What I've been reading

Fever Pitch (Double A-side)
by Nick Hornby

"For many people watching football is mere entertainment, to some it's more like a ritual; but to others, its highs and lows provide a narrative to life itself. For Nick Hornby, his devotion to the game has provided one of few constants in a life where the meaningful things - like growing up, leaving home, and forming relationships, both parental and romantic - have rarely been as simple or as uncomplicated as his love for Arsenal."

Given that I have no interest whatever in football, he's a good enough writer to make this an interesting book. And that's all I can think of to say about it.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold
by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

translated by Geoffrey Trousselot

"In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time."

Lent to me by Lola II, I thought the premise was a good one but it wasn't a comfortable reading experience, probably because of the translation. There were complicated relationships (a list of characters at the start was a warning sign) not helped by the translator choosing to have women who were not related call each other 'Sis'. So I didn't really enjoy the book.

The House of Mirth
by Edith Wharton

narrated by Eleanor Bron

"Lily Bart is a well-born but impoverished woman belonging to New York City’s high society around the turn of the last century. Though raised and educated to marry well both socially and economically, she is reaching her 29th year, an age when her youthful blush is drawing to a close and her marital prospects are becoming ever more limited."

So well written and well narrated that a story more than a century old felt almost contemporary. But not quite - those in society without their own money were forced to seek a favourable marriage, and the heroine of this story simply failed to do so, nor did she adapt to her unfunded situation - she was brought up with particular values and wasn't willing or able to accept anything less. A tragic but beautiful book.

Another busy week

Adhisthana, April 2024

I only managed two days at the retreat centre last week, because on Thursday I joined Lola II and Mr M for Mr MXF's 60th birthday dinner in London. Obviously all my peers are reaching this milestone within the same 12 months, but this is the only event I've signed up for. I'm not all that comfortable with parties, people I don't know well, small talk, and waiting ages before you can start eating because somebody is running late. But Mr MXF is a good egg and I'm glad I went.

A full day competitive cycle ride is due to take place where mum and dad live this week, which is all very exciting but the local roads will be closed and it isn't at all clear how the carers will get to them that day. That was the first job I had to tackle at my last visit to the parents, along with contacting a financial firm, the water company, the electricity and gas supplier, and the next-door neighbour. I also met one of the newest carers while mum went to the hairdresser on her mobility scooter for the first time since hurting her back many months ago.

My volunteering at the retreat centre last week was enlivened by the unexpected appearance of some visitors who turned out to be the original architect of one of the buildings with his wife and a friend. The building won a RIBA award in 1989, long before it was turned into a retreat centre, and he talked about the design and construction in a way that showed he cared a great deal about the project. I was very happy because having to write the monthly blog is quite tricky and this gave me some good material.

All the other parts of the job are stalled, because I received some feedback that the senior team wanted to see things before they are sent out. Not knowing exactly what they wanted to see, I've outlined to them what is lined up but I want some sort of signal that I'm clear to go ahead. Response times from these same senior people can be rather long. And this situation isn't helped by two email messages that I received, one of which came from the email address I'm supposed to be using. I worked out who the sender was for this one, but the other came from the woman who is away. This second message must have been created before she went and scheduled to go out automatically, but I wasn't expecting it and have no idea what else is in store.

I am starting to find the balance in my position between the retreatants who come for a weekend or a week and the community who live there full time. It's a little awkward to be part of neither, but last week I was invited to watch a film with two of the women who live there, so I've started to feel more relaxed.

Marketing and meetings

Manjusri, Adhisthana, April 2024

Another role I have in the volunteer job is to send out marketing emails using a system called Email Octopus, which is an evocative name but brings to mind anything but mailing lists. The messages contain images and videos and carefully designed logos and layout, and a number of them are pre-prepared and scheduled to go out automatically. 

I have had to create a new marketing email within this system, and to do that I've obviously copied an existing message and edited the content. It's one of those platforms that perhaps isn't all that robust, and a stray keystroke can destroy the appearance of the whole thing. Then there's the public nature of sending messages out to large mailing lists and the potential for sending to the wrong people, or to the whole world. Just knowing this makes me especially cautious, although making a mistake isn't a disaster. I'm only a volunteer after all.

I had a series of different sorts of meeting waiting for me at home in between stints of volunteering. First there was a Buddhist team meeting, then one about the upcoming Warwick Folk Festival, a couple of walks with friends, coffee with someone else to plan a possible film festival event within the franchise established by Lola II and Mr M, my board games group which this time ended up being just two of us, and the usual badminton. And I cleaned the car, inside and out, which is a tough job but makes me happy afterwards when I drive.

The Folk Festival meeting was quite interesting, in that the Communications team leader and deputy team leader are both retiring. Another volunteer and I would be happy to carry on volunteering for the Comms team, but neither of us wants to take on the team leader role. It looks as though someone else has been found, and what's more he looks younger than me (most of the people in the meeting looked significantly older) which is a Very Good Thing. They are a nice bunch of people on the whole.

A different blog

Adhisthana, April 2024

One of the main things I'm doing in my volunteering job is blogging, for which I do feel well qualified. It's a relatively new development for the retreat centre, having started a monthly blog just this year. So I can start my week by wandering around the site taking pictures of the spring flowers on a morning when the sunshine makes everything look its best. Or when the mist adds atmosphere to the burial mound.

The text content of the blog is more challenging, given that I'm not there all the time and not integrated into the community well enough to know what exactly is going on that's blogworthy. But there are people to ask, and my first attempt seems good enough. After it was published on the website I posted links on Facebook and another online site, which is quite complicated and has the potential for mishap, but again I think I managed it without incident (57 'likes' and counting).

This month behind the scenes there's been a lot of new technology, updating cabling from the 1980's that links all the buildings and should make it possible to maintain and manage the heating system in a 21st century way. And there's a big project to install rooftop solar panels - when I arrived this week the scaffolding was going up.

I discovered I had a flat tyre just at the point when I'd offered to give someone a lift from the retreat centre to the station at the end of the week. Luckily someone else was on hand to provide them with a lift, they caught their train, and it wasn't too late for me to get to a garage after I'd changed to the spare tyre.

Back home, my music group went ahead on Saturday and despite knowing how tricky the sax pieces are I still didn't bother to practise. But it will be fine. I did two sessions in the garden, weeding the paving and cutting back shrubs in the fine weather, but there's more to be done there. On Bank Holiday Monday I drove to see friends in Nottingham for the day, and on Tuesday I had another appointment at the orthodontist and a blood donation, which was unexpectedly dramatic when my donation continued at the squash-and-biscuits table. I was fine but my trousers and fleece were liberally spattered and I think some blood ended up on the biscuits too. It was spectacular, but it's the first time this has happened in more than 50 donations so probably unlikely to recur.

Second and third weeks in the office

Adhisthana, March 2024

There's a completely different atmosphere in the Adhisthana office compared with the office work I used to do long ago. For a start, I have colleagues who care about my welfare and happiness more than they care about getting the job done. I'm also aware that I'm a stand-in doing a job that I'm not altogether suited to, so it won't always be done well. But that's OK, whatever I do will probably be better than nothing being done at all. Unless I completely destroy their website. When I half-jokingly mentioned this to one of the IT guys, he said they'd seriously considered the possibility, but don't worry because there's a backup.

One of my first tasks was to start contacting people using an email distribution package that was new to me. Most (but not all) of the fairly complicated emails that need sending are ready and waiting, with only slight tweaks and checking to do - inserting links to a video, for example. With hindsight I think I was more nervous about this than I needed to be, but clicking the button to send emails automatically to 145 people felt quite significant. The next one I sent this way had over a thousand recipients...

Another similar job is to use mail merge to contact people who might be interested in attending particular retreats. I haven't used mail merge for decades, so I was deliberately slow and careful while I was working out how to do it with a version of Microsoft Office that is probably four or five upgrades on from when I last tried. Identifying people, extracting their details, constructing the mail merge, excluding various categories (e.g. those who had not ticket the box saying they were happy to be contacted in this way) and clicking 'Send' took about two days.

Back at home I was asked to look after a trainee guide dog, and for the first time in nearly a year I was able to say yes - I'd kept the weekend deliberately clear and even cancelled a trip because of trying to keep my commitments within an achievable range. This particular dog needed supervising whenever she did a poo, and my instructions were not to take her out until she had performed, so I spent most of Saturday periodically letting her out into the garden (it was freezing) and watching her resolutely fail to oblige. When it started to get dark I decided to take a chance because I needed to post my vote, and got away with it. Next day I had the offer of a walk with a friend, so took a chance again and got away with it once more - it was either that or stay indoors all day. At least it was a little warmer. Apart from the poo thing she was good company.

After I took her back to the Guide Dog Centre on Monday I headed down to London to take part in another demonstration outside Parliament along with Lola II. Assisted Dying made it into the news again thanks to Esther Rantzen going on TV to tell her story of having terminal lung cancer and joining Dignitas, which prompted another online petition calling for a parliamentary debate (but no vote). The petition had gathered enough signatures to make that happen, and significantly more signatures than the last time two years ago. Speakers who addressed the small crowd included Jonathan Dimbleby, some MPs including Caroline Lucas (who's about to stand down from her role as head of the Green Party), human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell and Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain. There was a counter-demonstration which was considerably smaller than ours, and a separate crowd from Humanists UK.

The next day was a celebration of Dad's 91st birthday, when Lola II and Sister D and I all descended on the family seat and had lunch and cake, and in my case, a haircut from the Random Cuts salon. And then I had the journey from hell back home because the M40 had a blockage and I unwisely decided to follow Google's directions around it along with all the other cars following similar directions through tiny villages and I definitely should have just stayed on the motorway because it couldn't possibly have held me up the extra hour and half that it took on my misguided route.