with UJ and heard nothing for a couple of days while she returned to Poland to retrieve all her possessions from there and bring them back to Kyiv, and then continued to hear nothing. I filled in all the information about me in the two forms that would be required, scanned them and sent them to her, she has been in touch with the quarantine people to confirm all these facts, and that's where we stand now.

Let's leave that situation there, and talk about the pub next door, where the garden is looking absolutely stunning. They've replaced the railings with solid doors so a photo isn't easy, but there are gazebos, mirrors, fresh paint, planters, proper lighting, and no doubt price rises before the Commonwealth Games starts at the end of July. I hardly go in there at all nowadays, but a few days ago one of the gates was open and I went in to have a chat with a neighbour, who also updated me on the parking situation for the Games, which will depend on a good deal of fair play and goodwill from the residents. I am hopeful that this will work out well.

I have been down to mum and dad twice this week, the first time to take them to a straightforward hospital appointment, and the second time to stay for a day and a night while Lola II took mum to a tea party, staying in a hotel and then visiting Eltham Palace. What a treat. They had a lovely time, as did I, and on the first day dad and I listened to some of Bach's concertos including dad's favourite, the double violin concerto - he often relates the story of how when he was young he and a friend played it in a concert, swapping places when his part became too difficult. Then on the second day we listened to Handel's Messiah and discovered that the CD was damaged and the last few tracks on the CD wouldn't play properly. Still, the music has recurred many times in my head and probably won't go away for some time. That Handel knew how to write a catchy tune.

I went to see a friend with a dog the next day, and then the following day Sister D introduced Lola II and me to the Royal Courts of Justice and the Inns of Court where she used to work in the late 80's and early 90's. We saw bits of two cases being conducted, one an appeal to quash a conviction for working in a cannabis factory claiming the individual was compelled due to trafficking, and the other a landlord and tenant case. They were both very interesting, and we talked about the various aspects of the process - the fact that this is open justice held where anyone can watch the cases but few can afford to access it; the difficulty of using language precise enough to prevent misunderstanding. Afterwards we had lunch, walked around the Inns of Court and its lovely gardens and visited into the Temple Church. It was a lovely day.

I came back to Sister D's house, picked up the car and drove to the campsite where I am now typing this in the office building, about to sign off for a week's retreat.

May 2022