Just like old times

Kew Gardens, October 2022

It's been a week like it was in the old days, when I optimistically used to fill my diary on the basis that I don't have to go to work so I must have lots of time, and then I find that I don't. All the things I've done have been fun or helpful or both, but I need to remember to keep some days free of commitments because I was too tired for badminton and that will not do.

Since the last post I've played in a badminton match, went for a walk with the U3A, and did some work for Mr MXF which consisted of chatting to a young man in the television department of Currys to find out what his knowledge and experience is of HDR, one of the standards used in media and TV. Then with a clear conscience I journeyed south for the Mr MXF Christmas party, which involved playing board games, receiving party bags containing chocolate and toys, dinner, speeches (short ones), Secret Santa, and then back to the MXF/BL2 house to watch Barbie on his new super-TV and sound system.

On my way back north I dropped in on Lola II and Mr M for lunch and a film, next day I went for a dog walk with a friend, board games with U3A, gave blood, fitted in a meeting for coffee with my friend from Brazil who has come home to try and sort out some financial stuff, drove to mum and dad for lunch and admin (ongoing communication with Thames Water in particular) and home in time for a Blues gig at my favourite Temperance bar.

Next day I met Lola II in Oxford, a bit later than planned because she had an senior moment which led to her finding herself at Heathrow airport by mistake. But we had a lovely lunch in a friendly pub and went to the Weston Library again - they have really interesting exhibitions, this time about Chaucer, the Alphabet and John Playford ('The Dancing Master').

Then I was back with the U3A walkers before being visited by Sister D and her husband, who treated me to a poinsettia and a curry and I treated them to an episode of Taskmaster (an old episode) and a bed for the night. They carried on to their destination while I had my Christmas concert. Due to the absence of a few key players I ended up sight reading the 4th clarinet parts which had a few unexpected solos, but I managed not to let the side down.

UJ returned from her trip to Kyiv two weeks ago, but Saturday was the first evening that we were both at home, so we caught up with a couple of the latest Taskmaster episodes. She's off again in about a week and I'm not sure we'll have any other evenings together before she goes. Then there was a coffee morning social with the Buddhists on Sunday morning, two Buddhist-related Zoom meetings as well as the usual Tuesday evening meetings. Thankfully, next week is due to be much quieter.

How I spend my time nowadays

Self portrait with skipping rope, 1969

I've still got a collection of old school books, certificates and pictures that I drew when I was very young. I'm not sure how I feel about the dilemma of keeping vs throwing away, but while I can rest easy with getting rid of university notes, these documents are much more interesting. I spent a weekend working out which pictures I might frame, including repurposing frames I already had, ordering new ones for delivery (one of which arrived with the glass completely smashed but was replaced without quibble), and shopping in person. There's still more to do with all this, but I'll come back to it when I have another surge in interest.

It's been a while since I reduced my paid work to the dribble that I do for Mr MXF, and although my evenings and weekends are fully committed to the Buddhists, badminton and family, I have a fair amount of time during the day that I'd like to spend more usefully. So I joined the University of the Third Age (U3A)! So far I've joined a walking group and a board games group, and the people I've met so far are interesting and friendly and quite a lot older than me. We'll see how it goes.

Then I was invited to go back to Adhisthana, the retreat centre where I previously volunteered in the kitchen for a month. They were hosting a weekend for 150 people and thought they could do with a bit of extra support in the catering department. I had a great time again, especially as all meals were planned so that it was entirely coeliac friendly and there were only a handful of special dietary requirements to worry about.

Helping mum and dad recently has been heavy on the admin. Mum has engaged a new company that supplies carers, and they have sent a barrage of forms to be read and signed. The Home Improvement Team has taken the referral from the Occupational Therapist Team and sent a contractor to scope out work to convert the downstairs shower into a wet room, while we applied for an Independent Living Grant to cover the cost. They sent the wrong forms twice, but once I'd got the right forms and phoned the team to check how to fill them in, the grant was approved the same day that I submitted them.

There's always more news in the dental department. Having been given my sets of aligners on the basis that I would be having the 'slenderising' treatment that I declined, the aligners don't fit very well any more. When I pointed this out I was invited to an in-person appointment so they could have a look, and it's possible that the whole treatment will end before Christmas. In the meantime more 'buttons' have been glued to my teeth so that another elastic band can be used. It's been just over a year since I started the treatment and it will be lovely when it's all over, but I'm now starting to become just a little apprehensive about what the aftercare will be like.

What I've been reading

Magician
by Raymond E. Feist

narrated by Peter Joyce

"War is coming to the Kingdom of the Isles from another world, bringing with it chaos and destruction. Pug yearns to train as a warrior and fight for his kingdom alongside his foster-brother, Tomas, but instead he is forced to follow a different path: a path that will lead him right into the heart of the enemy."

An epic read in more ways than one - 36 hours listening to a fantasy saga containing humans, elves, goblins, dwarves etc. which calls to mind Lord of the Rings but is immensely inferior. It didn't help that it also reminded me of sections of the Iliad that just described fighting, and not only am I not interested in combat tactics but there's also too much killing in the real world to allow for any tolerance of fictional killing. It was good enough, but no more.

Bright Lights Big City
by Jay McInerney

narrated by Daniel Passer

"A young man with nothing but goodwill, controlled substances, and wit to sustain him in his quest, runs until he reaches his reckoning point, where he is forced to acknowledge loss and, possibly, to rediscover his better instincts."

The whole book is written in the second person (e.g. "you run until you reach your reckoning point") which is a really strange idea that took quite a bit of getting used to. Aside from that quirk, it's a fairly readable account which had me rooting for the protagonist even though he is behaving pretty badly, but mostly harming only himself, for which the likely reason is revealed towards the end. I can see why this was on the Classics list (probably also because of the second person thing), and I wondered if the title came from something well known or whether this is the origin of the phrase? So, no need to wonder, I turned to the Interwebs and it was the title of a song written in 1961.

Justine
by Lawrence Durrell

narrated by Nicholas Boulton

"Set in the sensuous, hot environment of Alexandria just before the Second World War. Within this polyglot setting of richly idiosyncratic characters is Justine, wild and intense, wife to the wealthy businessman Nessim."

What a huge disappointment this was. For some reason I thought this would be a book that I'd really enjoy, but I came within a hair's breadth of actually giving up without finishing it. There was lots of lovely prose, delicious adjectives and atmospheric evocation of the location, but by two-thirds of the way through hardly anything had actually happened. I made it to the end, and can summarise the plot as 'several people have affairs with one another in Alexandria, three of them die, then they all go their separate ways'. Avoid.

The Art of Reflection
by Ratnaguna

"Ratnaguna offers practical and specific advice on reflection as a spiritual practice. He also demonstrates its great value—not just as a part of life, but as a way of reminding oneself of life's true meaning."

We were studying this book in my Monday Buddhism group, and for a change it contains material that I actually understand and can relate to my own practice. Unlike meditation, reflection allows structured thinking, but towards the end we are introduced to contemplation, which takes me back into the more difficult zone of non-thinking. I have learned not to try to apply everything I encounter within Buddhism, and to appreciate the particular qualities of my own mind and how that differs from the descriptions I read of how minds might operate, without letting myself off the hook with 'I can't do that'. But a lot of this Buddhist mind work (and body work) is beyond me, and I suspect it will remain that way for a long time, if not always.

I watch many films

Kew Gardens, October 2022

I paid the price for my increased level of social contact by coming down with a horrible cough, sore throat and runny nose - I'll give it a couple of days and then see if it's Covid. That will teach me to go out socialising with people. [Update - it wasn't Covid.]

As well as the concert, badminton, comedy, meetings etc. last week I joined Lola II, Mr M (and other friends including Mr MXF and BL2) for the celebration of Diwali in Southall, home of a large concentration of Diwali-celebrating maniacs. We mingled with the crowds, admired the Indian produce and then Mr M achieved a significant win by finding a restaurant able to accommodate all of us in its basement. A vegetarian restaurant, so I was extra happy, and the food he chose for us was tremendous too. The only blot on the landscape was the unfortunate incident with the thermos of chai that leaked all over the floor (and the matches, and the sparklers, and the rucksack) in quite a spectacular way.

After our dinner the plan was to make our way back to the bridge by the station to watch the fireworks. On the way through the crowded streets, young men (mostly) were setting off fireworks in the street, one of them holding a display box above his head as it fired rockets upwards, and others being equally careless about the safety of themselves and others. Back at the station we lit some sparklers and watched the seemingly never-ending displays in surrounding locations. Back at the house I fell asleep while the bangs and pops continued into the night.

Back home, and my dental hygienist is very pleased with how my teeth are progressing, the garage is very pleased with how my car is going, and mum seems very pleased with the 'heavy duty' plastic carpet protector that should help her and the carers move the hoist about more easily (although with the passing of time we'll find out how heavy duty it really is). We have now received the proposals from the Community OT Team for a ramp in the front garden which is out of all proportion in terms of construction and cost, and for the changes to the downstairs shower room which look good but there are details that need to be ironed out. We plan to turn down the ramp but accept the shower adaptation, at which point we move from the OT department to the Home Improvement Team and the story continues.

I have a bank account that offers an annual benefit to its account holders, and last year I chose to accept six free cinema tickets. With less than a month left I had only used two of them, so in the last three weeks I've felt some pressure to go to see films at the cinema that I might not otherwise have chosen, as well as making use of my usual DVDs by post, the Royal Spa Centre's loyalty scheme and hosting a Buddhist Social film night. Here are my reviews:

• The Great Escaper (based on a true story about a WW2 veteran going to France for the commemoration celebrations with great final performance by Glenda Jackson, 4*)
• Broker (fantastic Korean drama about an unofficial baby adoption 'service', 5*)
• Dumb Money (a bit like The Big Short, a story about financial markets, 4*)
• Clerks (nostalgic viewing of a film I loved when it came out in 1994, 5*)
• The Creator (spectacular special effects, too long and much too much death but includes Buddhist robots, 3*)
• One Fine Morning (French drama about a single mother with a sick father, wasn't that bad but only 3*)
• Dream Scenario (fine performance from Nicholas Cage but not very enjoyable on the whole, 3*)
• Dream Horse (another based-on-a-true-story drama about a Welsh syndicate who buy a race horse, predictable and sentimental but features Toni Collette doing Welsh, 3*)
• Return to Seoul (another Korean film about adoptions, had lots of potential but in the end I didn't care about any of the characters, 3*)
• Saltburn (dark thriller in the style of Brideshead Revisited or The Go Between - lower class misfit spends summer in upper class pile, would have got more stars for the plot but many of the characters were horrible so only 3*)
• Marvellous (traditional annual viewing with the Buddhists of this heart-warming film, 5*)
• The Miracle Club (about a trip to Lourdes for a miracle, also predicable and sentimental but features Maggie Smith and Kathy Bates both doing Irish, 4*)

Going out

Kew Gardens, October 2022

Mum celebrated her 91st birthday without incident. There was no cake! and no presents! but we were there and she enjoyed it, except for the bit when dad outlined his demands of the hoist manufacturer. To be fair, I didn't enjoy that bit either so mum and I retired to the kitchen while Lola II and Sister D had a good time with him and the hoist.

I've been going out locally a bit more than usual, with two local comedy nights and Mozart's Requiem (plus three settings of the Miserere) in the Parish Church. I even went with other people on two of the three outings (badminton/Buddhist friends). Unusually, I didn't enjoy the comedy all that much. Reginald D. Hunter didn't seem to have his heart in it and Bridget Christie did a lot of material about older women (work, representation on screen, menopause), but I didn't altogether agree with her point of view.

My Monday Buddhism class has had a short break for our teacher's holiday to Cornwall, which allowed me to go to Monday badminton as well as Thursday, and I've had two matches as well, and fallen over twice (clumsily tripping over my own feet). I conclude that I'm quite good at landing because I've escaped with mild bruising, but it's only a matter of time before my post-menopausal bones crumble away and I end up with something worse. It's worth it though.

In the headlines for my teeth there was a visit to the orthodontist where I was scheduled for 'slenderising', which means shaving bits off the tooth enamel to make everything more perfect. After quite a long conversation with the orthodontist we agreed that since my aims for the treatment do not include the perfect smile, tooth enamel is far too valuable to shave bits off just so that I don't have gaps at the gum line. At the dentist this week my hygienist was very pleased with progress and thinks that the aligners have made a big difference.

And I went to a meeting held by the committee of the Warwick Folk Festival. The Team Leader for Communications (where I was a volunteer) is hoping to step away from the role, and they are trying to interest a few of us volunteers in taking it on. Two of us were there and neither of us wants the role, although we don't mind doing a bit more next year. We'll see where that goes. The venue was terrible for the meeting (background noise, poor projection of Zoom and inadequate microphone and speakers) but lunch was excellent, so hooray for priorities.

As I write it is Remembrance Sunday. I'm having a difficult time with the news, and I really need to start avoiding it more completely. UJ is still in Kyiv - I read today that the conflict there has pretty much reached a stalemate, but Zelensky won't negotiate and will certainly run out of resources before Putin does. Politicians in the UK continue to be contemptible, the situation in Gaza is more than I can bear, many African states are enduring civil war, and the thought of Trump winning the election based on current polling feels very much like the beginning of the end of the world.

Pie

Tiratanaloka, September 2022

There's a distinct lack of interesting and/or blogworthy things going on in my life, which is very pleasant for my life but a challenge to my blogging mojo. Writing about a new vacuum cleaner was quite a low point, but the bar may have to drop further this time.

I made a vegan lemon meringue pie. Easy to replace fat with coconut oil/non-dairy spread, lemon curd thickened with cornflour, and I tried aqua faba - the liquid surrounding tinned chickpeas - as a replacement for egg white meringue. It was certified as delicious by Lola II and mum, although mum found the lemon curd a bit sharp. 

Sister D and Lola II visited Lola Towers to provide valuable assistance in carrying out some of my projects. I am gradually emptying the loft of its non-essential contents, which includes a shelf of folders from my university course in the 1980's. Sister D kindly separated out the sheets that could be re-used for printing so the rest could be recycled, which allowed me to detach myself from the process rather than getting caught up in unhelpful thoughts relating to that time of my life. Meanwhile, Lola II photographed the spotlights that have been replaced in the kitchen and listed them on local marketplace websites. I was contacted very quickly by a man who, very unusually in my experience, not only didn't try to renegotiate the price but actually turned up and collected them when he said he would.

There was also a visit to mum and dad, where useful work was done (mostly relating to money and finances) but we completely missed the clinic appointment that I was supposed to take mum to. Unusual for both of us to be so forgetful! Anyway, it was rebooked and took place without me, so that's a good result.

I've completed my tax return, and made inroads into the job that Mr MXF wants done (all about availability and types of HDR [High Dynamic Range] in UK media). And that's about it.

What I've been reading

Uncle Silas
by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

"When Maud is orphaned, she is sent to live with her Uncle Silas, her father's mysterious brother and a man with a scandalous past. There she encounters Madame de la Rougierre, who plays a sinister role in Maud's destiny."

I now discover this was written in 1874 - while I was reading it I was convinced it was a much earlier work. It seemed very old-fashioned compared with my favourite Trollope and even with Les Misérables, which I'm also reading at the moment. The story was pretty slow to develop until the very end when it finally became exciting, but quite a long slog to get to the satisfactory conclusion. 

The Salt Path
by Raynor Winn

"In one devastating week, Raynor and her husband Moth lost their house and received a terminal diagnosis that took away their future together. With nowhere to call home, they instead embarked on a journey: to walk the South West Coast Path, a 630-mile trail from Somerset to Dorset."

Much easier to read than my recent choices, this was loaned to me and took just a day or two to finish. In fact, I lapsed into my habit of reading too fast, wanting to find out the next part, skipping over descriptions that would have given me great pleasure had I not been too keen to find out what's next, and what's next, and now? This is a classic example of a book that would have been better in audio than print. It was beautifully written, but has a depressing note that is entirely valid given the context of the author. Despite this, as I reached the final chapters I felt a strong desire to leave everything behind and walk along a coast path for the summer.

I'm in the middle of reading some very long books - Uncle Silas was one of these - so just two finished this month, which must be the lowest tally for ages!

The new Hoover is a Shark

Knepp, June 2022

Sharknado has arrived at Lola Towers - a modern vacuum cleaner with half the power consumption of the previous one, and I filled its whole cylinder with a single pass through the house. Admittedly it's not a huge cylinder, but I wouldn't be surprised if I picked up a similar amount if I could be bothered to run it round again. So that's been fun, especially unpacking it and fitting it all together - all the bits come together with very satisfying clicks, and allow various unclickings to empty the cylinder and to use it in different modes. It's also a very pleasing shade of purple. UJ received her formal training on Saturday, and the part for the old machine also arrived and fitted perfectly, so that's working again and now I have to decide what to do with it.

I can't remember which -lf I'm up to. Flf maybe? So Flf the electrician and his apprentice sidekick came to replace all the spotlights in the kitchen. Back when I was remodelling I was persuaded to use sealed unit lights, which were difficult to replace until they became completely unavailable. They've all been replaced now with units containing a simple bulb, and we'll put that mistake down to inexperience. Flf and sidekick were very communicative and efficient, and even complimented me on the music playing, so that wins them extra points.

In other news - well, there isn't really any. UJ has gone home for five weeks, I've been south to see mum and dad and north to see H+B, played badminton including losing a match (but not losing as badly as we expected), led our Buddhist group for an evening, and been given a new mission (should I choose to accept it) from Mr MXF. Not that I've started on it; I always regret not recording our conversations but I am definitely intending to do something about it soon.

Back home

Biddulph Grange, August 2022

My four-week period of volunteering ended with a tea break. Several people had checked to make sure I was leaving after the tea break, so I was pretty sure that some sort of celebration was planned. I arrived to find everybody I'd worked with or been connected with around a table containing crisps and snacks, and I was given a card from everyone and another from one particular person, and then they did this thing called 'rejoicing in merit', which is when somebody highlights nice things about you. These Buddhists really know how to put on a leaving do.

Since then I've been mulling over the differences between living and working in a Buddhist environment and what I'm like at home. Here at home I don't have much structure to my life, just a list of things needing to be done that constantly hangs over me. There at the retreat centre I worked during the day and had evenings to myself, lots of structure and no list. But without the list I feel I might become too disorganised and forget things that are actually quite important. Also, for about a week I've been having such trouble sleeping through the night, being wide awake in the small hours and then being too tired to get up early for meditation. So I'm not meditating, which I think makes me feel a little more unsteady.

Anyway, in the past week I've dealt with the backlog of emails, talked to the water engineer that visited mum and dad and taken a call from Thames Water about fixing the leak, looked into NHS Continuing Care (don't ask), scanned my teeth for the orthodontist, mowed the lawn, took 10 bags of garden waste to the tip, and took a camping chair to the local Repair Cafe where it was mended with glue rather than the rivets I had hoped for. 

With friends who visited over the weekend I went to a cracking gig featuring the Tom Robinson Band and The Undertones - all these musicians are older than us (Tom Robinson is 73!!) but with at least double the energy that we could muster. Next morning they (my friends not the bands) took it upon themselves to help repair one of my bar stools and the door to the hall, because both of these were demonstrating irritating defects that affected them personally. They declined however to address the issue of the door to the shower room - fixing that will take more than friendly goodwill, gaffer tape and a screwdriver.

With the friends gone I finally turned to house cleaning, only to find that the hoover was out of action (again, don't ask). What this meant was that all and more of the time I would have spent hoovering were spent on the Internet trying to work out how to either fix it or buy a new machine, and I think I've ended up doing both. Now there's just my Buddhism homework on the list above the tax return...

Volunteering (part 3)

Beautiful border, September 2023 (photo credit FLRM)

After I wrote that I neglected to photograph the flower border when I visited FBL and FLRM, I received the photo above to remedy the error! The border is even more lovely in real life than it looks here.

My volunteering days run like this: alarm at 6.30 a.m. and I decide whether to get up for meditation, shower or stay in bed. If meditating, it's 7.00-7.50 a.m. There's an optional second sit from 8.00 to 8.30 but I don't tend to do both because I prefer to have more time for myself before starting work.

I start in the kitchen at 9 a.m. and I'm usually there before the cook, so I often choose a bit of the kitchen and give it a good clean. Two retreatants arrive for vegetable chopping duty from 9.15 which usually runs for 45 to 60 minutes, then they go off to do retreat things and I hang out with the chef for the next stage - clearing the decks and starting the actual cooking part.

At 11.00 there's what's known as the Huddle, when anyone from the Operations Team (as distinct from the Teaching Team) meets to see how everyone is, to pass on messages, and to find out whether any help is needed. Then we have a tea break together when all the young people in the team have their breakfast.

Back into the kitchen at 11.45 to finish preparing lunch, and I like it best when I'm given responsibility for people who have to have something non-standard. It depends on the cook in charge - sometimes all I do after chopping is to fetch, carry, clear and wash up. 

Two more retreatants arrive at 12.50 to help with the lunch service which starts at 1 p.m; at 1.10 p.m. the leftovers are on offer so anyone who wants can help themselves to seconds. I usually hang around during service especially if the non-standard options are complicated, but then I get a break until 3 or 4 p.m. (depending on the cook) and we make the evening meal. Two different retreatants arrive at 5.50 p.m. and dinner is served much like lunch. 

Sometimes we have everything ready by 5 and have an easy relaxed time; sometimes we're preparing food right up to the last minute. One evening the rice cooker broke down, so five minutes before dinner time we had 80 people and raw rice. That was a little difficult, but everyone got fed in the end, just a bit late. Then I'm free for the rest of the evening. 

On Monday evening there's my study group via Zoom, and I've more or less successfully found a place to sit that's both undisturbed and has a decent WiFi signal. I've been going home to Leamington on Tuesday where I can chill and maybe watch a film before going to my regular Buddhist group, and I've been driving down to mum and dad on Wednesday for the last two weeks. Mum and I have been extraordinarily productive in terms of getting jobs done involving finance, house maintenance and health.

There have been events at the retreat centre that I've missed, including Mitra ceremonies for two members of the local group and the ordination of five Spanish-speaking South American women. In practical terms this had the effect of needing to remember the new four- and five-syllable names of the ones who have restricted diets; in spiritual terms this meant a whole lot more... 

Friday is the day that most retreats end after breakfast and new retreats start at tea-time, so lunchtime on Friday is quiet and the community who live here all the time look forward to having chips for lunch. As the two weeks of the Spanish speaking ordination retreat ended we had three different retreats start, with a whole new list of food intolerances to remember. I've been getting a whole lot better at working out how to remember who needs what but there is always potential for disaster.

I have worked with six different cooks while I've been here. I wrote previously about the first three - chaotic, creative, organised - and the next three have been similar - organised, difficult and organised again. The difficult person had no written recipes and neither delegated nor communicated. When I asked questions or made suggestions she mumbled unintelligibly until I gave up asking her to repeat what she'd said. So I just wandered about, tidying, clearing and washing up and responding to direct requests. But she was the one who had to deal with the broken rice cooker, and on that occasion she was heroic.

As I'm writing this I'm due to go home tomorrow, so there's been a lot of thinking 'this is the last time' for this or that. But I have already been asked to come back for a weekend in November, and there are other opportunities that I might take up, so I'm looking forward to maintaining the relationship with the people I've met here.

What I've been reading

The English Patient
by Michael Ondaatje

narrated by Jennifer Ehle

"The nurse Hana, exhausted by death, obsessively tends to her last surviving patient. Caravaggio, the thief, tries to reimagine who he is, now that his hands are hopelessly maimed. The Indian sapper Kip searches for hidden bombs in a landscape where nothing is safe but himself. And at the centre of his labyrinth lies the English patient, nameless and hideously burned."

It wasn't bad, I suppose, but seemed to meander on without any significant story line except the mysterious identity of the English patient. And when it was revealed I didn't quite understand the significance, but I think that was because of the audiobook format - in a print book I can flick back through the pages to check on some aspect of a character or plot. I seem to remember the film was very good, though.

Beloved
by Toni Morrison

"In the troubled years following the Civil War, the spirit of a murdered child haunts the Ohio home of a former slave. This angry, destructive ghost breaks mirrors, leaves its fingerprints in cake icing, and generally makes life difficult for Sethe and her family; nevertheless, the woman finds the haunting oddly comforting for the spirit is that of her own dead baby, never named, thought of only as Beloved."

I had many library books waiting to be started but found myself needing something to read while all my books were elsewhere. So I picked this off a shelf of second-hand books, and I'm so glad I did. It isn't an easy read; the subject is slavery after all, and brutal events are told but in a way that softens the impact and allows it to be understood, bit by bit so the pain doesn't impact all at once. I know there is more that could be understood on a second reading, so unlike most of my books I'll be keeping this one in case I'm brave enough to have another go.

Two Serious Ladies
by Jane Bowles

narrated by Laurence Bouvard

"Two serious ladies, nothing is natural for them and anything is possible. For Mrs Copperfield - a trip to Panama, where she abandons her husband for love of a local prostitute. For Miss Goering - a move to a squalid little house on an island and a series of sordid encounters with strangers. Both go to pieces - and both realise this is something they've wanted to do for years."

What a very peculiar book! Apparently, contemporaneous reviews were mostly 'uncomprehending', and that doesn't entirely surprise me. I was baffled at the start, but after I time I relaxed and let it carry me along to all the weird places where these two serious ladies went, entirely separately - they spend time together only at the start and the end. They met men and women, drank, slept and fought with them, and then usually left them for the next thrill to come their way. It's quite an achievement that the narrator made it all make sense.

The Buddha of Suburbia
by Hanif Kureishi

"Dreamy teenager Karim is desperate to escape suburban South London and experience the forbidden fruits which the 1970s seem to offer. When the unlikely opportunity of a life in the theatre announces itself, Karim starts to win the sort of attention he has been craving - albeit with some rude and raucous results."

I didn't really get the sense of a story, just an account of an immigrant family living in and around London, lots of sex, not much character development. I suppose it pushed the genre forward when it was written, and it didn't bore me, but I never really wanted to know what happened next.

What a Carve Up!
by Jonathan Coe

narrated by Richard Goulding

"It is the 1980s, and the Winshaw family are getting richer and crueller by the year. But once their hapless biographer, Michael Owen, starts investigating the family's trail of greed, corruption and immoral doings, the time is growing ripe for the Winshaws to receive their comeuppance."

I started listening to this in the car and a lot of characters were introduced, so I took the decision to start again, and I'm glad I did. It's a murder mystery dressed up as a family saga, and all the characters are wildly exaggerated, but I ended up enjoying it. I listened to most of it in the evenings while I was volunteering, because I was very much left to my own devices in the evenings, and it was perfect.

Where the Crawdads Sing
by Delia Owens

narrated by Cassandra Campbell

"For years, rumors of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand."

Another cracking book. I'm spending much too much time sitting listening to books in the evenings when I should be doing some more pressing tasks, but with this one I just needed to know what happens next. I've even seen the film of the book, which follows the story pretty closely, so I already knew what happens next. For a change, I think the film is as good as the book and I wouldn't have bothered reading it if it were not for a strong recommendation from a friend. The narration was absolutely outstanding too.

Volunteering (part 2)

St Mary's Church, Kempley, September 2023

Still working (volunteering) at the retreat centre, and my first day off saw the end of the heatwave and pouring rain. As it happens, Former Landrover Man and Former Bee Lady live quite nearby, and I'd arranged to meet them for for a walk and a pub lunch. First they showed me the progress they had made in the garden, and I wish I'd taken a photo of the flowering beds because they were stunning, and the new pergola glistened with raindrops like strings of lights. The rain was easing off so we went ahead with the walk, but there were still heavy showers on and off. 

Along the way we dropped into a Norman church which has 'the oldest timber roof of any building in England.' There are also magnificent 12th century wall paintings, uncovered in the 19th century - such a treasure in an ordinary little church in the English countryside. We do have some wonderful heritage. And pubs. Cheese! and chocolate cake! I went home for a day and as well as getting through a lot of the boring admin that was waiting for me, I consumed my body weight in chocolate and cheesy Wotsits.

Back in the retreat centre kitchen: catering for large numbers is difficult, especially when it is all vegan and there are people with a wide range of food intolerances. Thankfully no nut allergies, but one coeliac and four gluten-free as well as 'usual' intolerances: soya, onion, garlic and peppers, and also legumes, brassicas, spinach and chilli. The people who have been here the longest have started to object to other things - cooked tomato, too much broccoli. I need to practise cooking quinoa after my attempt ended up like wallpaper paste. I don't bother with quinoa at home, but one of the cooks here made a delicious version - unfortunately it involved rinsing, steaming and roasting so I probably won't bother.

There are a couple of things I might try at home, though. Vegan parmesan made of nutritional yeast, finely ground almonds and salt was very easy. Polenta chips less easy but very good. But the day that the college-trained cook decided to do fajitas using seitan for 'meat' and other components like peppers, guacamole and refried beans took me to the brink. There were 11 non-standard plates needing alternative components and by the time it came to serving up my brain had melted.

On Sunday I was taken off kitchen duty (there were two other people who wanted to cook together) and reported for duty to the laundry room, where the housekeeper hadn't been told I was coming. She was delighted, because a) she had a huge cloth she wanted to fold up and b) there was more Spanish translation, printing and laminating to be done and she really wasn't keen. In the afternoon the work was more physically demanding, including dismantling and cleaning extractor fans and moving furniture to hoover skirting.

Another interesting thing about Sunday was this rally which went right past the end of the access road to the retreat centre. This meant that we weren't allowed in or out for most of the day (not a problem) but there was also significant loud noise several times during the day. Along with some other residents I went to have a look...

Volunteering (part 1)

Biddulph Grange, August 2022

Since I last posted I've been volunteering at a Buddhist retreat centre. I offered them dates in September, October or November and they took me up on the September ones straight away, which was a bit sooner than I expected. After a busy weekend keeping well away from the plague-ridden UJ I arrived ready for the heatwave that was forecast.

When I arrived on Monday a retreat for Order Members that had started on Friday was in a phase of silence. Those of us working and not on the retreat were asked not to chat in public places around them, so it was a very quiet time until talking started again on Thursday afternoon. Three people I know very well were here on the retreat, including VG (whose retreat I'd supported in July), so it was lovely to see him again and catch up once the silence had ended.

I met the person in charge of volunteering, who promptly gave me two days off before I had to start work, so I wandered about feeling slight twinges of guilt when rocking up for my delicious meals after having walked about aimlessly and sat in the sunshine reading all day. My room has windows facing south-east and south-west, which I would normally welcome, but during a heatwave with little breeze it was uninhabitable between 11am and 6pm. Once I started working, however, I had very little time for sitting in my room between 11am and 6pm.

I exist in a state of limbo between the people visiting to attend a retreat and the people who live here. Both these groups have evening activities, but I am left to my own devices. On Monday evening I found my way to the local group that happens to meet in the retreat centre, and on Wednesday I joined the first session of an 'outreach' course for newcomers being held in Malvern. Otherwise I've been happy to spend time on my own in the evenings, reading and listening to books and generally recovering from the ordeal of working all day - something I'm not used to any more. I've also managed to do a bit more work for Mr MXF. It reminds me a little of my time on the kibbutz in the 1980's - the heat, and the lack of responsibility for anything except turning up for work - but with much less alcohol.

When I first asked if there was any scope for volunteering here I was asked what sort of work I might do, and I suggested office admin or kitchen, gardening if that was all there was, and please no cleaning or housekeeping. They picked the kitchen, and I was offered the option of being responsible for meals for people with food intolerances or allergies. That isn't how it has turned out, because the kitchen is operating without a permanent manager at the moment, so a variety of people are covering a few days each - there have been three different people in my first week, and each has their own approach to the job.

The first volunteer cook I worked with lives in Norfolk, is self-taught, and worked without written recipes or pre-planning (or tidying up). This was a challenge for me, being new to the kitchen and large-scale catering . He didn't know what he would be cooking until he'd had a think, didn't use recipes so couldn't be sure how much needed preparation, and without any record of what ingredients he had used it was pretty difficult to make sure that nobody ate something they weren't supposed to. I spent a lot of my time just clearing up after him.

The second cook is one of the live-in community here, went to catering college, and again didn't use printed recipes. She was much easier to work with because at least she had an idea ahead of time of what needed to be done, and made some effort to accommodate allergies and intolerances at the planning stage. The third cook also lives and works here but not usually in the kitchen, and within minutes I could relax. He put everything back in its proper place - at last I know where to find ladles and strainers and oven gloves! There were printed recipes, we decided together what people with restricted diets could and couldn't have and what I would cook for them.

Meanwhile, the Order Member retreat had ended and in its place two retreats had started - one just for the weekend for fathers, and the other for South American Spanish-speaking women, which would include five of them being ordained here. The person in charge of housekeeping realised that it would be helpful if the information provided about how to clean the kitchen after meals were provided in Spanish. However, for reasons known only to herself, she only translated some of the information, so some jobs like cleaning the hob and emptying the bins weren't done. I talked to her about it, and got no commitment from her to do anything more.

This sort of situation has always challenged me. Someone has done a bad job which affects me - what should I do? Should I accept the situation and do the jobs myself? Should I take it up with her again, or the person she reports to? Working within this context gave me an opportunity to reflect, to consult other more experienced Buddhists, and the option of trying out new ways of responding. What I actually did was to re-write the cleaning information and introduce it to the cleaning team myself, with the help of Google Translate and a bilingual retreatant. A small incident, but indicative of the ways that life can be different when working in a collaborative and supportive setting.

London, Manchester and York

York Minster, August 2023

Lola II's Belated Birthday events continue, and I invited myself to a long and fancy lunch in London with her and Mr M and also Mr MXF and his daughter. The timing was good because I was due for another orthodontics appointment beforehand, but the aligners they ordered had not arrived. So I enjoyed the lunch before getting fitted with new aligners along with what they call 'buttons' but I call 'cheek gougers'. 

Small, sharp metal nubbins have been welded on to my lower back teeth in order to attach little elastic bands during the night so that vertical pressure can be applied. Immediately after the orthodontics appointment I was due to catch a train, so I arrived in Manchester knowing that I was going to need an immediate remedy (dental wax) to avoid the 'buttons' slicing their way through to the outside of my cheek. Now, a week later, things are settling down.

I enjoyed my brief time in Manchester, during which I happened to revisit some of the haunts of 30 years ago. Much has changed - there are more student flats that I could ever have imagined, the tram system is excellent, and people are just as likely to talk to a stranger as they were back then. I spent a morning at the Manchester Buddhist Centre. watched a very short part of the Pride parade, visited the Museum of Science and Industry (which was much smaller than I remember) and went to see a film as well as a comedy show.

Manchester was a stopover on the way to the main event, which was a couple of days with one of my Buddhist friends who moved from Birmingham to York earlier this year. Coincidentally I had met someone from the York Buddhist community at a recent retreat, and she was able to open the Centre so I could have a look. My friend was keen to show me the wonders of York, and we spent some quality time putting the world to rights.

I came home via Manchester again, enabling me to pay a visit to H+B and the cats. The whole journey was carried out by train, with hardly a hitch despite the train strike on the Saturday (when I wasn't travelling). I found this quite surprising - when I used to be a regular train commuter my recollection is that the majority of trains were cancelled or late on my daily journeys, probably because the ones that were on time didn't make any sort of impression.

UJ was away at the same time as me. She had flown to Spain to visit friends, but had a pretty miserable time - they weren't feeling well when she arrived, so she not only spent her whole holiday with people who weren't up for doing much but she also caught Covid and brought it home with her. We had three days together in the house before I went away again, and during that time her challenge was not to pass it on to me, and mine was not to catch it.

I found a spare kettle and toaster for her room, and made two meals a day for her, and she didn't mind her incarceration too much because she was feeling rough and sleeping a lot of the time. But we made it; my Covid test was negative before I left for my latest adventure - a month of volunteering at Adhisthana, a Buddhist retreat centre, of which no doubt I will write more later.

What I've been reading

The Guns of Navarone
by Alistair MacLean

narrated by Jonathan Oliver

"Twelve hundred British soldiers isolated on the small island of Kheros off the Turkish coast, lives that could be saved if only the guns could be silenced. To Captain Keith Mallory, skllled saboteur and mountaineer, fell the task of leading the small party detailed to scale the vast, impossible precipice of Navarone and to blow up the guns. "

A cracking story written well, and clearly destined for the movie it became with the dour Brit, drawling American and thoughtful New Zealander.

The Sound of One Hand
by Satyadasa

"For Satyadasa the Buddhist path has been fulfilling and often joyous, but also full of doubts and obstacles. What does it mean to be a Buddhist in the West in the twenty-first century? And is being born with one hand a curse – or a blessing?"

At last, the memoir of a Buddhist who can actually write, so an enjoyable and informative read. He writes about tackling the same issues as I do: about how uncomfortable change can be in a non-spiritual society, and about grappling with the personality of Sangharakshita, the founder of the Triratna community, whom he met a few times. So the right book at the right time for me.

An Accidental Man
by Iris Murdoch

"Austin is one of those people who needs to survive through the destruction of others. The others, in Austin's case, include his successful elder brother, Matthew, and the women who, one after the other, are so touchingly convinced that they can 'save' him."

For someone feted as a great author, I don't much like Iris Murdoch's books. I imagine she was probably writing about people and types that she was familiar with, but I have never met anyone like any of the people in this book, and there are loads of people in this book, all of whom seem to be related or know each other, but who behave in inexplicable ways. And there are deaths, many deaths - one child is run over by a car driven by one of the characters who may or may not have killed his first wife, then he almost kills the stepfather of the child whom he killed by running her over, and his second wife electrocutes herself in a bath, and then another child dies when she falls off some scaffolding, which is mentioned at the end just incidentally, and at least two people try to kill themselves by overdose... I just don't recognise any of them. I don't think I'll bother with Iris any more.

Madame Bovary
by Gustave Flaubert

narrated by Juliet Stevenson

"A deeply felt and sympathetic portrait of a woman who, having married a country doctor and found herself unhappy with a rural, genteel existence, longs for love and excitement. However, her aspirations and her desires to escape only bring her further disappointment and eventually lead to unexpected, painful consequences. "

Another classic that I think most people would have heard of. A bored wife has two major adulterous love affairs and ends up owing a load of money to support her profligate habits, and her husband continues to have no idea. Verdict: annoying.

East West Street
by Philippe Sands

"When he receives an invitation to deliver a lecture in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, international lawyer Philippe Sands begins a journey on the trail of his family's secret history. In doing so, he uncovers an astonishing series of coincidences that lead him halfway across the world, to the origins of international law at the Nuremberg trial."

This was good, but more of a history book than an easy read. There are a few coincidences about the origins of the people described thereafter, and it is a reminder (if one were needed) about the horrors of the holocaust and the fate of most families. Also, interesting to find out more about the origins of the terms 'genocide' and 'crimes against humanity'. As well as being well written it's well edited too, which it needs to be given the number of names and dates to remember.

Kentwell House

Kentwell Hall, August 2023

Lola II's significant birthday was in 2020, and she had planned all sorts of excitement with friends. Then it all had to be cancelled, but this year she has returned to the Belated Birthday Event list with a vengeance. I've already attended a concert at the Regent Park Bandstand, watched the rowing on the lake, enjoyed an ice cream sundae Sunday, and last weekend included camping (fourth time this year for me, first time for Lola II and Mr M) and a visit to Kentwell Hall.

The Kentwell manor is recorded in the Domesday Book and dates from about 1040. The full history of the property (mostly completed in 1530) can be found on the website, but in 1971 it was bought and the new owner restored it and now facilitates the historical re-enactments that take place there. When we visited it was 1564, and there were about 200 volunteers on site dressed for that period and fully inhabiting their roles. Inside the house were the gentry, their stewards and their servants, and throughout the grounds we found all sorts of different workers. Woodcutters, glassblowers, potters, victuallers, the woolshed, dyers, felt- and hat-makers, bakers, the forge, the foundry, alchemists, embroiderers, apothecaries, cheesemakers, cobblers, the brewery, woodworkers, mummers, the alehouse and more - we arrived not long after opening time, and closing time came before we'd seen everything.

The volunteers playing all the roles stayed firmly within the 16th century with their speech and knowledge - nobody admitted to knowing what a potato was, for example, nor how a volunteer could possibly support their family. There were children as well as adults - one notable young boy gave us a brief performance as one of the mummers playing the Devil. It was fascinating and fun and educational, and I'd go back again.

Alongside this visit we camped together with another couple of Lola II's friends who joined us for the weekend, visited a country park for a walk, played games and ate far too well. We had a lovely camping spot facing out into a field of what I thought was spinach, but turned out to be sugar beet. (My reputation for plant identification was never strong but is now in tatters.) The campsite even laid on an ice cream van which arrived around 8pm and attracted many customers. This resulted in one of the highlights of the weekend - as Mr M walked away from the van with a large twin cornet 99 with three flakes, there was an audible gasp and then actual applause from the people still waiting in line.

A fine day out

August 2023

Lola II and Mr M live in London, and unlike many Londoners they make use of the city, going to see performances, galleries and many other interesting events and attractions. Recently they visited a place they thought others might also enjoy, so Lola II invited me and Sister D without telling us where we would be going. She loves surprises.

We started with lunch at a delicious Sri Lankan/South Indian establishment that provided the photo opportunity above. Then Lola II took us to the Fitzrovia Chapel, which used to be part of Middlesex Hospital. The hospital was founded in the 18th century and the chapel was built in 1891. In 2005 the hospital moved to the newly built University College Hospital, and the site was sold for housing development. Somehow the chapel survived - the photo shows just how lucky that was - and was restored between 2013 and 2015. It is peaceful and beautiful, with mosaics on floor and ceiling and 17 types of marble in the decoration. Recommended for a visit.

Fitzrovia Chapel standing alone at the centre of a flattened building site

I'd also like to include a plug for Chiltern Railways. With many train companies coming in for criticism about their reliability and facilities, I find travelling with Chiltern quite enjoyable! On the trip to London the train arrived a minute ahead of schedule and during the journey there were no unnecessary announcements (there are far too many loud and unnecessary announcements on the Virgin West Coast service to Birmingham) and everyone in my vicinity was behaving just as one would want. On the way back I sat next to a very lovely woman from New Zealand, living in Leamington and planning to move to Wales because there are more hills. Of course Chiltern aren't responsible for their customers, but it somehow reflects well on them.

I've been doing quite a bit outside in the garden, and inside working for Mr MXF. The latest job he's given me involves repeated viewing of short films (less than 10 minutes) to record various time points within them. I've done the first and am now waiting for feedback before starting on the second. And still playing badminton, and being a Buddhist, and all the other household things that keep one busy.

Working and playing

Kew Gardens, July 2022

The Warwick Folk Festival has happened, and a whole lot more. I've got a bit of time today so I hope to get it all covered before everything starts up again.

I enjoyed my volunteering at the Festival in the Radio Comms Room again, where we issue and receive all the walky-talkies and assist with communications between all the teams: traffic, gates, litter-picking and toilets, security, music venues, transport, maintenance and more. There wasn't much to do most of the time; everyone seemed to know what they were doing and not much went wrong. 

We were short-staffed in the Radio Room this year as the deputy team leader had to withdraw through illness, and the team leader has health issues and really wants to step away. They are desperate enough to suggest I might take on the team leader job, and after I'd seen a description of the (volunteer) role I thought about it and decided to decline this opportunity. I'm happy to be an ordinary team member and don't want the extra responsibility or the time it would take up.

Radio Man was there, supplying all the comms gear, and was pleasant company throughout the event. All the other team members are extremely talkative and love to relate a long story about some event in their life, or indeed their whole life story, in detail and omitting nothing, as I wrote last year. Radio Man and I would occasionally suggest that they really could do with a nap, or a beer, or a chat with some friend, and we could manage perfectly well so why didn't they take a break and leave us to it? Despite this, all the volunteers are very friendly and generous, and I enjoyed my time with them even though I completely misjudged my shifts and missed most of the music. Various other local friends were also volunteering in other roles and it was nice to catch up with a couple of them.

After a day or two to catch my breath I was off to see mum and dad, who continue to soldier on with all the appointments with the various health professionals. While I was there we went to the dental surgery to pick up a form so that a home visit can be requested, we had a finance meeting via Zoom, and we were visited in person by a District Nurse and a more senior Occupational Therapist than before, who assessed the front step for a ramp and measured up the shower room to see what adaptations might be possible for better access. She is planning to bring some equipment that might help dad to move between bed and chair. Mum and I also made some major improvements to mum's filing systems, producing a sack of paper for recycling in the process. It was a longer visit than usual and very productive.

My birthday has been and gone, so I have now entered my 60th year of life, which is a little hard to believe. Anyway, UJ wanted to treat me to a night out - she recently attended a performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford and was so impressed that I think she just wanted to repeat the experience. I chose very differently. On Saturday we went for a very good guided walk in Birmingham, then to see the film 'Barbie', then off to Chinatown to eat and finally a comedy club. It was a really good day with only two disappointments - the weather (it was cold and rained constantly throughout), and my favourite Café Soya was closed for refurbishment (although a nearby substitute wasn't bad). UJ and I continue to discuss British accents and colloquialisms, most recently the use of the term of endearment 'cock' in Manchester, which is all very confusing for her.

What I've been reading

Flowers for Algernon
by Daniel Keyes

narrated by Adam Sims

"Charlie Gordon, a floor sweeper born with an unusually low IQ, has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that doctors hope will increase his intelligence - a procedure that has been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon."

An unexpected gem from the Classics list, which I enjoyed even though it was a 20th century novel (I don't usually get on with modern fiction). At the start and possibly at the end I think that the printed book would have conveyed something more than the audio book through the spelling, given that it was written as a series of diary entries by the experimental subject, but the narration helped.

Nice Work
by David Lodge

"When Vic Wilcox (MD of Pringle's engineering works) meets English lecturer Dr Robyn Penrose, sparks fly as their lifestyles and ideologies collide head on. What, after all, are they supposed to learn from each other? But in time both parties make some surprising discoveries about each other's worlds - and about themselves."

A traditional sort of novel, with a story that introduces real people that I could believe existed who didn't follow some fairy tale narrative. It had a beginning, middle and end and I didn't know at any point what would happen next. In fact the author suspected when I would start guessing, and anticipated this by starting a couple of the chapters with a paragraph telling me what would happen next before it happened, which took away all the 'will they, won't they' and allowed me to just enjoy how things went. Not thrilling, not exciting, rather ordinary, but I really liked it quite a lot.

The Bodhisattva Ideal: Wisdom and Compassion in Buddhism
by Sangharakshita

"The image of the Bodhisattva, one who wishes to gain Enlightenment for the sake of all beings, lies at the heart of much of Indian, Tibetan and Chinese Buddhism. Sustained by a deep understanding gained through meditation and reflection, the Bodhisattva is able to work tirelessly for the benefit of all."

This is what we've been studying in my group on Mondays, and as for so many of the course books it's based on talks, in this case delivered in 1969 and 1984. The fact that I got through it is testament to the distance that I've covered since starting this Buddhist lark, and the help I've received from others in the study group. Philosophy and the science of the mind do not fall comfortably within the scope of my particular intellectual talents. But I've come so far that parts of the book explained things I hadn't realised I was confused about, such as the timeline of Buddhist 'sects' from Theravada to Mahayana to Vajrayana and Tantra. That knowledge isn't going to change my world, but I often compare Buddhism to a huge jigsaw where I have assembled a few clusters, and this adds a few pieces around the edges.

Riders of the Purple Sage
by Zane Grey

narrated by B. J. Harrison

"The story of Lassiter, a gunslinging avenger in black, who shows up in a remote Utah town just in time to save the young and beautiful rancher Jane Withersteen from having to marry a Mormon elder against her will."

This was an unexpected gem, read particularly well by my regular audio book narrator probably because it's set in Utah, which I think is where he lives. He's less successful when reading books set in 18th century England or France, for example, but we will insist on giving names to our aristocrats and towns that aren't pronounced as they are spelled. The Mormons don't come out well from the book but everyone else is brave and honourable and generous and it has a happy ending, so that's good.

The Wide Sargasso Sea
by Jean Rhys

"Born into an oppressive colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent sensuality and beauty. After their marriage, disturbing rumours begin to circulate, poisoning her husband against her. Caught between his demands and her own precarious sense of belonging, Antoinette is driven towards madness."

I've been looking out for this book for ages because I was aware it was written as a prequel to our beloved Jane Eyre, which I haven't read for ages and don't seem to have on my bookshelves, so I may borrow a copy from the library to remind myself how good it is (or isn't). I think that I was expecting this one to be as good as JE, but of course it wasn't. It gave me a tiny bit of insight into emancipation in the West Indies, which I admit to knowing nothing about before reading the book.

The History of my Going for Refuge
by Snagharakshita

"Sangharakshita's autobiographical account of how his radical understanding that the monastic life-style and the spiritual life are not identical deepened through his encounters with Burmese monks, Tibetan lamas, and the new Buddhists of India."

An esoteric work that interests me because of my study of the founder of the Buddhist movement that I'm involved with. As ever, it's a (barely) edited transcript of a talk that he gave in 1988 on the 20th anniversary of the movement's existence, and fleshed out a few helpful aspects of his thinking for me.

The Driver's Seat
by Muriel Spark

"Lise is thin, neither good-looking nor bad-looking. One day she walks out of her office, acquires a gaudy new outfit, adopts a girlier tone of voice, and heads to the airport to fly south. So begins an unnerving journey into the darker recesses of human nature."

A short novel describing about 2 days of this woman's life, and unnerving doesn't start to describe it. The character has crossed over into insanity, and I can't imagine why the author chose to write the story or what she meant by it. I suppose stories don't have to have a reason, and maybe what she describes is true to life, but I have no experience of this kind of madness and I couldn't relate to anybody she described.

On Beauty
by Zadie Smith

"Howard Belsey, a Rembrandt scholar who doesn't like Rembrandt, is an Englishman abroad and a long-suffering professor at Wellington, a liberal New England arts college. He has been married for thirty years to Kiki, an American woman who no longer resembles the sexy activist she once was."

I wasn't expecting to, but I liked this book quite a lot. It made me understand just a little more about race and class, and what that can mean in America and England. I was reading it during my recent retreat when one of the participants told me how she felt as a mixed race person who had been the subject of a physical racial attack when she was 16, and shed some light on the difference it can make to have a brown face. I can't really experience what that's like, but I can be aware that it's there, all the time, in her life and in the lives of many others.

Light Years
by James Salter

narrated by Mark Boyett

"The story of Nedra and Viri, whose favored life is centered around dinners, ingenious games with their children, enviable friends, and near-perfect days passed skating on a frozen river or sunning on the beach. But fine cracks that are spreading through their marriage, flaws that will eventually mar the lovely picture beyond repair."

I kept expecting something dramatic to happen, something that would elevate this story to match its 'Classic' status, but nothing ever did. I learned about the two people, their children, their friends, their lovers, their divorce and subsequent marriange and death. But there was nothing to relate to and no arc to follow; they are described but I never cared about either of them or what might happen.