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.