Needing a break

June 2023

Since finishing my badminton volunteering I haven't been feeling like my usual enthusiastic motivated self. Not eating or sleeping well and just a bit reluctant to get started on three different bits tasks relating to the Buddhist group. It's a shame when Buddhism, which has become so important to me, feels like work.

UJ has gone back home to Kyiv for Easter and the house feels strangely quiet and empty without her. I agreed to play two badminton matches in one week which made me tired and I've been doing a lot of driving too - to mum and dad and to Adhisthana, the retreat centre where I previously volunteering in the kitchen but have offered to do some different work for three days a week for ten weeks. More details of this when it happens, but I needed to spend some time there learning about the role. I wake up at the usual time, so there is a cumulative weariness. 

Mr MXF won an award for something he did, and will be at a big exhibition in May. Despite having done some work around the product and the concept, I still have very little idea of exactly what it is, except that it involves metadata in broadcast media. I even managed to do some proofreading for him, which proves that you can proofread without really knowing what any of the words mean, and we had a quick chat about the exhibition and what role I might have there. Again, more will emerge about this if and when it happens.

I managed to schedule a day with nothing in it at all and quite a few walks and coffees and lunch with friends, so that helped a bit, and I'm about to check out for two weeks on a retreat. I look forward to more rest, more time for reading, walks, good food, and much less chocolate and Wotsits.

What I've been reading

What Just Happened?
by Marina Hyde

"Marvel at the sights, from Trumpian WTF-ery to celebrity twattery. And boggle at the cast of characters: Hollywood sex offenders, populists, sporting heroes (and villains), dastardly dukes, media barons, movie stars, reality TV monsters, billionaires, police officers, various princes and princesses, wicked advisers, philanthropists, fauxlanthropists, telly chefs, and (naturally) Gwyneth Paltrow."

Another library book, this time from an author whose politics sketch column I enjoy in the Guardian newspaper. But it's a whole other thing to put all those columns together in book form, and there were a few times when I really thought I couldn't bear to read any more about political corruption and incompetence, even while she was satirising it all. The answer was to read very short amounts at a time, because the writing is good and worth reading, and in the end I did finish it.

Moonfleet
by J. Meade Falkner

"A thrilling Victorian adventure story of smuggling, cursed treasure, code-cracking, injustice, revenge, and friendship. Beginning as a mystery and an adventure story, this tale of smuggling is set among the cliffs, caves, and downs of Dorset."

Borrowed from Lola II when I ran out of reading material at the end of the skiing holiday - I remember the book on the shelf when I was growing up and somehow I don't think I ever read it. It was published in 1898 but set in 1757, which is interesting in itself, comparable to writing a story today set in 1883. Easy to read and follow, it kept me interested from start to finish and that's not been all that common with my book choices recently.

Clouds of Witness
by Dorothy L. Sayers

narrated by B. J. Harrison

"The Duke of Denver, accused of murder, stands trial for his life in the House of Lords. Naturally, his brother Lord Peter Wimsey is investigating the crime - this is a family affair. The murder took place at the duke's shooting lodge and Lord Peter's sister was engaged to marry the dead man. But why does the duke refuse to co-operate with the investigation?"

Apparently this was her second book featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and I was surprised not to have read it before - I thought I'd read all of them. There are a whole array of stereotypical characters: apart from the posh set there was a bounder, an aggressive farmer and his abused wife. It was OK, not one of her best in my opinion.

The Event Control Room

Event Control Room, March 2024

When Badminton England accepted me as a volunteer at the Yonex All-England Open badminton tournament in the Event Control Room, very little further information was given about what the role would entail. I think the application process made it sound a bit like my role in the Radio Room at the Warwick Folk Festival, and that's pretty much what it turned out to be.

The event was on about the same scale as the Folk Festival but lasted a week instead of just a weekend. There were similar volunteer teams overseeing liaison, comms, transport, stewarding and management, but with elite athletes from around the world and their managers looked after by the Field of Play and Team Liaison team rather than musicians and their instruments looked after by Artist Reception and Venue Management. The event is celebrating its 125th year and more than thirty years with the same sponsor in the same venue, and at the induction meeting on Monday evening it transpired that there are people who have been volunteering at this event for fifty years. Fifty years! It's a good sign that they want to keep coming back.

It turned out to be a delightful experience. As expected, the Event Control Room (ECR) was deep in the bowels of what used to be the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham, subsequently known as the Birmingham O2, Barclaycard Arena and now the Utilita Arena. The arena usually hosts large concerts, and in fact I went to see a band playing there a few years ago. 

At the induction meeting before the tournament started I met the team leader, who gave me a backstage tour of all the key areas it would be useful to know about. I have a terrible sense of direction but a very good memory, so I ended up knowing about all sorts of interesting locations but not having a clue how to get to them. It was quite a triumph to actually locate the ECR when I came back the next day for my first shift.

There were just four of us on the ECR roster to cover the whole thing, and then one dropped out. I was a little concerned that this didn't seem to be very many for such a big event, but in fact it would be possible to run with just two people if we had to. Our job entails listening in to all the radio traffic and acting on some of it, mainly in passing messages between the event team managing the badminton and the venue team managing the arena. We check whether everyone is ready for the doors to be opened, and field queries from any team, from finding where a delivery of flowers needs to go to checking how many rows of seats need to be reserved for the royal visit. For there was a royal visit - the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh (Edward and Sophie, for those like me who are somewhat behind with all the current titles). Apparently they are 'badminton people', according to the Badminton England team, and they stayed for a good chunk of the day.

Most of the time it is quiet in the ECR, and the IT guys set up a couple of screens so we could watch the on-court play and the practice areas downstairs - there are seven practice courts in the basement as well as lots of facilities for the players (gym, lounge, physio areas etc.), and two courts for final warm up on the same level as the show courts. 

When it is not quiet in the ECR it can be a little frenetic, especially when more than one call comes in at a time or when someone with sub-optimal radio skills and a particularly difficult accent is trying to pass on a message or ask a question. It became very tense on Saturday when there was a morning and an afternoon session scheduled, separately ticketed, and the arena was supposed to be emptied in between. The games in the first session ran on so long that by the time everyone was supposed to be outside there was still one more game to be played. What made it particularly stressful is that broadcast schedules are notoriously inflexible, and it was looking as though the last game would still be on court when the first game of the afternoon session was due to start. People for the afternoon session had started to arrive with the expectation that doors would be open, but because the morning session hadn't yet finished they were kept waiting outside. It was all right in the end, but it was probably the most difficult situation that arose all week.

It's really interesting to see how this type of event runs, and we tend to get all sorts of visitors - the CEO and directors of Badminton England and the tournament itself, the head Referee, the Logistics team, the Stewards, the Volunteer Manager, all of whom come with interesting stories to tell. We had some lengthy discussions about how the Prayer area (created for those celebrating Ramadan) could be kept as quiet as possible in a very noisy venue. One of the most interesting visitors to the ECR was one of the Referees, who described some particularly difficult incidents to do with umpiring, interspersed with some of his personal views on the players. 

Our team leader was also the Health and Safety contractor, and he knew the event well and could probably have done the ECR job alone if everything had gone very wrong. Of the other two volunteers, one had been around badminton for many years, as an umpire and line judge when he travelled internationally, and then in many volunteer roles at this event and others. Some of his anecdotes were well worth listening to. The other volunteer was a medical student who has had to have a break from her studies, and previously was a promising player in the English national juniors before a knee injury took her out of competition. She knew quite a few of the current squad and also had juicy stories to tell.

But all the visitors to the ECR have been universally lovely, whether employed by Badminton England or a contractor or a volunteer. I had learned enough about the job by day 4 to be left on my own at a quiet time while the team leader was at a meeting; luckily I had nothing to deal with beyond a hotel key card being found in one of the practice areas. I was also treated very kindly by the head of Hospitality (quite a senior personage) when it turned out that the pair of free tickets I had been given in return for my volunteering were in a position where the view of play was completely obscured. For my own part I could have found somewhere else, but I had two different friends from my two badminton clubs using the tickets and I thought they deserved a better experience - the head of Hospitality agreed and went to some lengths to find better seats for me.

It was a very time-consuming job, and lots of my jobs at home were neglected for a week, but I enjoyed it immensely and would definitely do it again next year (if they'll have me).

More volunteering

Adhisthana, March 2024

I know you are due a blog, but I've been busy. I have experienced several sorts of busy since leaving formal employment, and I think I have mostly found the right balance. With too much to do I become tetchy and uncooperative, and with too little to do I become lethargic and antisocial. At the moment, I have about the right amount of busy-ness, but also I have temporarily found the right mental attitude to try and avoid the tetchiness and lethargy. I hope it lasts.

I did some more volunteering at Adhisthana, the retreat centre, where I happened to catch some snow - the only snow of my winter this year. I do like snow. Anyway, they wanted help in the kitchen for a large event over a weekend, and part of my my role is to focus on the restricted diets. Most people are allergic to or intolerant of just one thing - gluten or wheat, soy or nuts - but a few have a whole list. This weekend had been planned without any gluten or wheat, and the main things I had to think about were alliums and tomatoes, but two people had a whole string of intolerances to so many ordinary foods, like cauliflower, mushroom and courgette. They got a lot of carrot, sweet potato and squash and probably went home tinged with orange. And somehow I managed to get something wrong every time and had to scrape something off a plate and apologise, or ask someone to pick out the seeds please.

Despite this, the team there are very welcoming and have taken me up on my offer of volunteering for three days a week during April, May and June while someone in the office is away getting ordained. I stayed on to shadow her for a day and learn a bit about what she does for publicity and marketing. It's not as comfortable as kitchen work but I'll do my best, and what's the worst that could happen? At least it's not anaphylaxis.

Because my study group has moved to Wednesdays online, I've been able to go back to Monday badminton, and the folks there are lovely despite me generally being the only female. Because of the Adhisthana volunteering I'll be taking a break from the Thursday badminton, so it's nice to have Mondays back.

We had a Lola day when Lola II invited me and Sister D to a secret event, which is still secret because once we'd settled on a date we could all meet there weren't any tickets left for whatever it was. So we met in Clapham and watched a film instead, about the gardens owned by impressionist painters, like Monet's lily pond. It was nice but a bit long, and I think all three of us had a small nap at some point. Lunch was at a Georgian restaurant (Asian not American Georgia) where the cheese-stuffed bread was a huge hit.

With mum and dad all is as well as can be. The work extending and renovating the downstairs bathroom is finished and it all looks good; mum has got me to list various items on Freecycle and I'm happy to oblige as long as it's only one at a time. We've also met the manager of a new care agency, so we're hoping they'll be able to replace the lunchtime carer who has moved away.

After my regular U3A Friday walk I drove on up for a weekend in Nottingham with friends, where we walked the dog and set the world to rights and had a generally laid back and relaxing time. This week is set to be much more exciting, because my next volunteering opportunity is taking place - I'll be at the Yonex international badminton tournament in Birmingham. I have no idea yet what my role in the Event Control Room entails, but I shall find out soon enough, and hope that it isn't too stressful.