On stage again

Somewhere in Devon, June 2023

The excitement of the unexpected gig lessened after a week, and it was time for the summer concert for my clarinet and saxophone groups. The clarinet numbers were very depleted this term for some reason, and the performance was decidedly ropey but we got through it; the saxophones were somewhat better although I was partly liable for the poor performance of the difficult piece that I should have practised. 

But my performance at the unexpected gig had clearly been noted because the soul band were lacking a sax player again, and this time for the best gig of the year - the Kenilworth Lions Club's open air event in Abbey Fields. The soul band has been the closing act for the last two years, and there I was on stage again. I enjoyed it more this time, given that I was not quite sight reading and could pay a bit more attention to what everyone else was doing. And there were three people in the audience that I knew, and it went onto Facebook and more people commented.

A little less fun is the fight that I am having with Thames Water on behalf of mum and dad, who experienced a major water leak in the autumn last year. I have reached the end of the line with the normal helpdesk people and it's time to escalate up a level; I have the feeling that it may take some time to reach a satisfactory resolution.

Then I was back at Adhisthana, the retreat centre, for a five-day stint this time because they asked for an extra two days help in the kitchen. Another new cook to work with, a delightful young man who probably had the least tolerant attitude of anyone I've worked with so far to the aversions and allergies and intolerances and craziness of the people on restricted diets. On this retreat one or two people must have thought that we were professionals paid to cater to their whims rather than volunteers struggling to avoid serious illness in the retreatants.

I'm getting more used to living in the women's community, and joined them informally more than usual - I often have 'business' to do in the evenings catching up with emails and other things going on at home so don't tend to sit chatting in the lounge. It was also useful this week to be able to talk at greater length to a couple of the more experienced women about the path towards Buddhist ordination and also about the experience of living communally with all sorts of different women over the years. I'm very attracted to the simplicity of having few possessions and not being responsible for running a house, but the randomness of the other people I'd have to live with is probably more than I could take.

I'm third from the left!